Dave... uhhhhhhh.....
HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!!!
I mean I've seen some shady practices through the years, but duuuuuaaammm.
(Posted this in another thread last week.)
Look up this book:
Making it Right: Why Your Car Payments are Lasting Longer Than Your Factory Paint Job.
There is a preview on Google Books, and even though it's a preview, it has some VERY interesting information. Lots of talk about film thickness, paint suppliers etc. Also there are some KILLER reference links at the end. (The above BASF release was one of them.)
Interesting pages like one from DuPont with status from 2000~2003 on the Ford Taurus, Mercury Sable, produced at the Atlanta plant. Out of 981 sampled vehicles, the number that met prime film thickness was 34 or 3.5% and the number that DID NOT meet prime film thickness specifications was 947 or 96.5%. HOLY CRAP!
Same status from other plants as well. At the Dearborn plant, with DuPont paint, from 2000~2001 out of 374 Mustangs, 27% met spec, and 73% failed to meet spec. That was a GOOD one.
Then there was the one for the Ford Escape, Mazda Tribute from 2001~2003 from BASF out of the Kansas City plant, with 508 vehicles where ONLY 1 yes ONE vehicle, a measly .20% met film spec where 99.8% (507 of 508) FAILED!
Talk about work trucks shall we? In Kentucky, where Ford produced the Super Duty, in years 2000, 2002~2004, again with DuPont paint... they sampled 636 trucks and 11 or 1.7% met spec, where 625 or 98.3% failed!
Then in 2003 at the Norfolk plant it wasn't any better, where with DuPont, out of 82 sampled vehicles a grand total of ZERO trucks passed to meet minimum film build specification!
Minivans are your favorite you say? What about the 1998~2004 Ford Windstar, Freestar, and Mercury Monterey? Out of 2095 samples (again with DuPont paint) they managed to get 16 or .80% right, and 2079 or 99.2% WRONG!
It's staggering to think of JUST HOW BAD vehicle manufacturers had gotten by moving to robots to do everything and letting it pass, one by one, till it seems as if walking on water would be easier than only ONE PERCENT of their vehicles being painted correctly!
The book seems to have data through at least 2009, and goes on to talk about reports of various paint failures from literally all makes. From "Paint - No Strength" to "Body Rust", and of course paint peeling, bubbling flaking, chipping, cracking, delaminating, poor adhesion, clear flaking, failing, peeling, you name it. All happening from within WEEKS, to within 1 year, to "Paint Peeled".
All the data is of course not available on Google Books (being as you only get a preview) but its enough to make me want the book. Unfortunately, it's $180 USED, and $239 to $380 new! 
Cool yes... but me thinks I'll pass.
The thing is... all this stuff above was before they switched to the ultra-thin waterborne bc/cc wet on wet, or even worse... BLENDED bc/cc system. (Basically a glorified single stage paint.) Now we're so far down the road where they save all of 73¢ worth of paint every week by spraying it thinner each and EVERY week till you can see through it and call it "right".
I mean, sure... we can start to overlook that non of the jambs are painted, at least as long as they're e-coated, and TAPED OFF correctly. But THAT... weird overspray of a paint job on a $55,000 supercar killer American hot rod.
Jesus....
Just got Papa Fred's Nissan back from the shop getting $7300 worth of work done on it from the wreck he was in the day he went to the hospital.
Two things stood out to me along the lines of non-painted jambs.
One; the left fender jamb is NOW painted. (
The right one was taped off just inside the bottom of the hood and the entire jamb e-coated in a primer gray color.)
Two: The whole right side rocker pinch weld is ALSO painted. (
The car is silver. It was somehow taped off and satin black from the factory.)
Of course there is a whole list of *other* stuff I found wrong with it, and it's back at the shop now getting them all fixed. Everything from repainting the new front bumper, front fender, and left rear quarter panel, to removing rough edges and overspray, replacing a wheel cover they overlooked.... all the way to PUTTING IN A FENDER CRUSH PIECE at the hinge post that runs the entire height of the fender that they magically managed to leave out!!!!
But the ONE thing that it doesn't suffer from is "too little paint".
