Ahhh...this thread rings loud and clear!!! My Giallo Stradale had Horrible paint from the factory!! so bad that portions of it had to be fixed at authorized Ferrari paint shop... Of course all under Warranty. Actually it probably was a blessing as the paint now is flawless!! even my mechanic, has commented on how good the paint looks... aside from the respray of a few panels, they color sanded car completely which took out all orange peel on the clear coat!! The only downside is...i believe this makes my car a "Storied" car!! however....i could care less!!
When I was polishing a red 550 recently, the entire car looked perfect after I was finished except for the red paint on the interior of the headlights. They were severely swirled on the inside, meaning that obviously that swirling came from the factory.
Thanks for the compliments regarding the work done, but obviously the Scud is a great canvas... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Few more after shots Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
The way it should look from the factory, IMO. Now I just need to fly over to Italy and get a full time job!
I may have just put 2 and 2 together - I know of another Scud that also had paint problems. When I received mine, it was shipped in via airplane to NJ, not at my option. It could be deduced that Ferrari knows of the problem at the port. I don't know what the facilities are like at their airfield, but my paint didn't have any problems. If they could just get the Porsche paint. That stuff is almost like aircraft paint Amazing quality.
Great before and after shots! In your professional opinion, how long should you wait in between exterior detail jobs? It obviously depends on the color, condition of the paint, the way you regularly wash the car, etc... but I also do know that the more you detail the car, the more "layers" come off , especially with orbital buffing machines.
Just wondering, what does any ferrari look like when it shows up at the dealer for the first time? Porsches and Audis are covered from end to end it seems, i would expect ferrari is the same?
Thank you. The clear coat on most Ferrari's is between 3-4 mils thick, or about a sheet of notebook paper. This may seem pretty thin, but is actually (in paint terms) pretty thick. As a rule of thumb, you want to maintain at least 80% of the total thickness of the clear coat in order to preserve the UV protection built into paint. This means we can remove about .6 mils of clear coat over the life of the vehicle (and still keep the paint's integrty). So the obvious question is how much paint is removed each time the vehicle is polished? Way too many variables to give a concrete answer. The type of machine, the technique, the depth of the defects, the hardness of the paint, the type of pad, the type of polish, and that is just the beginning, but I can give you some guidlines from my experience. Most swirl marks are very shallow in depth and do not penetrate more then .03 of a mil, and often times they much less then this. So if a professional detailer, who understands how important it is to use just the right technique and remove the least amount of paint possible, it would be possible to polish this paint at least twenty times. Lets look at from a different perspective. Lets say that a brand new F430 is delivered, and as typical, is in pretty bad shape. The owner wants it perfect. Some areas have some pretty deep scratches and required about .15 mils of paint removal to get perfect, where as the rest of the car requires about between .05-.1 mils of paint removal. On a low end we have .45 mils left of paint to play with safely. Here is where washing technique really comes into play. If the car is washed with a dirty rag, it is easy to scour the paint with .1 mil deep damage. Even with the most careful wash techniques some surface marring may occur, but would be VERY shallow in depth. Lets assume the owner of this F430 is very anal in how he washes his car, using high quality microfiber cloths, two bucket method, etc... After a year he/she may notice enough surface marring to require another polishing job to restore the luster. However, the surface marring is going to be so shallow (maybe .02 mils of depth). After one year we still have .43 mils to play with. Ten years later we are still over .23 mils left of paint. To be honest, I would expect that number to be quite a bit higher (in .3 mil range) but I am being conservative. On the other side, a lot of detailers have no clue what they are doing and love to grind away paint with no rhyme or reason. It is easy for a 'hack' to chew up .3 mils of paint with a wool pad and a compound because he doesn't know better. Use a blow torch to light a cigarette kind of. Also I have done some pretty aggressive polishing, including wetsanding, cutting the paint, then polishing it for hours and hours on end, and still not removed .2 mils. If you use common sense or higher a professional detailer who is truely good, then the paint can be polished many many many times with no worries.
Wow, the paint looks terrible. I find your conclusion that this is the factories fault a bit "superficial". You don't exactly know what happens on the way over there. Fact is someone screwed it up... Bad! Are American Ferrari's also delivered in a "bag" (see photo 1 and 2)? That is where my Scud got scratches from. What I do believe is that the thickness (also quality?) of the paint isn't the same throughout the whole car. See photo 3 below (this is the door handle of the Scud). Has nothing to do with quality of the paint, but with a sleepy painter AND controller (and if the door handle is put on AFTER painting also a sleepy assembler). Very nice result tropicaldetail! Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login