[brimcp99]

Ive just been thinking about this lately after my attempts to get the best possible finish straight from the gun.

If OEM car painting systems can control temp, paint viscosity, spray patterns, overlap, time per pass and distance with a computer program and assuming they use the best available nozzles etc, why cant they get minimal to no orange peel?

I know a lot of people will say its cost related to material use, but ive seen it on a brand new Lexus. When they fit these cars with electric *** warmers and all manner of unnecessary gadgets and high spec parts, were cost is not such an issue as quality, why do they not also do there best to get a glass finish? Surely if they put this feature in their sales catalogue showing a glass smooth finish against a competitors orange peel finish this would be a big selling point.

It doesn’t make sense to me, thoughts?

[timothale]

Back in the day when I worked for Ford the body was zoned . from your knees down it only had to be a class 2 metal finish. On cheaper cars they wanted a little orange peel to hide the minor metal defects. the new cars and trucks now have a lot better finish. The cars that went on display at the airports had an open door and the seams were leaded smooth, the entire car was class 1 metal finish, no orange peel. a lot of times they were painted with extra coats and buffed out.

[painted jester]

Quality costs money, back in the 60s & even in the 70s cars had high quality control and even bump shops turned out quality paint jobs!! we had guys where paid just to wet sand you dont see that any more . the faster in and out the more money you can make.And people dont remember what a good paint job looks like or are too young to know!!! I do restoration and if my customers cars looked like the new vehicles Ide get sued. 40 or 50 years ago you would get fired!!!

[Hotbo]

i dont know why either?

i bought a brand new crew cab chevy truck in August of 2010 and its dark charcoal and i hate looking at the clear on it

thinking about when it slows down,sanding and laying some SPI UV clear.

[painted jester]

I worked for ford in the 60s and dont remember any cars purposly shot from the knees down badly. I remember when chip guard came out on rockers and bottom of fenders !but that was becouse fender styling changed and tires could throw debri on the paint!!

[painted jester]

your crew cab may have enough clear on it! before you sand and paint try to wet sand an area and rub and Polish Did a 2010 dodge last summer came out really Nice just becouse the finnish is bad doesn't mean bad paint

[brimcp99]

I can understand why repair shops put out cars with orange peel.

I’m talking about computer controlled robotics were every single factor is taken into account, down to milli seconds per pass type adjustment. Surely this situation should be able to result in the best finish possible especially in high-end cars.

[timothale]

If the knees down was class one, good, smile and send it on down the line It not purposely done, that was the accept reject standard.

[painted jester]

Ok ,I understand on the line > I worked where they had to be taken care of later!! they dont recalibrate computers or machines untill a vehicle is just on the edge of failing quality controle standards there are some of the vehicles that get the A1 paint job but every one after that has a little less quality! you dont see them (A1s) their picked up real quick

[brimcp99]

Well I guess it just depends on how high or low the factory sets the standard for quality. I realise back when they used lacquer it was much harder to get the desired finish straight from the gun.

If I can spray without peel 6/10 with a cheap gun, an overworked compressor and all-important human error, I would have thought an army of engineers programming machines with precise controls and no human error could get it 99% of the time.

The only conceivable cost increase may be that they use a little more paint, however like I was saying before on top end cars were they every feature under the sun I thought a good paint job would be included.

[timothale]

Upper management got a bonus for cost performance. I need to restore the 67 galaxy My step daughter drove to high school. The paint spec called for primer and one coat of color on the roof of Vinyl top cars. It just got a flash coat of primer I have a lot of rust to deal with.

[BarryK]

The reason the new factory jobs have orange peel is from contraction and unless they wet sanded and buffed each job, I know of no way they can eliminate it.

When the robots paint these cars they are Appling all the coats at once and then depending on the plant they are baking from 400-500 degrees up to 60 minutes.
When the robots are done the paint always look slick from what I have seen and on the baking cycle the solvent are cooked out and the paint contracts slightly.

Lexis on their higher end cars up to a year ago, not sure since, was the only company I knew that would wet sand the clear and send the car through for reclearing, so they ended up with a better finish.

I do remember through out the late 60’s and through the 70’s almost every year, like clock work, GM has a 80-85% bad rating from the customers for the quality of the paint job.
Ford at that time came in anywhere from 40-60% dissatisfied customers, so the old days were not much better.

In the late 90’s, ford got a contract to send an EX amount of Taurus’s to Japan and they spent Millions of dollars to build a separate building and well over a million more in special lights to inspect every paint job on the cars that were scheduled to go to Japan.
A LOT of these cars were wet sanded and hand cleared, some were spot sanded and buffed, saw many times, where two guys would spend a full day buffing one car.

Bottom line, flash time and buff time, cost money.

[jcclark]

My best friend paints trucks at Ford, the robots don't get everything.
He and several others have to hand spray a lot of areas the robots miss.
He does up to 500 trucks a shift.
They don't have or take the time to do their best work.
Nowadays it's all about volume, not quality.

[deadbodyman]

Those robots are expensive ,why dont they just get a bunch of painters from China and give them a bowl of rice everyday like all the other big companies ??

[BarryK]

Mike, do you really want a 7 year old gril painting your new F250?