Orange peel trouble

[godfearingman2011]

Re: Orange peel trouble

If I could get the dealership to wet sand and buff it out would keeping it waxed and everything keep the paint protected? Or nothing will help afterwards?

[learning curve]

Re: Orange peel trouble

When I first got my ’13 Accent I didn’t know what orange peel was. A month later do to road damage my bumper cover had to be replaced. And I complained that they did not match the texture. They said they couldn’t since the peel came from the factory and they painted the cover by hand. They made it too nice. Michael I really like your “therapy quote” it already has saved me some grief, thank you.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Orange peel trouble

Unfortunately, orange peel is the order of the day in modern factory paint jobs. But the rock guard areas are usually confined to rocker panels and other bottom-of-the-car areas. One of our co-workers here at Meguiar's recently purchased a 2014 Corolla as well, in metallic black, and while helping him buff out a few deeper scratches in the paint it was obvious that the car has fairly heavy orange peel, no doubt about it. But really, there isn't much of anything you can do about other than sand it flat, and then buff out the sanding marks. We are most definitely NOT recommending you do that, however, as it is fraught with danger. First off, your factory applied clear coat is only about 1.5 to 2.0 mils thick - that's a max of 2/1000 of an inch, which is as thin as it sounds. Sanding the texture flat, or even close to flat, would remove so much of that film thickness that you would seriously compromise the UV protection in the clear, with premature clear coat failure being the end result. Further, even if you did sand it flat you would need to be very well accomplished in the process as it's easy to cause much more pain than glory here. But even then, you need to be able to remove the sanding marks, which means some fairly aggressive buffing. That's easier today than it was just a few years ago since now, with microfiber pads and compounds like M105/M100/M101 we can often remove sanding marks with a DA and skip the rotary completely. But consider this: even if you did sand the peel flat, and you did compound out all the sanding marks, then what? You've removed so much clear coat that now you're basically done with the car for ever. Got a fresh scratch? Too bad - there is no longer enough clear left to allow safe removal of that scratch. Is the paint a bit on the soft side and you keep getting swirl marks? Too bad - you don't get to compound the car every year now because, you guessed it, there's hardly any clear coat left.

Yes, it's a bit of a Catch-22, but that's what we face with brand new cars these days. And we see similar heavy texture issues on all kinds of cars, not just Corollas. We see it on many domestic vehicles as well as both Japanese and European imports.

[godfearingman2011]

Hi I hope I'm not double posting but I have a black 2014 Corolla LE with severe orange peel and the dealership is saying that there's rock/chip guard in the paint itself causing the orange peel look that it's the texture of the paint. Is there anything I can do get rid of the what looks like orange peel to me without repainting the whole car and or voiding my paint warranty? Any help is greatly appreciated thanks for your help and advice in advance