How good is the spray job on a high end car?

[Thankyou4calling]

Is the factory finish on a £100k Mercedes better than that on an A class ? Is it better than say an insignia ? If so why. And can a low volume manufacturer, like Aston Martin, paint a car as well as Audi with their enormous resources?

Edited by Thankyou4calling on Thursday 15th May 22:22

[J4CKO]

Have seen a few posh German things where the paint looked like it was rollered on, Merc ML being the most recent, very Orange Peely, black cars seem to fare worst, my boss had a 520D and was very proud of it, I was astounded how bad the paint was for a 30 odd grand car.

The Japanese seem to do a good paint job.

[SnailTrail]

They are probably painted the exact same way, by the exact same robots, I'd imagine.

[BOBTEE]

I should imagine Aston spend more time polishing the paint after it's been sprayed on to rid it of orange peel. My Kuga has a fair amount of orange peel but if I could be arsed to flat and polish it, it could look like as good as anything else.

[b0rk]

Thankyou4calling said:

Is the factory finish on a £100k Mercedes better than that on an A class ? Is it better than say an insignia ? If so why. And can a low volume manufacturer, like Aston Martin, paint a car as well as Audi with their enormous resources?

The volume manufacturers won't paint a car "better" just more efficiently be that increased use of robots and/or less machine polishing. The low volume producers will be doing far more hand spraying and hand polishing/finishing/refinishing.

In terms of finish and/or paint application quality the difference will really be in comparing the high volume mainstream producers against the mid volume mainstream producers where the margin isn't available for extensive hand painting and finishing but where the R&D budget also isn't available for high level complex automation.

[jamoor]

I believe bentleys are painted by hand?

[Tony Starks]

You just have to watch a few videos from KDS to know that high end is as good as low end.

[J4CKO]

The paint on all three of mine is prett good, Ford, Citroen and Nissan, cant understand how BMW and Mercedes get it wrong like that ? to be fair the cars I have noticed it on were black, perhaps a harder colour to get right or it shows up more ?

[L1OFF]

SnailTrail said:

They are probably painted the exact same way, by the exact same robots, I'd imagine.

This is correct. I used to design \ install them for Durr Robotics supplied Ford, Aston, Jaguar, Land Rover Etc.

The only difference I ever saw was Ford Transits (Metalic Colours) were hand sprayed

[confused_buyer]

The paint/smart repair chap I use reckons the highest quality is on the Lexus LS430 out of cars he sees. (Note: LS only, not Lexus in general).