Paint: Orange Peel all over the car
 

So I picked up my car on Monday 21st January and was excited to finally have the car after approximately 6 month wait. The day after, I had a better look at the car and found that it had really bad orange peel all over the car :cry:. (see attached images). This is a BRAND NEW car and I expected the paint quality to have minimal orange peel. But this is unacceptable. Has anyone experienced something like this with their 86/BRZ? How did you end up resolving this and what was the result?

I have contacted Subaru HQ regarding this matter and they've organised a paint specialist to inspect the paintwork next week. We'll see what happens from there...

Wow that looks like 20 year old chrysler paint... My paint looks nothing like that thank god! is that the trunk?

Yer that's the trunk..here's more pictures

I would ask for a new car or some money + a repaint, I have seen WRB and the Ultramarine's in persons, never seen one without high metallic flake. seems like the machine ran out of paint or something

I know it sounds crazy, but I've seen 3-4 FR-S' and a few BRZ's in person and each one of them had orange peel all over. I thought I was going crazy, but it seems to be common? I've noticed it on every one I've seen up close

I have heard from the bodyshop guy that almost new vehicles come with orange peel. He said according to the manufactures, the orange peel helps the resist the scratches. I dont know if thats true or not but fact is orange peel is very normal now days, especially with metallic paints, even my new mercedes has some orange peel

Came on mine.

Does the paint appear to have a orange peel texture or is it smooth with only the reflections revealing the orange peel?

Smooth clear on it, just has the orange peel look under the right light. It's one of those things I just live since this is still prettier than the drift car :P Came out all shiny when I tried out Adams this weekend.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphot...33113750_n.jpg

For my BRZ, the paint has a orange peel texture (more specifically the paint looks bumpy regardless of the light)...it's not even smooth

The clear on top of it is smooth.

Yup. That's what you'd expect.

Hope they fix it, that looks horrible. My SWP looks nothing like that.

I sure hope they fix it. I'm just extremely worried about the worse case scenarios ...

With the paint being as it is, the car just doesn't feel as special

I think we can all agree that Subaru's (and most other manufacturers) paint is terrible and fragile. My car (CBS) had a decent amount of orange peel when I picked it up. After a quick buff, the paint was like glass. Judging by the photos, however, your car is slightly worse. I really hope you get it fixed, best of luck!

My FR-S is similar. Most new automobiles have some amount of orange peel. In general any paint job will orange peel. The only correction that I am aware to completely eleminate it is to color/wet sand and buff the car.

I did it to my last factory painted project. Luckily there was enough clear that it went well and looked great.

I'm waiting to see how much clear is on these vehicles before I decide to attempt a color sand on the FR-S.

That is definitely more that I would accept. My car required some paint correction before the opti but nothing like that.

It does look bad, but orange peel is the name of the game for all manufacturers these days. GM has the most notorious reputation, especially with the Corvette. Hopefully Subaru can make it right, but chances are they'll just bring it to a detail shop and they'll wheel it down.

Look at this video of Koenigseggs paintjobs. Christian von Koenigsegg mentions the part about excessive orange peel on most manufacturers new cars today:

http://youtu.be/_-IYh8Ln0wQ

I agree, I don't have problem with the SWP, but I do want to perform a wet sand for my car.

Ill try to buff it and see if that works. Whenever u get new paint job buffing makes it night and day

I wouldn't touch it until they inspect it

I also have a WRB BRZ and have orange peel on my trunk and spoiler. It's strane how it's only those 2 panels that have orange peel, and the rest of the car is fine.

Orange peel on my trunk as well...

Why is that? I wonder why only the trunk has a problem.

Car has only traveled the distance from dealership to my house (ie collection). It's been sitting in the garage ever since....

My trunk and rear spoiler is particularly bad. The hood is slightly less but still pretty bad peel. I wonder if it's just the WRB BRZ suffering from this. Also what was the build date of your cars? Mine was built mid-December

Mine was built in November.

That definitely seems like more orange peel than normal. Subarus do have pretty crappy paint and they all have orange peel but yours seems like more than even I'm used to seeing, and I work at a dealer.

On one WRX we had you could actually see the lines from where the sprayer laid down the paint. It was that thin. I would've flipped out about that, personally. I've actually thought about taking my car to be wetsanded immediately after receiving it to try and reduce the orange peel.

You should definitely bring it up with your dealer if you're unhappy. Maybe Subaru will do something about it. At least I hope!

All manufacturers have similar paint jobs. It is normal. You are going to have orange peel unless you color sand prior to clearing. No manufacturer does that. Some people are just more sensitive to it that others.

interesting video...he actually said that car manufacturers purposely have the orange peal to hide imperfections in the body panels! (I guess sort of like the reason for popcorn ceilings!)

Going to check mine now...

Attachment 26514
Attachment 26515

There is a piece of dust or something in my iPhone camera. Just a heads up. :P

You have a bug in your screen, did you put it there?

Orange peel is a problem on most modern car paints due to changes in paint solvents used during the painting process over the years. Its especially noticeable on darker colored cars. The only way to remove it is through wet sanding which i would not recommend anyone but a professional to do.

even though that seems like more than normal, I have not seen a single FR-S or BRZ that DIDN'T have some semblance of peel

I haven't heard a manufacter having orange peel to cover up imperfections.. Maybe it's true.. But the last sentence in that video is why mass produced cars and trucks have orange peel.. 200+ hours of wet sanding and polishing.. I've polished a freshly painted black car after wet sanding.. It's not for the novice at all.. I've seen cars come out from the same painter in a few different ways.. From really smooth and hardly any peel, to really bad.. I was a painters helper, so the masking and sanding and prep work was up to me, my first wet sand and polish job was a old jag in red, the hardest was that black Porsche 944.. But it was color sanded and then finally wet sanded.. It looked like black glass.. Hours and hours and hours.. But the end result was amazing looking

Subaru inspector came to see my paint and the facts are as follows:

- The peel in the paint is within the quality standard and is similar to their demo BRZ

- There is nothing unusual in the paint texture that is different to their BRZ product

- He acknowledged there is more peel on boot and spoiler panels compared to the hood (despite saying initial there was nothing different about the paint on my car compared to their advertised product per demo)

- Issue remains unresolved and I am seeking an independent paint inspector

Orange peel doesnt bother me unless it isnt uniformed.... In a way it covers manufacture paint defects (because you can never paint a car 100% perfect) and well.. yeah it doesnt bother me unless it is like one panel smooth and one panel orange peel

Rear bumper has minimal peel, rear fender has a fair bit of peel. Visible difference going from one panel to another.

Uniform peel doesn't bother me. Non-uniform peel does.

mine has orange peel as well, but so did all the other cars I looked at... IDK what its all about. The Dealer said it was normal?