Orange peel on new car
 

Had a few minuts so checked out a car at the dealer, my goodness could I ever see the orange peel, I was just wondering if orange peels is more prevalent on fiberglass?

One looked at was new 2018 salesman said he did not know much about new gm paint shop..either did I before read this forum.
There were other high end cars with great paint also.

Do you know the build date(month)? Hopefully it was not painted in the new facility.

no salesman did not seem to know, passed on it, though was a fairly good price..frankly surprised the orange peel was so obvious on such an expensive car.

OP has been a fairly common issue with Corvettes. New paint facility is supposed to reduce it. Others can chime in if they bought a car painted in the new facility.

We already know from reports of others that the new paint shop is better than the old one. The old one could put out decent finishes but it wasn't consistent.

I believe that ojm is in the Vancouver area of western Canada. There is very little chance that a car from the new shop reached here before the GM Canada shut off date for no winter deliveries.

Some in Toronto like Patman received their car from the new shop before the cut off. It takes about 3 weeks extra by train to reach here.

So,,ojm,,,why not phone the salesman and ask for the last 5 digits of the serial number, post it here and we will know for sure.

OK will see about sn, thanks

It has been discussed here that the new ones still have some to none.I think to get zero OP it would be a roll of the dice to have none.
Something to think about.These overhauling shows.Overhaul,Kandig Design etc. They spend hours and hours prepping their bodies for paint.
Then after painting what are they doing? They are sanding the clear to remove OP.You have a assembly line paint job.
If you want no OP? You'll be wet sanding and or paying to get that perfect paint job.

I’ve seen a bunch of pics from new owners whose cars were painted in the new paint shop. They looked amazing damm near a mirror finish.

In fact, I would NOT buy a C7 now if it was not painted in the new shop even if they gave a big discount.

Op and Corvettes go together like peanut butter and jelly no big deal to me.:shrug:

Well sure, but will hold out for a good paint,,I can live with a little OP but spending near 100k cash it better look good.

My 98 car had a better paint look then the c7 viewed, but there were good painted in showroom but more like 120 k bit too much for a car.

I've said it over and over and over again here, but here's another in a chain of endless threads on OP, so I have to say it again. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A MASS-PRODUCED CAR WITHOUT ORANGE PEEL.

The ONLY way to get an OP-less paint job is to first hand sand the unpainted panels and make them glassy smooth. Then you must shoot primer, and wet-sand that. Then base-coat, followed by wet-sand and polish. And, finally clear or tint-coat followed by wet-sanding again and polish.

It is a human-intensive process that takes 40+ hours, starting at about $30K for paint alone. Robots can't do it because it takes human eyeballs. If you expect that on a car the price of a C7, you are delusional.

Having said that, my new C7 painted in the new paint shop is MUCH better than my 14 painted in the old paint shop. It's probably 60-80% better. However, it still has OP, just not nearly as noticeable (less texture).

The new paint shop is now producing finishes comparable in quality to the better German and Japanese marques. However, SMC panels will always be more difficult to produce a great finish on than metal-bodied cars. I don't care, because I'd rather have a lighter weight car.

I have never seen a mass-produced car, no BMW, no MB, no Porsche, no Lexus, no Infiniti, no anything under $400K+ cars and very pricey show cars w/o OP.

Point taken.....since 2019 is around the corner, may as well wait for better paint common sense. BTW have had mass produced cars at half the C7 price with smooth mirror finish. Will keep eye open on 2018 also.

No you did not have cars at half the price with a mirror finish. You just didn't look closely enough under bright lights or just don't have a very critical eye. If you thought those cars were mirror finish, then you should think both the 18s and 19s coming out of the new plant are also mirror finish. As I said they are much improved, and comparable to the cars you thought were mirror finish.

And 19s are not around the corner, they've been in production since Jan 29, and are now being delivered. All C7s since November were painted in the new paint plant, and the 18s produced since then and up until Jan 26 are identical to the 19s being produced now.

There's another factor I mentioned above. There is some natural waviness in SMC panels that you don't see in metal panels. That's not OP. However, I'm willing to except that to gain a lighter car, and weight (specifically lack thereof) is every bit as important as power.

In Canada they are not here in my city...read between the lines .
Sure there is OP on all cars but not as bad on some cars.

Your own post mentions improvements. Compared to the C7 viewed today my 98 has a mirror finish just a figure of speech.

Orange peel is pretty much something that comes with every car made unless you want to pay quite a few more thousand dollars to have the finish sanded down before shipping the car out of the factory. It is what you get with base coat/clear coat and water soluble paint. Lacquer is long gone due to environmental regulations.

Bill

Yes, have not bought a new car for awhile, thanks.

Excellent explanation of the situation :thumbs: I would save the whole reply in your favorites box,cause i bet it will be used again.:D
Copy,click,Paste,click...How was your ride,TOPLESS ? Opps,Off Topic

What's the big deal? If the orange peel bugs you that much, just take it to a good detail shop and have the paint corrected and ceramic coated. For a mere $1200.00, you can have near perfect paint. For the discount new Corvettes are selling at these days, the additional $1200.00 will not bring the total cost paid for the car anywhere near the sticker price.

I think some guys have very unrealistic expectations for the finish on these cars, even with the new paint shop... :beatdeadhorse:

I was at the Rolex 24 recently and took a look at the $500K Ford GT street version. It had OP to the same degree as my 2018 November Stingray