LexVan

Great work, Todd. Thank you for sharing with the Forum.

Porschian

Why would a multi-billion dollar sports car company not use the best on the market, and implement them both in the factory [especially the new paint centers) and at all dealerships?

hacker-pschorr

In the detailing world there is a term call DISO which stands for "Dealer Installed Swirl Option". Yes you would think a Porsche level dealership would have the best of the best detailers on hand to prep every car that leaves the lot. Reality is that would cost a lot of money and 9/10 customers wouldn't be able to notice a difference anyway.

Threads like this are very common in the detailing world:
https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/th...-marks.561749/
https://meguiarsonline.com/forums/sh...ry-swirl-marks

The worst case I ever saw in person was a brand new black Aston Martin. The owner ended up having the car wet sanded it was so bad.

Esoteric_Detail

The reason is that when it comes to polishing paint and applying paint protection film, these processes can take hours, and sometimes days. Porsche (and all other manufacturers) are tracking efficiency down to the minute and second, so to introduce extensive polishing and PPF would be to introduce serious inefficiency on the production line.

Secondly, the priorities of manufacturers (sometimes driven by government regulations) are not the same priorities of us detailers, or picky owners who want the best available. Engineers and executives have constraints that dictate what course of action they choose, and it doesn't always align with what we want as consumers. As an example, the small piece of film that Porsche uses on the rear quarter panels of 911s comes from 3M. On average, 3M provides upwards of 40+ different products on any given production line, of any car company around the world. Porsche most likely uses 3M because the film they provide checks the utility requirements that Porsche has, and it is convenient (and cheap) to have 3M supply it to them along with dozens of other products.

Lastly, this inefficiency on the production line comes at a financial cost that would significantly hurt the cost of the car. Manufacturers track part and service costs down to the penny, because when you add up the costs over 1,000's or 100,000's of cars, pennies equal millions over time. As an example, we consult with Honda/Acura of North America on the appearance portion of their cars' paint systems. We were given an example that the new Acura TLX could have had painted brake calipers instead of unpainted calipers. The added cost per car was $14. They decided NOT to go forward with painting the calipers, because it was going to save them a lot of money, and because they didn't feel like the end consumer for an Acura TLX was going to use painted calipers as a part of their buying decision. If you look at the production numbers of the TLX, Acura saved ~$3M because of that one choice.

Porschian

What about low volume cars such as the 918, where cost saving and efficiently obviously don’t apply due to their highly bespoke nature.

Assuming this is all specific to paint and detailing, not engineering, where aftermarket/tuning companies are modifying, rather than improving a manufacturer’s stock build.

Esoteric_Detail

Believe it or not, there is generally a 1-to-1 relationship when it comes to the paint condition of cars: the more you spend, the worse the paint is. There are outliers to this rule, but it generally holds true over the majority of manufacturers. Here is some of our recent experience for examples:
.

• Bugatti Chiron: sanding marks here and there, rotary holograms in paint, light swirls throughout
• Pagani Huayra Roadster: rotary holograms on every panel, serious haze from improper polishing on all clear carbon fiber panels
• 2x Ferrari LaFerrari: sanding marks throughout, rotary holograms on every panel, very poor rotary haze on all clear carbon fiber panels
• 2x McLaren Senna: sanding marks here and there, rotary haze on all panels, white compound/polish residue left in nearly all cracks around car
• Lamborghini Aventador SVJ: serious rotary holograms on every panel
• Porsche 918 with delivery miles: sanding marks, some rotary haze, poor spot touch-up respray (either at the manufacturing plant or at port; dealer did not respray car)
• Countless Ferrari 488/488 Pista: sanding marks here and there (much worse on any car with custom color and/or stripes), rotary haze on all panels, some cars have had spot paint touch-ups from the factory that leave poor blend lines
• 8x Porsche 991 GT2RS: sanding marks throughout, rotary holograms on every panel, very poor rotary polishing haze on all clear carbon fiber
• Countless 991 GT3/GT3RS: sanding marks here and there (more sanding marks on PTS cars than standard colors), rotary haze here and there
• Countless McLaren 720S: sanding marks here and there, white compound/polish residue left in nearly all cracks around car
• 2x New Ford GT: these were some of the best supercars we've seen in the last year or so, just very light swirls here and there, no sanding marks

HenryPcar

Makes you wonder, marketing and publicity totally obscure the reality of what actually takes place in the factory. Videos of Porsche in the production line always show pretty girls wearing white gloves caressing and feeling for imperfections of the body work. Definitely a lot of mind-f@#king there.

seatactony

Curious how often these kinds of issues lead to reimbursement to the client from the manufacturer? In other words, car comes to you guys, you document the issues, client takes that documentation to dealer/manufacturer, and manufacturer reimburses client for the paint correction.

Porschian

So what would would be your suggestion for a newly delivered car; do they almost always need work, or is there a percentage that don’t need anything at all?

JRoach

I saw a chalk 992 at the dealership. I noticed some artifacts in the paint, scratch, “orange peel like”, strange “chatter” (looks like little u shaped swirls grouped together), all appeared to be under the clear. Is this something that is more easily seen on the non metallic colors? I didn’t see it on the GT silver. My build is silver and didn’t know if this a color thing.

JRoach

Ignore my post above.

I think my my answer to above is found in the post about the clear coat issue on a blue 992. Looks like the paint needs to cure. I’ll check back later to see if this covered that problem.

Esoteric_Detail

This never happens, because manufacturers typically wash their hands of the situation once the cars leave the plant. Dealerships will sometimes make up the difference in goodwill (very rare), but you have to be the educated consumer who knows what to look for and raise the issues to them before the car rolls off of the dealership lot.

Even when dealerships admit that there are issues and commit to addressing them, they are typically going to only offer their own in-house detailers to attempt to fix the issues, or suggest that the car go to their body shop for repair. These solutions typically have a high rate of creating more problems rather than solving them.

Esoteric_Detail

If you are a perfectionist, then every car needs polished right away after delivery. The shell of every car (Porsche or other) is painted, then everything is assembled around that shell. At each stop on the production line, people work around the car, touch the car, wipe it down, causing light swirls and imperfections. After that, the car most likely takes the long trip to your dealership on several transporter trucks, boats, trains, or planes. People are getting in and out of the car the entire time, again creating more opportunities for swirls and scratches. All of this is unavoidable, but it is fixable!

If you haven't noticed any issues on the new cars you've purchased up to this point, then you could be fine to not go through with polishing your new car's paint. If you haven't noticed it up to this point, you may never notice it, so it won't drive you crazy. However, use this thread as evidence that defects do exist on new cars, and that new cars can be made better (sometimes A LOT better) if you so choose. You may even get to a point that you start seeing the defects that you had never noticed before. Once you see them, you can't un-see them go forward.

cr-997

That is accurate. No car is perfect at delivery. Unfortunately I fall into the camp that will likely want at least a one-step polish upon delivery (to achieve hopefully 85-90% correction) assuming the paint is in an 'acceptable' condition to allow that as opposed to compounding. I won't allow the dealer to wash my 992 or touch the paint. Regardless, some correction will be necessary before applying surface protection, it's unavoidable.

steve575

My Aventurine Green 992 is at Esoteric right now for PPF, paint correction and window tint. Esoteric works on the top cars in central Ohio. It's always fun to see whats in the shop. They keep up a nice Instagram page if you want to see a peak inside the shop.