04 paint quality

[blacksnake04]

Been to a dealer showroom lately? Everything I saw had orange peel. Didn't matter what model ford. Anyone else had this experience?

I've had a 90 5.0, 98 cobra and my family has owned fords for many years. I've never seen any paint problems like this with their vehicles or mine.

I have bad orange peel on an 04 cobra and I'm working with the dealer to make right on the deal.

Been back since and looked at new cobra arrivals, F150s and Expeditions - all had orange peel, some worse than others.

What gives?!
:fm:

 

[eddiemel30]

04 paint

what gives ,i tell you what gives is that ford don't give a @#$% about its customers any more. look at all the problems that us proud owners have to put up with the best muscle car produced the terminator.if you got problems go here www.planetfeedback.com ill bet you something would get fixed.:cuss:

 

[eddiemel30]

its also called mass production up, quality control down

 

[dgussin1]

Orange peel is an extra heavy clear coat. It protects the paint. If you color sand the car to remove the OP, you will make the car more succestable (sp?) to sun damage...It is not stopping me from having my car color sanded...you get the aftermarket looking paint from the factory.

 

[blacksnake04]

Ok, but why now? What has ford changed in their paint process in the last 2 years?

So is it buy a new car and expect to have to repaint the vehicle after you buy it? What kind of quality is that? That is crap!!

I will not buy a Ford again after this experience. You can take that to the bank.

 

[blacksnake04]

I take that back. I won't buy from Ford, Volvo, Jaguar, LandRover, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda or Astin Martin. Ford intends to own the automobile industry; don't let them **** up your favorite vehicle!!!

 

[eddiemel30]

hey blacksnake04 i notice that you are from austin tx have you been to leif johnson ford lance myhre would try to help you out

 

[blacksnake04]

What do you know about Austin, TX if you are from brooklyn?

 

[eddiemel30]

iam currently station in ft hood tx in killeen yes iam in the military

 

[blacksnake04]

thank you for your service to our country.

i've talked to leif johnson but never bought there.

do you know someone there personaly?

 

[eddiemel30]

yes talk to lance myhre he is the svt advisor the coolest person you would ever meet.thats who i take my car to when ever i have a problem.they are the only ford dealer that touches my CAR.if you go there till him eddie sent you.he probably hook you up with tom bob the rco manager.

 

[snakeyes]

I wonder if the paint on the Mystichrome cars gets any special attention. Any Mystichrome owners out there please chime in. You would hope that for the extra money they are charging for those cars they would do a better job. I personally have a first run 03 so am all too familiar with the lack of Ford paint quality.

 

[04Screamer]

I have orange peel on mine. It's harder to see on yellow, but it is definately there. After it was mentioned in another thread, I looked at the bottom of my doors and they're not painted either.

 

[Torch Red 10th]

Well as a former painter at a Ford Assembly Plant (1996-2001) I had to go work in another department. For the most part, all the painters at Ford really try to do a good job, but here's the deal. 1) the Dearborn plant is old as $hit and they don't put out the best quality(duh) and that's one reason why the Mustang is going to another plant.

2) Ford's big thing right now is cutting costs. The things that really pissed me off, and one reason I couldn't stand to paint anymore is that Ford uses BASF paint and it is basically colored paint thinner. You would NOT believe the stuff they expect painters to do with the paint. I was one of the few that actually could paint with it good enough and actually I was considered one of the best they had, but it was so frustrating to get yelled at for putting paint in places that were eventually going to get covered up, but they were places that I felt should be painted like the center of the hood....the hood liner covers it up........and I painted the firewall.......but the motor will hide it. The philosophy in the Ford paint shop is this.........put a thin coat of basecoat thats just enough to cover the primer and then put a ton of clearcoat over it. I'm going to assume even though I'm not sure the Mystichrome is a BASF paint(I think it is though) that the Mystichromes are done the same way. Expensive paint would only be put on thinner to save even more money, right?

In a slight defense of Ford I will say even though my 10th Anniversary paint is pretty thin, my brother-in-laws Redfire Cobra has one of the best paint jobs I've seen on ANY car ever. It was built in April/03.

Sorry for the rant, Ford brings it out in me still.

 

[Rainman15]

This isn't a recent new issue. My 99 snake's paint never complete cured. Even after 6 months I could push on the paint with my thumb nail and it would leave an impression that would disappear in about 24hrs. The paint on my hood cracked 3 times and they stripped and repainted it 2 times. The last time I insisted they change the hood and it never happened again. As for not buying ford's products again, any 99 cobra owner has the right to say they wouldn't after being sold an abortion of a vehicle like that, and I bought two of them at the same time! Even after all the problems, recalls and lack of concern from Ford over the entire model years problems I didn't let that sway me from buying ford again. I've had a 00L, 02 HD Screw, and an 03 L since then. No problems at all, and I've had no paint related issues, nor mechanical issues (except some minor vibration problems at highway speeds) in any of my more recent ford purchases, and my 03's paint is smooth and flawless. That is something you could have seen and avoided prior to purchase.
=off subj= Did someone say Ford makes Land Rover?

 

[sambandit]

Every car has orangepeel. Unless you wetsand the whole car, you'll never get rid of it. If you do choose to wet sand the car, forget about it then. If you even touch the paint, you'll scratch it. Only wetsand if it never see's the road and it's a show car. Overall, I'm pretty happy with my paint. My car is black, and it looks sweet with relatively little effort. BTW painters have always told me, the thinner the paint, the better. The thicker it gets, the easier it chips. Can anybody shed some light on this?

 

[04-MystiChrome]

All my cars had some orange peel-My Mysti does
not differ much from my old Viper for example.
I have complaints but "my" paint was not one of them.

 

[Torch Red 10th]

Originally posted by sambandit
BTW painters have always told me, the thinner the paint, the better. The thicker it gets, the easier it chips. Can anybody shed some light on this?

Yes, it's true to a certain point. There is a film build min and max. You go over the max, the paint will chip when hit by rocks and such on the road. You go low on the film build and you can actually burn through the paint just waxing the car. Ford has a max film build allowance and if a vehicle goes over, it is supposed to be scrapped. What I was saying is that given the average or targeted film build, you want some basecoat build. Ford targets around a 25% basecoat 75% clearcoat coverage. I'd want more basecoat.

Also what you said about the paint not being cured on your bumper, that's a characteristic of the f'ed up process I'm talking about. When I said "colored paint thinner" I mean they actually add thinner to the paint in the tanks. Makes it hard to put a good coat of paint on without it running everywhere. Forces the painter to go thin on the paint. The basecoat is applied and the clear is shot over it while the basecoat is still wet. Put a fat load of clear over it and the clearcoat dries in the ovens faster locking some of the thinned out uncured basecoat underneath. It will be tacky and rubbery feeling for a long time. Also will make the clear crack after a while because it wants to stay in place while the basecoat shifts. Bad deal!

 

[Mystifi]

Originally posted by snakeyes
I wonder if the paint on the Mystichrome cars gets any special attention. Any Mystichrome owners out there please chime in. You would hope that for the extra money they are charging for those cars they would do a better job. I personally have a first run 03 so am all too familiar with the lack of Ford paint quality.

It appears that the car does have OP. Its very irritating that our cars didn't get the extra attention considering that it is a limited production run that's not to mention that the paint package was an extra $3,650. ( The bottom of the doors not being painted etc.. )

BTW Our dealership has ordered the Mystichrome paint to have the doors taken care of.

 

[AtomHeart]

My car has tremendous ammounts of orange peel. Observers don't seem to notice. ;-)