Best Factory paint?

I was over on the Boxster forum at the Porsche Club of America, and some of the Boxster owners are less than impressed with the Porsche paint due to chipping problems. I copied the following as an example:
I purchased a 2002 Boxster S on Dec. 1 2001 and a few months later with a couple thousand miles logged, I used post-its and tagged over 70 chips/marks on the paint..I was peeved!..I did a touch up with the Porsche paint which I ordered from the dealership..I haven't done touch ups since..but noticed a lot more and am in denial
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Scares me!:eek:
 
The paint on the Jaguar is very good. It seems very thick and shows a lot of depth. Mine is metallic black and if you're in the sun and look closely it's just like you're looking into a 3D field of stars.



I've had a few parking lot scratches and over time some of them almost seem to heal themselves. I don't know how thats possible, but I had a really big scratch on the driver's side from a kid's bicycle pedal about 6 months ago. Of course I did all I could to buff it out, but it was still visible. Now you can't see it at all.



:up
 
Volvo's paint seems to be very soft, it swirls easily and not to mention the chips and scartches that occasionally come about. However, The dark red paint on my 850 has always been so reflective and shiny, for the last 8 years... back in my pre-autopian days.



Toyota/Lexus paint seems to be very soft as well but it always seems slick. It is very easy to work with though, like the Volvo's paint is doesnt take much to make it shine.



MB paint IMHO sucks. I would say there is a detectable amount of orange peel on 3/4 of the cars that leave the factory. For a vehicle that costs up to 140k... thats absolutely rediculous. It also seems to swirl and scratch really easily. BTW: I take care of a '03 Black S600, a $140,000 car. It has orange peel and rotary induced swirls, not only that but a few rock chips as well. :nono



As for domestics... I vote for Ford as well, the paint on a friends '89 F150 is in better shape than my '94 850.... :rolleyes:
 
I give my vote in for Audi and Volkswagen as well as BMW. They have gorgeous paint jobs and really hold up to abuse of about 90% of the people who drive them (Automatic wash and no wax)

I guess they learned their lesson from back in the late 80s, even early 90s when VW paint (especially seen on older Jettas) didn't hold up and started to rust.



I have a BLACK Hyundai Elantra. The paint is kind of thin and chips easily, however, there are very few swirl marks and scratches in the entire car. So if taken care of, the paint will last and shine. However, I have seen some Elantras the same year as mine that look awaful with swirls and scratches.



Suprisingly though, Mercedes paint isn't that great at all. I thought it was just me, then saw you guys were claiming that as well. It scratces and swirls like no tomorrow.
 
My vote goes to Volvo. Mine is a '96 model. As thevolvoguy stated the surface is very reflective and shiny. I will say that of all the vehicles I have owned it has the best paint since a '65 Ford Galaxy (black). Worst paint '89 Plymouth Caravan.
 
My choices for best paint...

1. Audi

2. Jaguar (gone downhill)

3. Mercedes

4. Porsche

5. BMW? (chips very easily and has a lot of orange peel)
 
I find VW paint to be soft. As does most of www.vwvortex.com, which is about 50,000 VW enthusiasts. But anyway, I've got a rock chip on my bumper that is down to the ABS plastic. The car is 3 months old. Sigh..







jrh382 said:
I give my vote in for Audi and Volkswagen as well as BMW. They have gorgeous paint jobs and really hold up to abuse of about 90% of the people who drive them (Automatic wash and no wax)

I guess they learned their lesson from back in the late 80s, even early 90s when VW paint (especially seen on older Jettas) didn't hold up and started to rust.



I have a BLACK Hyundai Elantra. The paint is kind of thin and chips easily, however, there are very few swirl marks and scratches in the entire car. So if taken care of, the paint will last and shine. However, I have seen some Elantras the same year as mine that look awaful with swirls and scratches.



Suprisingly though, Mercedes paint isn't that great at all. I thought it was just me, then saw you guys were claiming that as well. It scratces and swirls like no tomorrow.
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I used to work for a paint supplier to the OEM car market so maybe I can help explain a few things (these are true for the European market and I think also follow for the US market):



1. Different paint companies will supply different colours to the same car manufacturer for the same model!!!

2. Stonechip resistance is dependent on colour, surface hardness, primer formulation, ecoat and also on new anticorrosive products that are applied onto the steel before it reaches the car manufacturer (I think VAG and MB are using this on certain models). Most companies have different methods of testing for stonechip resistances, the most extreme is Nissan who fire diamonds at the paint system at different velocities down to -30°C.

Also some companies have people to bulk up the film thickness by hand spraying in areas most likely to be stone chipped others try not to (cost!!!!!!!!).

3. Some car manufacturers use colour coded primers to help hide any small nicks, stone chips in the paintwork.

4. Less and less paint is being applied.

5. Paint companies are having to cheapen paint formulations.

6. Orange peel is a method to cover up lesser quality steel.

7. Sorry guys but from what I have seen from numerous visits to the states, in general the quality of paint finish of cars manufactured in the states is not as good as European manufactured (a very broad generalisation ) or Japanese manufactured cars.

8. Best factory finish I have seen has been from Toyota in their plants in Toyota city, Japan.

9. The same model made in different plants can have totally different paint even from the the same paint manufacturer.

10. Plastic parts are usually sprayed completely seperate from the rest of the car using different paint, sometimes by a contractor.

11. Low volume cars eg Rolls Royce, Aston Martin can still sprayed by hand using totally different paints to volume producers eg Ford et al



Sorry if my 1st post has been a bit long and if I have said what everyone knows already.



Steve
 
SP 325i said:




Sorry if my 1st post has been a bit long and if I have said what everyone knows already.



Steve
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Not long at all



Verry enlightning:xyxthumbs



And verry welcome to the forum BTW:wavey



as for my MAZDA MPV I can confirm that the base-coat(primer) is about the same color as the paint finish

My car has orange peel everywhere but the roof , that roof is a perfect finish , to d*mn pitty it is not noticeble for the Van is too high:doh



Christiaan
 
Well, I will second or third or whatever about the VW paint. My 98 Passat was black and the orange peel was very low. VW's metalic paints look awesome when they're all cleaned up.



Our 02 Durango is silver so it's a little easier to take care of, but I have been incredibly impressed by it. I haven't washed it in 3 weeks and I was walking out to it the other night in a well lit parking lot and the damn thing was just glowing. Looked absolutely wet even though it was dirty as hell. Orange peel seems to be low too.



The Altima suprised me in that the orange peel is pretty bad. It's black so it shows it even more. It's got a couple of tiny chips in the hood, but after a lot of highway driving and hearing some bad impact sounds, I'm surprised there aren't more! It seems pretty hard.
 
ive owned 3 cars in my lifetime, new 92 ford mustang LX 5.0L (black) spent ALL my time cleaning, had orange peel and swirl marks!! 1 yr old 97 VW golf CL (Tornado Red) not bad certainly better than the stang, and finally my current ride new 01 VW Golf GLS 1.8T (Reflex Silver Metallic) this is by far the best paint ive had, no orange peel flawless paint IMHO
 
BMW and Lexus paints seem to be pretty good. Most of the newer Lexus models have really nice paint that looks good even though the owner doesn't care for it. BMW paints are good too. The paint on my Toyota is soft though, and I notice swirling and scratches way too much (it's silver too!). Honda paints are hard to work with, there are patches of metallic flakes on the horizontal panels, like the paint wasn't mixed properly before painting. It's not just me, Car and Driver found this on their test Civic too. Chips easily too. I would rank Toyota ahead of Honda. I can get a clear reflection with the Toyota, but not with the Honda because of the metallic patches.
 
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