Which manufacture has the worst orange peel from factory??

Man, I wish I lived near Houston. You obviously have a lot of knowledge and have developed a technique about ridding orange peel from paint finishes demonstrated from the pic that showed a paint finish that looks exactly like a mirror. I have a 08 Civic that has orange peel on the top section of the back doors. Since I don't have a lot of experience, I'm reluctant to get too aggressive, cause I don't want to do more harm than good. Thin paint, soft paint, when you add up the pros and cons (and expense of a paint job if you eff it up) it makes you "settle for" imperfections you're not happy with.
 
Hyundai made in the U.S. seem to have nice paint. At one time GM cars were buffed at the factory, now no auto manufacture will pay the labor cost to buff out cars anymore, plus add enough clear coat so it can be buffed.
 
some of the GM's have been real bad as of late. but the worst i have seen is Mercedes

GM is because the government owns them and we all know how they like to skimp on things... lol...

I have seen some BAD MBZ lately too... REAL BAD!

my jeep has very noticeable orange peel as well. all the grand cherokees have it:(

i havent noticed too much orange peel on bmw's though

Our 93 GC has some bad peel too but I really don't care as that is just a beater for my wife if she needs a "truck"

BMW does seem to have quite a bit less peel than most others I have been noticing...

My 08 350Z has it pretty good if you catch it in the right light (silver makes it hard to see). I'd say the worst I had was my chili pepper red 2003 Saturn Ion. Maybe it was just the color, but it was pretty bad.

My wife's Saturn looks like a blue orange! The CC readings on that are ultra low too or I would do something about it... I guess I just keep it shinny!

There is no car on earth from factory with no orange peel unless its a bentley or rolls royce.

Bentley used to be very good about their finish quality before sale... they also used to have a good amount of CC on them! RR was amazing up until about 5 years ago... Then something changed too... Their great cars and generally have a ton of CC but still $150k+ and the finish isn't glass? come on...

Bentley's (VW) and Rolls Royce (BMW) from other forums that I browse comes with Orange Peel:p
:iagree:
 
What color is yours? My Snow White has zero orange peel.
:( Mine is Graphite -- really dark metallic. Guess I should have done a better job shopping around. Did you get the SX? Maybe they throw a few more coats on for the extra $$.
 
GM is because the government owns them and we all know how they like to skimp on things... lol...

You and I don't own GM any longer. But, we can all take some credit for the turnaround that they are making in part. Personally, I don't think they are very serious about staying on top, however. Otherwise they would be investing more in projects like the volt and pull ahead of Toyota (who is going to stomp them with their next generation of plug-ins).
 
Man, I wish I lived near Houston. You obviously have a lot of knowledge and have developed a technique about ridding orange peel from paint finishes demonstrated from the pic that showed a paint finish that looks exactly like a mirror. I have a 08 Civic that has orange peel on the top section of the back doors. Since I don't have a lot of experience, I'm reluctant to get too aggressive, cause I don't want to do more harm than good. Thin paint, soft paint, when you add up the pros and cons (and expense of a paint job if you eff it up) it makes you "settle for" imperfections you're not happy with.

Thanks for the compliment. The times i have done this has been with the cars ive painted or the cars others have painted. Since i dont have a paint reader yet, i was confident of doing it since i knew the car had 4 heavy coats of clear. So i knew i had enough room to play with. Ive never wetsanded a factory paint job since i know that the paint is really thin and cutting through is a high risk. Now if i would have a paint reader and the readings showed good or safe on a facfory paint, then yes i would be confident to wet sand it. I love wetsanding, i find it really fun. But what i love the most is the results after having wetsanded all the orange peel off!
 
Its just a simple trick that i came up with that has helped me alot. Its pretty simple. Orange peel distorts the reflections right? So what i do with the ruler is just hold it and look at the reflection of the ruler and walk across staring at the reflection of the ruler. Doing this the orange peel distorts the perfect line making it look like a wavy line. So looking at the line and how distorted it looks i determine where i have to start wetsanding with. Ive even started with 800g sometimes. If the line dosent look all that distorted i start with 1500g. Once ALL the orange peel is gone and you buff, put the ruler and it will look 100% straight. Thats how i do it and it has helped me. I hate orange peel and i always get rid of it. Everything just looks so much more beautiful without orange peel! :) hope this helps Flash.

Neat, and thanks for that tip Oscar. I will have to try this method sometime :dblthumb2:
 
I'd have to say that the worst I've seen is on Hondas. That's just my experience though. I know my gf's chevy equinox has a good amount of orange peel too.

As many have said it seems to be a standard now with all cars. Other than the high end models which I haven't noticed nearly as much.
 
I spent 8 hours walking at least a half dozen miles at the chicago auto show this year studying the paint quality of every manufacturer present. I wish I would have had a paint gauge with me. The auto show is definitely not a random sampling so I really probably shouldn't take much away from the experience in terms of paint data... However, lexus had consistently very little orange peel compared to what I would consider average. Honda was notably bad and interestingly even the high end acuras were not any better. BMW was about as bad, much worse than my 96 in the garage. Some GM cars were nearly as smooth as the lexus(s), others certainly not. Hyundai and Kia were about average (close to toyota, better than honda). Ford and Chryslers were quite dimply (slightly worse than average). The porsches were very nice, but they looked a little too good for factory.
 
:( Mine is Graphite -- really dark metallic. Guess I should have done a better job shopping around. Did you get the SX? Maybe they throw a few more coats on for the extra $$.

Nope LX, its a daily so I didn't wanna fork out the extra cash :props:

Its also white so its hard to see any defects (just hit 2010 miles on it too, had it for about four months now).
 
I lease cars and have done so since the 80's. The company also leases so I've driven some of theirs for a while as well, Sooo, I've driven Porsche, MB, Audi, Lincoln, Toyota, BMW, VW, Honda, Ford, Lexus, Acura, all for three year stints.

The best of the lot....

A dealer re-painted brand new MB E300 Sportline - so that doesn't count

And the worst of the lot is.......

My present BMW :(. It's not orange peel.. The car IS an orange.

Best,

Jose
 
I lease cars and have done so since the 80's. The company also leases so I've driven some of theirs for a while as well, Sooo, I've driven Porsche, MB, Audi, Lincoln, Toyota, BMW, VW, Honda, Ford, Lexus, Acura, all for three year stints.

The best of the lot....

A dealer re-painted brand new MB E300 Sportline - so that doesn't count

And the worst of the lot is.......

My present BMW :(. It's not orange peel.. The car IS an orange.

Best,

Jose

Is your Bimmer an X5? (I saw your avatar) If so I have seen a lot of orange peel in the X5, X3, and M1's for some reason My Z3 has very little and my buddy's 525i has very little as well...
 
Is your Bimmer an X5? (I saw your avatar) If so I have seen a lot of orange peel in the X5, X3, and M1's for some reason My Z3 has very little and my buddy's 525i has very little as well...
do you mean the 1series M line? there arnet many M1's left
 
I lease cars and have done so since the 80's. The company also leases so I've driven some of theirs for a while as well, Sooo, I've driven Porsche, MB, Audi, Lincoln, Toyota, BMW, VW, Honda, Ford, Lexus, Acura, all for three year stints.

The best of the lot....

A dealer re-painted brand new MB E300 Sportline - so that doesn't count

And the worst of the lot is.......

My present BMW :(. It's not orange peel.. The car IS an orange.

Best,

Jose

your present BMW = M3 GTS in orange???
 
So I just learned what orange peel is... I think. I'm a Service Writer at a GM dealer, and I've noticed that every brand new car we get, has a paint finish that's textured. I described it as "pitted" but the Orange Peel description is really fitting! Are all new cars like this? Is it ok to take it off of new car paint, or what can one do about it?
Sorry, I didn't go through all the pages of this thread. I thought it might be easier to just ask, since this thread is so long
:dunno:
 
So I just learned what orange peel is... I think.
By your "take it off new car paint" line I'd say you're not quite there on knowing exactly what "orange peel" is. Simply put, it's the clear coat not smoothed out. It could also be a color in single stage paint, but that's not seen much these days.
I'm a Service Writer at a GM dealer, and I've noticed that every brand new car we get, has a paint finish that's textured. I described it as "pitted" but the Orange Peel description is really fitting! Are all new cars like this?
Yep, just about all new cars have some peel; some worse than others.
Is it ok to take it off of new car paint, or what can one do about it?
The more experienced guys will chime in, but it would most likely depend on how much clear is on the car to work with and how bad the peel is. Wetsanding seems to be the weapon of choice, so you're abrading the surface to be level.
Sorry, I didn't go through all the pages of this thread. I thought it might be easier to just ask, since this thread is so long
:dunno:
I'm sure a Google of "orange peel paint" would turn up more than you care to read.
 
Yeah, I'm definitely brand new to anything above wash, wax, and detail!
So why would manufacturers let their vehicles ship to consumers like that? Now that I've started paying attention to things like that, I notice it like crazy, it looks horrible, and now more than ever I want to learn how to correct things like this!
Thanks AG!

Tony
 
My Ford Fusion has some pretty bad peel. It like the more I wax it the more I see it.??
 
my brothers honda van is so bad that if i painted a car that bad i would be fired. iam afraid to sand and buff it. i think he should ask the dealer for a repaint of more clear to be able to fix it.
 
Back
Top