Swirls in my brand new Corvette and I haven't even picked it up yet?

[James M Barker]

Swirls in my brand new Corvette and I haven't even picked it up yet!


My Corvette in Victory Red was buffed by the dealer because it had hard water stains or acid rain that would not come out when they prepped the car for delivery. Even the door glass has swirl marks from the buffer when viewed in direct sunlight. How bad a problem is this, the deal was set but I have not picked the car up?

[Newport Viper]

Re: New Corvette

If the paper isn't signed, run away. Post pics.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: New Corvette

Turn down the car.

The factory clear coat is thin. What they have done is removed one type of defect and replaced it with another type of defect. Removing the first defect has removed a measure of clear coat paint. Removing the swirls they instilled will remove even more clear coat paint.

You did not pay for a Corvette with clear coat paint removed for no fault of your own. All of the UV protection for the basecoat, (the color coat), is in the clear coat. The more clear coat that is removed, the less UV protection to protect the basecoat over the life of the car. The more clear coat paint removed, the less film-build for you or someone else to work with in the future, for example a bird dropping lands on your hood and leaves an etching, you need enough film-build, or clear coat thickness on the hood to be able to remove the bird dropping etching and not go through the clear coat into the basecoat and still have enough clear coat film in that are again... to last over the service life of the car.

Here's the kicker...

If they didn't know how to remove the water spot etchings without instilling swirls the first time they worked on the car, they certainly don't know how to do it now. Likely they will try to do the same thing they did the first time, but this time do it better and this time they'll make sure they really do a good job of applying some type of glaze or wax to fill the swirls in long enough for you to take delivery of the car.

Flat out reject it and order a new Corvette and as a lesson to everyone involved, tell them "Do Not Touch The Corvette" after it is taken off the trailer. Don't even remove the safety plastic on the paint, tell them you'll do all of that.

This is the only way you can insure a swirl-free car from the factory, that is don't let anyone touch it except for you. Then spend some time reading here on MOL and we'll help you learn how to properly touch your car's paint.

How's that?

Print this out and show the Dealership Sales Rep. Your story is just another Dealership Horror Story posted to this forum and all detailing discussion forum. Consumers and Enthusiasts are tired of the dealerships getting a pass on swirling out perfectly good paint because they don't place any value or importance on their detailing department or you the customer that cares about how their car looks.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: New Corvette

My Corvette in Victory Red was buffed by the dealer because it had hard water stains or acid rain that would not come out when they prepped the car for delivery.

Read about the two types of water spots here, sounds like this car had Type II

How To Remove Water Spots off Automotive Paints

Here's a close-up of what a water spot etching looks like, notice the sides of the spot, see how the clear coat paint has an angle to it? This signifies the depth of the water spot.

Even the door glass has swirl marks from the buffer when viewed in direct sunlight. How bad a problem is this, the deal was set but I have not picked the car up?

Hopefully the swirls you see on the glass are just that, on the glass, as in a film that will wipe off. If the swirls are actually --> in <-- the glass, that's a real bad indicator. This would mean the abrasive compound they used to remove the water spots in the paint is so aggressive that it's able to scratch glass. If this is the case, it would indicate at least to us, that they have removed a lot of clear coat paint because anything aggressive enough to scratch glass is very sharp and hard and will have cut into the paint quickly and deeply.

But this should be their problem, not yours.

Read about what it means to remove a scratch here.

What it means to remove a scratch out of anything...

[Mike Phillips]

Re: New Corvette

Just to note, the problem can probably be fixed, just like this,

Before


After



The issue is paying for a brand new car with an unknown amount of the factory baked-on clear coat missing. A potential solution would be to have the Dealership re-paint the car, but not by them, but instead by a custom car painter with a stellar reputation for doing 5 Star work, including the wet-sanding, cutting and buffing step so you don't end up with swirl in the new paint job.


Here's a brand new paint job from a good body shop only to be swirled out during the buffing step.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: New Corvette

Just curious...

Have you posted this dilemma on any other discussion forum? If so what kind of advice are you getting from these other forums?

[Mike Phillips]

Re: New Corvette

Almost forgot... since this is your first post to our forum...

Welcome to Meguiar's Online!

We'll give you the "List 'O Links Later"

[Mike Phillips]

Re: New Corvette

5 posts in less than 15 minutes and we haven't even had our coffee yet...

[James M Barker]

Re: New Corvette

Your the only one, I felt you were the best

[RDVT4ME]

Re: New Corvette

Order a new Vette and pick it up at the factory. It's in Bowling Green Kentucky. Select option R8C, that's museum delivery. That's how I got mine and it's a great way to get a vette. Fresh from the factory. Plus museum delivery vettes get extra quality control checks. If it's not right, they fix it. My wife and I picked up our vette in bowling green and made a vacation trip out of driving back to So Cal. It was great!

[Mike Phillips]

Re: New Corvette

Order a new Vette and pick it up at the factory. It's in Bowling Green Kentucky. Select option R8C, that's museum delivery.

Thanks for sharing this tidbit of great information Bob, maybe someday we'll be able to use it personally.

[Detaillab]

Re: New Corvette

Flat out reject it and order a new Corvette and as a lesson to everyone involved, tell them "Do Not Touch The Corvette" after it is taken off the trailer. Don't even remove the safety plastic on the paint, tell them you'll do all of that.

This is the only way you can insure a swirl-free car from the factory, that is don't let anyone touch it except for you. Then spend some time reading here on MOL and we'll help you learn how to properly touch your car's paint.

I would be interested to know the best way to remove safety plastic and prep a car yourself. Are there some things to watch out for?

[Lucky161]

Re: Swirls in my brand new Corvette and I haven't even picked it up yet?

Sounds like a perfect example of "a little knowledge" being dangerous. It appears to me that the dealer was "trying to do the right thing" but just didn't know how to do the "right thing" the right way.
That's why I am pouring over as many posts on this board as possible. I want as much expert information, as many opinions, both for and against before I attempt to do something where I may cause more harm than good.

Note to Mike: I've also gone to several other boards too. This one is the one that I find to be the busiest (that is most posts and most number of people), has the most how tos and the most where to get. It is my opiion that other sites while being good aspire to be as good as this one.

[glucosegrin]

Re: Swirls in my brand new Corvette and I haven't even picked it up yet?

I don't have experience with Corvettes, but on a Nissan that we want perfect, and want to pay extra attention to, we

1. Wash the car with the PGF (paint guard film, safety plastic) still on. Some really nasty stuff can fall on the car during shipping, and you want to protect the paint under the PGF as much as possible before removing it.

2. Pull the PGF off on a warm day, in the shade. If it's too cold, the wax/glue that holds it on will stick to the paint, and the PGF will break. If it's in direct sunlight, the PGF tends to stretch.

3. Remove the glue lines. The edge of the PGF will have collected dirt, and the sticky stuff will stay on the paint, so it can look like the paint is scratched all along the edge of the PGF. I use body solvent to take the glue lines off because it's the fastest, but there might be something gentler that will work as good. The adhesive isn't very sticky, it's waxy and it smears and can be rubbed off without a chemical, but because it holds dirt, I use a solvent to keep it from scratching.

4. There may be paint dots and inspection stickers on the glass and wheels like on Nissans, but I'm not sure, as well as "chalk" numbers on the tires and where the license plate should be. Anything on the glass can be scraped off with a NEW CLEAN razor blade, unless you want it to stay there, the paint dots on the wheels can be scraped with a plastic razor, chalk scrubs off of the tires, and can be soaked off of the license plate area, but it takes a long time.

5. Under the hood and under the dash we have "assembly tape", bits of torn masking tape and pvc tape that was used to hold stuff together and then cut during build. Pull all that off before it decides to make itself permanent.

For a Corvette, I would go for the museum delivery. We sometimes get vehicles that were damaged and repaired during shipping without our knowledge, only to find fisheyed paint and misaligned body panels during the PDI or delivery clean. Take the transporters and the dealership out of the picture, and you'll end up with a better car

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Swirls in my brand new Corvette and I haven't even picked it up yet?

***Bump***