Based on your 458 order post, you might want to read this in case you haven't already seen it:...
Arnie, You know I expected a few things to be off with the paint based on my 355 and my 430 and I would not be upset if only a few things were a bit off. Howver, I was disappointed with what I was able to see just looking over the car. Then when I took it to Todd I was kind of pi$$ed when he showed me even more stuff in direct sunlight and then with his halogen lights, it got way out of hand. But on the positive side he fixed every single thing that was screwed up on the car, well almost As for the broken wing.............I have no clue how that gets past inspection, unless inspection actually broke the wing
I'm not saying your car was perfect when you took delivery. I'm saying your car was perfect when the test driver fastened his seat belt.
Perhaps while the test driver was in the WC a malicious band of traveling detailers showed up and performed a clandestine buff on the car with steel wool? Ferrari will start worrying about paint quality when it starts to hurt sales. And as long as they limit production to just a tick under demand, that's probably not a worry...for now. My F430 had much lower paint quality than any other exotic I've owned. I expect that my 458 will be similar. And therein lies the irony...I still want one.
They all still come in with a wide range of paint issues. My dealer buffs them up pretty good before a customers first viewing. Takes some of the sting out of paying over $250k for a swirled finish. Even my GTO has plenty of "opportunity" for my detailer to make a few bucks. I had the dealer leave that car alone. It requires a little extra special TLC.
Ill chime in on a thread that started as production numbers and now has a bit of a paint taste to it. Simply stated I think the paint condition on my 430 at delivery was better than my 458. That or I just didnt notice the flaws. When I got the car to Premier to have the wheels painted it was under very good lighting. As I made a pass around the car my heart dropped and dropped. First thing I noticed was a quarter size recess near the emblem on the hood. I was pretty bummed at that point. As I continued around the car I saw a fair share of detail flaws, from swirl marks to burned clear coat. I guess the cars come with considerable orange peel and he said it was normal as they put a lot of clear on at the factory. I was assured that everything could get remedied. The great news is I took some pics and they were submitted to Ferrari and they approved the warranty repair very quickly. Dave did his magic, a light color sand and a proper detail... the paint and car look AWESOME! So I guess its fair to say that Ferrari does a great job on the paint but the journey from the paint booth to the car's future owner can be a rough one! Rb
Anybody's car look worse than this? Todd wrote, "...the black paint was in far worse condition than any other brand new vehicle Ive ever worked on." http://www.toddcooperider.com/ferrari-detailing-nero-458-italia-major-paint-correction/
By the way, this very car won best of show at a recent charity car show and there were a lot of professional car guys at this show, but after Todd did his paint correction this car was incredible. I literally took my car to Todd, straight from the car show.
I am trully amazed with Todd's work. Does anybody know around how much is one of these paint corrections. I really have no reference. The closest you get to detailing down here is a 100usd polishing.
Services and basic rates are listed at the link below. Ferraris are "By estimate only", but given the custom services rate of $75/hour and the fact that it takes anywhere from 19-28 hours to correct the paint, I'd say that comes out to... yeah. http://www.esotericdetail.com/autodetailservices.html
The color issues of some cars I've seen posted is pretty bad. I'm in the auto insurance world so I'm used to very easily noticing paint issues at a distance and can drive down the road and tell what people have had fixed before. Now what appears to be happening color wise is that Ferrari is painting different components at different times. I've seen doors on a gray car that was horrifically a different color (owner posted pics of new car and I bit my tongue). I've seen bumper covers and other non-metal bits that are shades off. Basically the way color works is the darker, and less metallic/pearl in the paint the less noticeable paint color difference. Now with metallics and pearls it also depends on which way the paint was laid down, because when the paint comes out of the nozzle the metal/pearl flakes come out at a certain angle, now you sweep your hand (or robot arm) in the other direction and it lays down in a different direction and reflects light differently. The gray door mentioned above I appears to have been either painted in the opposite direction of the rest of the body, or painted at an entirely different time with a different mix of paint. The bumpers and other non metal bits being a different color is an industry wide issue. Reason being is the substrate absorbs the paint differently than the metal and when this happens it will cause the paint to be a slightly different shade. Think about painting the drywall portion of your bedroom then painting the base board or wood trim with the exact same brush and paint and the two will come out a different shade. The only way to get around this is to use a very good primer and or another layer of paint. Problem is 1 this costs money, and two get the paint too thick and it chips easily. Another thing about paint is that even with the same exact formulation two different batches will be two different colors, it's damn near impossible to make them match. Ferrari needs to paint the inside of the car and structure, then attach all the exterior body panels and have the robots paint in the same direction plus get some better primer for the non metallic bits to make everything match. Problem with this is that it cost more, and add's to production time. Then again most high end mfg's will do this even Lexus gets damn near perfect paint because they care.
Check out the body color painting segment from the Ferrari Ultimate Factories video that starts at about 28 minutes: http://www.streetfire.net/video/ultimate-factories-ferrari_713772.htm After watching this, it's like WTF?!! Someone really needs to speak directly with Montezemolo. There is a obviously a breakdown in communication between the customer, the dealer, Ferrari and the top. Why isn't this situation being remedied? I don't get it.
