i think my brand new car was repainted at the factory

**mg6045** · 02-28-2012, 10:06 PM

Originally Posted by 07 z-oh-6

x 1000!!!

If they re-paint the door, they're gonna hafta blend into the 1/4 panel.

on a metallic this strong (dark in color) its likely they would blend the entire side of the car. up the 1/4 into the roof seam and 3/4th the front fender. and then to top it off, you can bet you will be making a trip back to the paint shop for complaints about heavy orange peel. to which they will sand down and polish but do so at risk cause they didn't add additional paint on the respray to level the paint in the first place. hmmm, sounds like ive been down this road before....

I totally agree, I would live with this small issue. you want to preserve factory paint at all costs. especially with the crap production body shop work that is done nowadays.

the only shop that will do a re-spray that will make ANYONE on this forum happy is a concours custom paint booth. something insurance money will laugh at.

**WRAPT C5Z06** · 02-28-2012, 10:15 PM

I don't want to jinx myself, but if my car ever needs to be re-painted.....BYE-BYE!!!

**builthatch** · 02-28-2012, 10:19 PM

didn't read the whole thread but my wife bought a new Si sedan a few years ago and it had been hit during transport and repaired somewhere before the dealership. the paint looked alright but there were a few mechanical issues with that side of the car and then the paint started to bubble a bit...and when Honda took the paint down to repair it they found filler! it was such a PITA because the car had already been to the dealer for so many things and then to find that...ugh.

needless to say, the car was taken back by our broker and exchanged for another new one, but in a different color.

apparently they don't have to disclose damage if it is under a certain dollar amount.

sorry if this has already been said.

Originally Posted by mg6045

the only shop that will do a re-spray that will make ANYONE on this forum happy is a concours custom paint booth. something insurance money will laugh at.

this isn't necessarily true. over the years i've had some paint work done at what is normally a volume shop (Somers Point Auto Body in Somers Point, NJ) and it has been absolutely flawless. the one time i went elsewhere because my normal shop was overbooked it was TERRIBLE, so i've never gone elsewhere since, even if i had to wait. granted, the shop manager knows that i'll settle for nothing less and that seems to have a great bearing on the final product. i guess it was just a little more care in the prep, the application and the finish work.

**Setec Astronomy** · 02-28-2012, 10:23 PM

Originally Posted by builthatch

apparently they don't have to disclose damage if it is under a certain dollar amount. sorry if this has already been said.

Yes, it was mentioned before but it's worth repeating, and I'll add that a number of years ago they put in that dollar threshold above which the dealer has to sell it as a used car...before that you could be buying a car that had $10K of bodywork as a new car.

**Cool Runnings** · 02-28-2012, 10:40 PM

My 2011 Malibu is a silver metallic, and the "tiger stripe" effect is apparent on my car. When looked at from an angle, I believe I can see every vertical stripe the paint sprayers made.

**dtbernstein87** · 02-29-2012, 12:47 AM

Without having read the whole thread - I have heard that sometimes you have to wait a certain amount of time before waxing a new car because the paint can be soft...? Can anyone address that?

**SpoiledMan** · 02-29-2012, 12:51 AM

Originally Posted by dtbernstein87

Without having read the whole thread - I have heard that sometimes you have to wait a certain amount of time before waxing a new car because the paint can be soft...? Can anyone address that?

New cars are baked and you can wax them right off the assembly line.

**feslope** · 02-29-2012, 03:41 AM

Originally Posted by mg6045

I totally agree, I would live with this small issue. you want to preserve factory paint at all costs. especially with the crap production body shop work that is done nowadays.

the only shop that will do a re-spray that will make ANYONE on this forum happy is a concours custom paint booth. something insurance money will laugh at.

Modern automotive finishing/refinishing has come a long ways in the last 20 years. Matching factory paint is no longer custom blending for the job, it is pure science with a standardized product/process. A modern dealership is your best bet for new factory paint.

I agree with other posters that your PTG readings do not indicate any refinishing, although I would not expect to see so much variation on your door panels. Were any door jamb readings taken? The jambs will have the least amount of clear coat, by comparison to your outer panels you will have an idea of clearcoat thickness.

**rotzilla** · 02-29-2012, 04:57 AM

When considering warranty paint work I contemplated the following,
I had a reputable paint shop give me an estimate on the work, I would have felt comfortable with this shop doing the work. Estimate was approx 3x more.
The use of a factory authorized body shop, this shop was actually part of the dealership. Did not have any info on them.
I used the factory shop, that way chrysler could not second guess the quality of work by saying its not an authorized repair shop.
I don't know if factory paint repairs can be used under the lemon law, (don't know if your state even has one), however this will be the shops 3 attempt at resolving my issue. If mine is not above quality I may have some recourse against chrysler.

just my 2x

good luck

**kiteman** · 02-29-2012, 03:16 PM

It seems like the consensus is that there isn't actually a problem here.

At lunch I went back to the same dealership I was at yesterday and looked at another 45th Camaro. There was sunlight out today so I asked a salesman to pull it into the sun, so that I could see the reflection off of the door. I pulled my car behind it so we had angles on both doors reflecting the light.

I swear we looked for 10 minutes and he could see the color variations on my door, but could also see them slightly on the other Camaro. I looked at both and at times I thought I could see them slightly on the other car, but then when I looked at my car, I couldn't really see them that well. About the time we started looking the sun went behind a cloud, which is not helpful at all.

I don't know if my eyes were deceiving me or not, but it looked like the other car had a similar blotchy effect to the paint in different lighting circumstances, although not as prominent as what I see in my car. The salesman didn't think anything was wrong with my car, but I still would have preferred better light so I could get the worse reflection off of my car and compare it exactly to the reflection of the other car.

At any rate, it sounds like at this point I should forget about it and move on and that it is very possibly happening to other copies of my type of Camaro. It is weird to walk out to my car occasionally and see the blotchiness in the right lighting, but I think living with it is probably the easiest solution at this point if you guys truly believe the PTG readings point towards this being factory paint. Plus seeing that other GM metallic paints have had similar effects on other cars puts me at ease.

Still though, kind of a befuddling concept: if the paint on the car is factory paint, I'm okay with the imperfection; but if the paint on the car is not factory paint, I'm not okay with the imperfection. Either way the imperfection is the same. Oh well. Better to get over it then to obsess about it.

Thanks again for all of the responses.