JBHunter

May I respectfully ask how satisfied you are with the paint on your New Z06?

I seem to recall great pains and strides were taken to perfect the paint process on Corvettes...

How does yours look up close?

Thank you.

99 WS-7

I was a little disappointed to see a lot of orange peel on a black Z06 I saw the other day. I know that Vipers are polished at the factory to remove the orange peel. Why don't they do that for the Z06?

Sorny

You want a viper price tag on your vette?

Sorny

99 WS-7

I have a Viper and was just comparing the paint.

CarolVettes

How does the Vette paint compare to the Touareg ?

99 WS-7

The Touareg has a little bit of orange peel, but not that noticeable. The Corvette is very noticeable.

gonzalezfj

Orange peel is most noticeable in the darker colors. If it bothers you so much, your local paint shop can wet sand the affected areas with 2000 or 3000 grit paper, then polish it again. Orange peel will be gone.

BlkC6Z06

I did that on my Black NSX, and although when it was clean and detailed it looked amazing, it only stayed that way for a few days then it showed every bit of dirt because of the "mirror" finish...Even more so than other cars with the factory black finish that seemed to wipe clean with little effort.

I wonder, when they wet sand a car like that do they remove the clear coat?

I'm hoping my new Black Z06 with the factory clear coat will be easier to keep clean than a full detail after every drive.

Tom Steele

And he was just saying that better paint would raise the price...

gonzalezfj

If the shop knows what they are doing, only a small portion of the clear coat will be sanded away; and that is only the "peaks" of the finish. They get sanded to match the "valleys", then polished to a high gloss.

Ths dirt just shows more on a darker color car, with black being the absolute worst. I had a black car once and swore, never again. You could see dust on that sucker 1 hour after washing it.

Z06Vettefan

What the heck in orange peel on the paint? Does someone have a picture of what this looks like?

Viperbitesback

Look at your paint from an angle.... do you see bumps, or is it smooth... if you have bumps (which you do) then you have orange peel.

zuluracerx

Machine Silver. Excellent. No runs, no clouds, no OP.

self1

Yeah.


Good = ________________

Orange peel = --^--^--^--^--^

(All graphics (tm) Crazy ASCII Indistries Inc.)

GN1270

look at the texture of an orange. If your paint looks like that, it is orange peel. The wose I have ever seen was on a black Dodge Durango this year, so its not only GM.

RandyVettes

Look at the tailgate on any Jeep. Especially dark colors. Blech...

Surferjer

It's not just American cars. My Elise has orange peel, as do (seemingly) every Elise I've seen. Of course on the Elise we're just happy if they actually put a full coat of paint ON THEM. Some have reported seeing the base fiberglass in spots. I'm fortunate, got a decent paint job from the factory.

Mr turbo rotary

lytmup

Orange peel happens when a surface is painted that is not perfectly smooth (and im talking about smoother than you can feel). To get rid of it as others have mentioned on this thread, the area must be wet-sanded and re-polished.

Wet-sanding can happen at a few places: 1. either at the paint base layer (at which time after wet-sanding, there would be another coat sprayed on, and wet-sanded again until there is no abrasion when sanding..then a final clear would be applied) or 2. at the clear coat layer. Unfortunately, if the base coat isnt smooth enough, and the clear is shot on, there is the possibility that when you wet-sand the clear, you will have "valleys" of clear to sort of fill in the base dimples and very thin layers of clear.

Cars that are produced for the mass-market (even the Z06 is for the mass market) are all going to have varying levels of orange peel.

GlennSullivan

I got Lemans Blue and no orange peel at all