OEM orange peal quiz

ksungela

Member
Whenever walking through a parking lot I find myself looking at paint finishes and comparing orange peel, especially on dark colored cars. Some finishes are very impressive usually from the likes of Lexus and Audi. I parked next to a black car today waiting for my son to get out of work. I couldn't help but notice the paint job and the excessive peel on the car next to me. This from a ~$50K SUV. Anyone car to guess who the OEM was?
Just curious, but how do the OEMs get virtually no peel on some brands? Do they bake?
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Thats practically flat... look at the bottom of an f150 tailgate. I saw a new chevy traverse today that I would swear the paint was rolled on.
 
Lexus in past at the plant years back were wet-sanding clear and sending back through to re-clear, don't know if they still do or not.
A lot of the problem is cheapness on applying paint, think about it! If you can save a quart per car over say 3 million cars a year, that makes bean counters very happy!
 
I’ve always thought GM had the worse orange peel - my 2014 GMC truck has it. My wife has a new Durango and it has way better finish.
 
Lexus in past at the plant years back were wet-sanding clear and sending back through to re-clear, don't know if they still do or not.
A lot of the problem is cheapness on applying paint, think about it! If you can save a quart per car over say 3 million cars a year, that makes bean counters very happy!


Been told many times I was FOS thinking that the manuf. looked at only doing 2 coats instead of 3 to save money and when I would say think about it every 3rd car was a free paint job (to them) because they didn't lessen the price of the car, the really smart people that I told that too said I was full of crap I just looked at them like "you paid to go to collage to get that stupid?"....

The orange peel seems to come and go year by year.
 
One thing that is "interesting", is how much, or how little "orange peel" that we perceive, has a lot to do with the shape of the surface it is on. Basically, the more crown in a panel, the less we see peel. A good car to see this difference on is the 2003- 2007 Nissan Z. Most of the car looks smooth, but the concave area on the upper area on the sides looks rough. Motorcycle tanks, and fenders from 30-40's cars look like glass with a decent spray job. Paint a flat piece of metal (in the vertical position so you cant flood it) and let it dry. It will be peeley 90% of the time. Now flex it and watch the peel "visually" go away (with crown), and flex it to a concave shape, and the peel will be exaggerated.
 
Been told many times I was FOS thinking that the manuf. looked at only doing 2 coats instead of 3 to save money and when I would say think about it every 3rd car was a free paint job (to them) because they didn't lessen the price of the car, the really smart people that I told that too said I was full of crap I just looked at them like "you paid to go to collage to get that stupid?"....

The orange peel seems to come and go year by year.

In 70's my dad worked for generous motors and they had a suggestion box and if your idea saved them money you would get an award check and if I recall I'm sure top award was $50,000 or close too.
I want to say dad said to get the top award you would need to save them a dollar or something around that mark per car.
 
Off topic but to B's point, guy who achieved this for my 1986 Cadillac must've got paid month vacation & 50k. Grrr.
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