Newish DB9 Owner and a newbie question
Discussion
This is nothing new I’m afraid. Dealers (even main dealers) will do All sorts of things to make the car “look” presentable to the new owner. Everything from smart repairs, proper resprays, colour polish, putting the car away from certain types of lights. What’s not acceptable is when they paint things like the sills and laquer over the stone chip film on side!
It’s an Aston at the end of the day though and new or old, the car will need lots of polishing to make it look how you imagine a new/high end car should look. Certain colours show the marks more than others and some paint colours are softer than others too and a nightmare to live with (hello storm black owners....)
Aston paint as a whole isn’t that hard and should be carefully washed and looked after. The exception to the rule can be some of the special order colours where I’ve found them to be rock hard. Presumably, they use a different paint/clearcoat to the rest.
Moral of the story is that you should buy the car you really want and expect a few niggles if it’s second hand. The dealer is there to get your money and that’s it. If you have issues with the car, take it up with them and failing that, write to the DP. If that doesn’t work, write to Andy Palmer.
The detailer will also tell you what’s wrong if they think you should know, so don’t be surprised. By that, personally, if I think there is something on the car that I notice and would possibly take some of the sparkle out of owning the car, I wouldn’t tell them, or depending on the defect, I would say to let me know if the car is going to have any paintwork and if the defect is in that area, then I would let them know. For many people, ignorance is bliss and many people have told me that they don’t want to know if tell them I’ve found something. Shoddy work or something that’s just not on, especially on a new car would be flagged up straight away. I’ve spotted things on new cars and have informed the main dealer that I’m working at and you normally get “oh, that’s just Aston’s for you”.
On a plus side Ferrari’s are much worse and Mclaren aren’t far behind. It’s a joke how bad some of these cars are sometimes.
It’s an Aston at the end of the day though and new or old, the car will need lots of polishing to make it look how you imagine a new/high end car should look. Certain colours show the marks more than others and some paint colours are softer than others too and a nightmare to live with (hello storm black owners....)
Aston paint as a whole isn’t that hard and should be carefully washed and looked after. The exception to the rule can be some of the special order colours where I’ve found them to be rock hard. Presumably, they use a different paint/clearcoat to the rest.
Moral of the story is that you should buy the car you really want and expect a few niggles if it’s second hand. The dealer is there to get your money and that’s it. If you have issues with the car, take it up with them and failing that, write to the DP. If that doesn’t work, write to Andy Palmer.
The detailer will also tell you what’s wrong if they think you should know, so don’t be surprised. By that, personally, if I think there is something on the car that I notice and would possibly take some of the sparkle out of owning the car, I wouldn’t tell them, or depending on the defect, I would say to let me know if the car is going to have any paintwork and if the defect is in that area, then I would let them know. For many people, ignorance is bliss and many people have told me that they don’t want to know if tell them I’ve found something. Shoddy work or something that’s just not on, especially on a new car would be flagged up straight away. I’ve spotted things on new cars and have informed the main dealer that I’m working at and you normally get “oh, that’s just Aston’s for you”.
On a plus side Ferrari’s are much worse and Mclaren aren’t far behind. It’s a joke how bad some of these cars are sometimes.
Thanks for your post. Very interesting. When I went to collect the car I had a thorough look around it and the paintwork was perfect. Had it ceramic coated a few days later which showed up the problems. Wrongly, I didnt ask for paint correction at the time of getting it coated as I had presumed it was part of the service. The paint is now sorted but I know it is going to be a labour of love, I think mine is that black colour you mentioned.
I thought the biggest issue with vehicle paint has been the change from oil to water based, but I dont know much about it tbh.
I thought the biggest issue with vehicle paint has been the change from oil to water based, but I dont know much about it tbh.
You should always get at least a single stage machine polish if the car is to be coated. The panel wipe before the coating went on might have removed the dealer polish that was hiding the nasty swirls etc.
If you put a light like the one you have on your phone in the paint, does it have red flake or another colour?
If you put a light like the one you have on your phone in the paint, does it have red flake or another colour?
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