Getting rid of orange peel

[whiteWRX]

Hi,

Just tried searching with not much luck. Looking for a way to get rid of orange peel without color-sanding.



Is this possible with a rotary?



What products would you suggest?

[David Fermani]

It`s impossible to remove orange peel *properly* unless you sand it away. Grinding it down with a buffer/compound is a bad idea. It won`t allow you to reduce it evenly and will create more damage than good. Also, on a factory appied finish, when you remove a decent level of OP, you`ll most likely be destroying the clear`s UV protection & weaken the durability/longenvity too.

[whiteWRX]

Thanks for the reply. This is pretty much what I expected to hear.

I am just shocked at how many new cars come the factory with orange peel.

[bwalker25]

why is there orange peel to begin with? shouldn`t the car manufacturers fix this if the customer asks?

[itb76]

It`s there partly because of new, environmentally better painting techniques, but mainly because customers accept it.

[mhadden]

Sometimes I wonder if the way OEM`s are spraying cars now (with that static charge application) is making the peel worse...the peel is why I try to buy vehicles with lots-o-flake to hide it :D

[pharmboyrx]

Metal flakes FTW!



Seriously though. If I were buying a new car and upon delivery pointed out the orange peel and stated it was unacceptable, what would be the odds of them actually fixing it?

[evilWagon]

Zilch likely, it would cost them almost as much as they made off your sale.



To the op; even if it wasn`t in your name I would have guessed it was a subaru, I`ve got a black 07 and it`s pretty bad.

[imported_Dave1]

Metal flakes FTW!



Seriously though. If I were buying a new car and upon delivery pointed out the orange peel and stated it was unacceptable, what would be the odds of them actually fixing it?



Pretty close to zero....



And I wonder how many would want them to attempt to wet sand the entire car after a purchase.....?

[pharmboyrx]

I have orange peel on my car, but its a 15k Mazda3. If I bought a car over 30k, I`d be really PO`ed if I got a car with orange peel.

[budman3]

Well OP is supposidly on new cars to prolong the durability of the paint. Paint with OP on it is somehow more durable and will last longer compared to a flat layer, non OP paint ... I`m no painter so I don`t know the truth to this but it has been stated several times here and there.

[evilWagon]

Budman, you`re right in a round about way, there is a coating that looks like op that they put on the lower portion of some new vehicles that coating itself is more durable.

[Joseph K]

Well OP is supposidly on new cars to prolong the durability of the paint. Paint with OP on it is somehow more durable and will last longer compared to a flat layer, non OP paint ... I`m no painter so I don`t know the truth to this but it has been stated several times here and there.



Don`t see how there could be any truth to that... it`s just wrinkling in the clear coat. There`s no way that makes it stronger...

[Accumulator]

Seems like all our b/c cars have OP, and our most expensive ones (Audi A8 & S8) are pretty bad, despite the factory`s fancy robotic paintguns. For that matter the RX-7 has awful OP too, and it`s single-stage.



As the only way to fix it is to wetsand (no thinned clear thank you!) or reshoot (no way some cars like the Audis are gonna turn out as nice as factory, at least not overall), I don`t see a fix in many cases :nixweiss If it`s a car that *can* be disassembled for a proper repaint, then sure, spring for a nice $10K paintjob and you should end up without any OP; I just might do that on the M3 if I keep it.

[David Fermani]

Yeah, I find it interesting why alot of manufacturers use chipguard on the rocker panels of vehicles to make them more durable. Basically this is no more than heavy orange peel. Just another reason why I think orange peel is there for durability.