Attention new and future v12vs owners

[paddy328]

Just a word of warning for owners of the v12s who have gone for the black roof and tail gate. The paint tends to be softer than normal and being a flat black, it will show up any mark very clearly when its in the sun or under lights. The trouble is, I think all will need to be properly machine polished before it looks how it should do. These pics show what I mean. Its covered with buffer trails, sanding patches and general swirls and scratches. I think this will be the case with almost every car.








And after lots and lots of polishing, it now looks like this






There was also a china grey v12s in the showroom too which has just been sold(love that colour). Feel free to give me a call lol.

Francis

[AdamV12V]

Is it actually paint then? I thought the roof and rear panels were decals?

[paddy328]

nope, def paint. Ive told the guys at the dealership to be careful.

[Jon39]

One would expect that a brand new car should be better than this.
After all, we are not talking Dacia Something.

Have you detailed a V12 Zagato yet Paddy?
I think AML claim the paint takes 100 hours on that car, so presumably perfect.

[mikey k]

It will be paint
Robotic paint process for the whole car then in to the manual booths for the roof and rear
Gaydon QC strikes again

[sukh_m]

mikey k said:

Gaydon QC strikes again

At least it keeps paddy in a job

[paddy328]

Jon, as you can imagine, I detail many new and nearly new astons and it's a common theme I'm afraid.

I don't imagine the zagato will be any different to any other Aston. I do know they are painted by the guys that do the special colours like morning frost etc though. Hell, even the one-77 had defects in the paint. No car is safe from there. I just wanted to highlight the black buts in the v12s as I can see this being a real issue.

[mikey k]

paddy328 said:

Jon, as you can imagine, I detail many new and nearly new astons and it's a common theme I'm afraid.

I don't imagine the zagato will be any different to any other Aston. I do know they are painted by the guys that do the special colours like morning frost etc though. Hell, even the one-77 had defects in the paint. No car is safe from there. I just wanted to highlight the black buts in the v12s as I can see this being a real issue.

My understanding is all specials (Zagota's CC100, 1-77 etc), special order colours and "flip" colours (Lightening Silver etc) are painted by hand as the robotic system cannot deal with them.
It seems the paint process is actually good its just the finishing that is rushed and not finished properly
The darker colours seem to suffer worst.

[paddy328]

I've actually found the opposite. I think white cars tend to have the greater amount of sanding marks etc. Though to be fair, it all depends on what they can be bothered to do on that particular day.

[bogie]

I guess theres a limited amount of time for polishing during the production process and they just get them as good as they can within the time limit....no matter how long is spent painting, if its not polished correctly its a bit of a waste of effort

If Aston are an ISO certified company one would think this issue would have been picked up by now and corrected, even if it adds 2 hours per car....

or is it the supplying dealers job to remove protective plastic off panels and polish the car ? are the dealers putting the swirls in with poor cleaning technique in the showrooms?

...from what Ive seen, with a lad wandering around showrooms with yellow dusters cleaning cars, it could easily be the latter ...you only need to wash/polish the car incorrectly once and it will be swirled up

[mikey k]

bogie said:

I guess theres a limited amount of time for polishing during the production process and they just get them as good as they can within the time limit....no matter how long is spent painting, if its not polished correctly its a bit of a waste of effort

If Aston are an ISO certified company one would think this issue would have been picked up by now and corrected, even if it adds 2 hours per car....

or is it the supplying dealers job to remove protective plastic off panels and polish the car ? are the dealers putting the swirls in with poor cleaning technique in the showrooms?

...from what Ive seen, with a lad wandering around showrooms with yellow dusters cleaning cars, it could easily be the latter ...you only need to wash/polish the car incorrectly once and it will be swirled up

It's part of the QC procedure at the factory
The dealers do sometimes machine polish at PDC but it is rare
I asked them to do nothing to the paint work at PDC on mine
I was luck the paint was good but there was st loads of sanding and polishing debris all over it.

[Jon1967x]

Its not just the v12vs... although I will check they didn't accidently give me a v12! Dealer had mine back for 3 days and it came back much more as I'd expect - probably not up to the standards that can be achieved but acceptable in my opinion. Black is also prone to show these marks much more than other colours.

As for ISO standards etc.. in my experience they measure the repeatability and control of the process not how good the process is.. so all they really mean is that all cars should be delivered with swirl marks not that the swirl marks shouldn't be there.

[mikey k]

Jon1967x said:

As for ISO standards etc.. in my experience they measure the repeatability and control of the process not how good the process is.. so all they really mean is that all cars should be delivered with swirl marks not that the swirl marks shouldn't be there.

good point

[petesv8v]

'Jon1967x said:
As for ISO standards etc.. in my experience they measure the repeatability and control of the process not how good the process is.. so all they really mean is that all cars should be delivered with swirl marks not that the swirl marks shouldn't be there.'

I recall the visit of a BSI inspector to carry out our yearly audit on our ISO 9001/2 and came out with the classic remark ' Its not a matter of whether your company makes bottomless dustbins its the process to make those dustbins that were interested in'.

[Laser Sag]

Does seem a bit weird that, in theory, if you want to you can make a poor product and so long as you do it with consistency in the processes you can get ISO standards for it.

Does also seem a shame that Aston Martin seem content to provide a costly product at what is an unacceptable standard.

Perhaps Paddy has a relative who works in QC to ensure continued work for himself.

[bogie]

that makes sense then in a bizarre sort of way . All the QA process does is measure process compliance not whether the product is any good

From another point of view, it wouldnt take much to correct this kind of thing, but then Paddy and other detailers would be out of a job if manufacturers delivered new cars with perfect paint like one would expect

I picked up a few year old Range Rover Sport from Farnell in Leeds just over 12 months ago. It was absolutely faultless at handover. Looked like a pro had spent a lot of time on it so I passed on the positive feedback. Not a swirl in sight on a black car...

Appears that they have a resident or contracted valeter/detailer who does get so many hours per car to prep them before handover. New or used cars get the same time spent. Depending on the state the car comes in, he will do the best job he can in time given.

I was lucky in that the car I was buying was well looked after anyway, so a few hours later after a wash and quick machine polish it was swirl free and better than new

for the sake of a couple of hundred quid, when you buy your new £100k+ vehicle, it would be nice if the dealers had it prepped to a high standard....wouldnt it ?

[AdamV12V]

Assuming you mean ISO9000 when you say ISO, this doesn't in itself guarantee a quality product.

All ISO9000 does is ensures that you have a quality management process - in effect that you have a defined set of processes and procedures, and that you audit and therefore stick to them. There is nothing in IS09000 that stops you setting a low quality measure in a given process (in this case paint finish). Providing that you stick to your process and policy then you will pass your external ISO surveillance audits

[paddy328]

As has already been mentioned, black cars suffer more than then rest in terms of swirls, but white cars suffer more from sanding patches, which were left from the factory. Of all the colours, I would say lightning silver hides the most sins. Even if the car was perfect when it left the factory, it would still end up with swirls by the time it reaches the showroom. The reason for this thread was to highlight the buffer trails and sanding marks in the black paint on the v12s, which was much worse than the norm, not so much the general swirls you normally expect.

And no, ive not got anyone on the inside making the paint look bad.

[Laser Sag]

paddy328 said:

And no, ive not got anyone on the inside making the paint look bad.

I would have suggested it was an idea to get someone in there Paddy but it doesn't sound as if you need to go to the bother

[KarlFranz]

bogie said:

for the sake of a couple of hundred quid, when you buy your new £100k+ vehicle, it would be nice if the dealers had it prepped to a high standard....wouldnt it ?

My dealer has their own "paddy" on call who spends an entire day or more paint-correcting every single new black car they get from the factory before it is put in the showroom.