I know that this has been disucssed, but not recently.

For all of those who have recently gotten their ponies or those of you who have had them a while.

What is your take on the paint job, finish?

My 2 cents.
I have a Torch Red coupe.

I spent an hour inspecting the paint on my car when I picked it up and told the salesman that I would inspect it further over the upcoming week.
I have to say that the paint/finish on this car is very nice overall.

I have about 3 spots where the paint or clearcoat has a foreign object in it but I can hardly see them let alone feel them.

The paint is even and no runs, drips or errors (Anyone remeber that one?)

The only thing I would consider a negative would be the slight orange peal.
If I were to guess I would say that this in done intentionally. It's not bad. I just don't understand why an automaker would orange peel a paint job on purpose.

Your comments please.

 

Mine is Torch Red and, besides very little orange peel, is basically flawless. I've heard some say the paint job is very cheap b/c they have several chips already and seems to chip easily. I have 0 chips (knock on wood) and have had the car since 1/21 with 3600 miles on her. I love my Torch Red with the IUP's, Red leather, Skanker 500, Bullits and ME!

 

It isn't intentional, it's cheaper. The way the paint is applied and the type of paint used the two factors that tell how bad the orange peel will be on the car. But no matter how good the paint is or how slow you paint it, you can't get rid of it completely by just laying the paint. To clear orange peel you have to wet sand the car to even out the paint before the clear coat. The removes the peaks and valleys that occur when paint dries. If ford upped the quality of the paint or refined thier paint process a little bit, the orange peel would be much less noticible. But it isn't that bad on some of the cars i have seen, however the earlier cars, especially black, have it pretty bad. Hopefully ford has noticed the problem and has started working on it. My 96 has a great paint job and so does my Girlfriends 01 so hopefully it was a hiccup in the new production facility.

 

I have had my torch red for 3 weeks, and I have 3-4 places where there is some very small trash in the paint. Can't see them unless I look for them. I also have a spot on the hood that looks a little oxidized, but I am almost certain it is under the clearcoat, as I cannot rub it out as much as I have tried. I suspect something got splotched before the clearcoat was applied. It doesn't concern me too much, as it took me 3-4 days of close inspection to find it, and even now, I still have to look for it in just the right light before I can even see it. Overall, I would not say it is a great paint job, but it is certainly good...what I would expect on a $25-30k car. Now, if I spent $150k+ on a Ford GT and got the same paint job, I would be mad.

 

First day I had the car, I got 2 chips from hway driving. One right below the yellow driving light and one on the front of the bulge in the fender. So, I would say that the paint seems to chip pretty easily. There were also 2 spots that had some type of flaw in the paint. They are very small and hard to find, but it does make me wonder about Ford's painting process and the quality involved there.

 

I have one paint drip ball on the inside of one of the fenders, not noticable at all, and actually only noticed it last week.

 

I have several of these drips in the front drivers side and rear drivers side wheel wells. It look as if it is clear coat. My car was recleared a second time at the factory. I confirmed thisss with Ford. So I think when they sprayed it the second time it got a little thick at the edges.

 

I have several of these drips in the front drivers side and rear drivers side wheel wells. It look as if it is clear coat. My car was recleared a second time at the factory. I confirmed thisss with Ford. So I think when they sprayed it the second time it got a little thick at the edges.

 

I've been doing a considerable amount of highway and backroad driving (15000mi since December 2) and I have atleast 20 chips on my hood and bumper, not to mention a huge door ding on the passenger side from the idiot that parked next to me at school.

 

One drip also in the rear wheel well. Other than that the quality is very good.

 

paint chips easily - no doubt about it... I have had my 03 liberty for 2 years with 90% highway miles - camping going over the pass etc.. only 6 chips.

1 trip on the freeway with the stang and at 40mph I was hit by a piece of bark - it chipped the paint...

 

I have a couple of paint flaws on my roof. One has started to crack sitting out in the hot Texas heat all day long in the parking lot at work. It looks like a couple of areas where they touched up the paint at the factory. :angry:

I'll get it worked on at the end of summer in case something else shows up.

I also have a lot of orange peal, but you can only see it if you look at the paint at a certain angle.

 

I'm very happy with the paint quality. Despite mine being black (which shows EVERYTHING), the paint job is very consistent and looks excellent. Being an enamel paint job, there is no possible way to avoid having some orange peel. The paint work on mine has about the smallest amount of peel I've seen on any enamel paint job. The only way to perfect glassy smoothness is to go lacquer, and that would add a few thousand bucks to the price.

I have noticed one bit of something (bug, lint, who knows) trapped in the paint, but you wouldn't notice it unless you hand-washed it. I've also noticed some dimples around the rear wheelwells, probably factory spot weld points that only show up because it's black. And somehow they managed to ding the door sill, you can only see it with the door open. It looks like it happened before it was painted as the paint is not scuffed there.

No chips on mine as of yet. 3k highway miles so far.

 

Overall, I'm very happy with the Mustang paint. I do a TON of highway driving - always big trucks everywhere - so there are a few small chips. However, it has been far more durable than I expected. Of course, the Zaino on day 3 probably helped a little!

By the way, I bought a PT Cruiser last year and the whole car feels like it was painted with a Sharpie. I can't even use Zaino until all of the chips (probably 50-100) are touched-up. I love the PT, but I'm disappointed with the finish.

 

I've had mine since February and have 6 coats of Zaino on it so I've been over it with fine tooth comb. As far as durability goes I'll have to wait and see, but as for the finish it's the best factory black paint I've seen (the '05 GT is my 5th black car). I traded in an '02 BMW (jet black) for my '05 GT (black clearcoat) and as I've said before it is at least as good, if not better than, the BMW's was. My car is always garaged (at home and work) so I'm sure this helps. It has been a while since I've looked at any '05's on dealer lots but when I was I didn't see one bad paint job. All factory vehicles have some "orange peel" with maybe the exception of Porsche's, Lambo's, Ferrari's etc. Overall I'm completely satisfied with my '05 GT's paint.

 

I have a run around each wheel well that looks to be clear coat, a place on trunk lid at the edge that is a little hazy looking but its not very noticable and 3 chips so far... 2400 miles.... and I try my best to stay back from cars and WAY back from trucks on the highway. The orange peel look is here but not bad.

 

My redfire paint quality is pretty good. After 3000+ miles, I have a couple paint chips on the hood. I just used some touch-up paint pens from http://www.paintscratch.com/ and thought they worked really nicely.

I ordered the basecoat and clearcoat pens. With a steady hand, I thought they did a really nice job. The color match is excellent.

 

10 weeks, 1800 miles, and so far (knock on wood) no paint chips. I have already waxed the front bumper and front edge of the hood about 3 times with Meguiars NXT, so that may provide some protection.

There is one tiny piece of dust or something under the paint near the gas filler door, but other than that, the yellow paint looks almost flawless on mine. Minimal orange peel. However, like KansasCityTim mentioned, I also have a spot that appears oxidized - luckily mine is on the trunk lid partially under the spoiler, and only about 2" by 3" or so, so it's not that noticeable. In fact, I can only see it at certain angles and in certain light. I thought maybe the clearcoat was missing in that spot, as it just looks a bit dull, but not really sure what the problem is.

Overall, the paint is really nice.

 

I have a Windveil Blue Stang. No problem with the paint. Two things are important, 1: order a tube of touch up paint from your dealer's parts department in the evernt of rock chips. 2: Seal the paint with polymer sealant rather than wax.

 

My paint is perfect but I was lucky, the factory gave my car the Toronto Shine on it. Can't get a better paint job than that!