I recently wrote to them about the quality of paint on my Z.
Has anyone else written to them? or was it even worth my time?

 

What is wrong with the paint quality on this non-exotic car?

 

Well, the three cars I've seen up close all have fairly bad orange peel. On the other hand, the G35Cs I've seen haven't had orange peel. That says to me Nissan has a problem with a plant.

 

According to many many posts on his forum and a little research I've done myself, orange peel is normal. If you haven't seen it on the G35, you probably have not looked close enough.

 

I have an SS Track, VIN 4296, with absolutely no orange peel. The paint is immaculate. Maybe Nissan is improving the paint process?

 

I've got black GM cars without ANY orange peel from the factory.

The Z's I saw had it to varying degrees, and they were silvers and grays. Blacks are much easier to see it on.

The black and blue Infinitis didn't have it. The black I even inspected inside under flourescents, which is the easiest place to see paint imperfections.

Sorry, it isn't "normal" for the car world at large to be as bad as the Z's I've seen affected with it. All probably don't have it, and the ones I saw were earlier production. It may have been fixed by now. Dunno.

 

G35cs do have orange peel. I saw a black one that was about 60 percent orange peel.. bad stuff

 

Well, not all of them I saw four this weekend, and specifically looked for it on a black one, and kinda looked for it on the two blue ones (they were outside). The white one, I figured I couldn't see if it was there.

Maybe I saw a good batch.

 

yeah, it seems to effect every color with great variance. If it was just a problem with one color, it'd be a simple thing to avoid..

 

Many of you are missing the entire point.

www.nissanpaint.com was organized to protest the incredible degree of early paint chipping on the 5th generation Maxima. Orange peeling is a relatively minor issue compared to what 350Z owners with Super Black, Brickyard, Daytona Blue, Redline and Lemans Sunset are going to experience over the next few months.

If you haven't used a 3M paint protection film on the front end of your 350Z within the first 6 months, you're in for a very unpleasant surprise.

Sorry, 30 coats of Zaino aren't going to save you.

2001 Maxima GLE:

 

Beleive it or not, every car made and imported into the U.S except for Ferrari and Jaguar have orange peel from the factory. Other exotics could easily be included in there too. To get rid of orange peel is a very long and tedious process. Body shops have a hard enough time as it is to get rid of it. Even though it might not be apparant, orange peel is found on almost all cars. You have to look at the car in the right angle. I have a Camaro, and before I gave it a couple coats of Zaino, I couldn't see any orange peel. Now, its clear as day when you look at it in the correct angle.

If you need to know how I know all of this, i'll tell you. A very close friend of my family owns a body shop. I've discussed this topic with him many times, especially when he was painting his corvette to restore it. They were prepping the body for 2 weeks just for paint, and there was still a bit of orange peel. I'm not sayig that i'm an expert, but I definately know about this.
Hope this helps you out some.

JJ

 

The 350Z and G35 (sedan & coupe) are built on the same assembly lines.

My 350 has orange peel. My 300 has orange peel. My g/f's Cougar has orange peel. My mother's ES300 has orange peel. My father's LS400 has orange peel. Hell, I'll be sure and check if my buddy's 993 Turbo has orange peel.

Michael.

 

I am so sick of hearing about oarnge peel. Every freakin car has it enough already!!!! My chromesilver has very little and it has far less than my brand new Saturn VUE SUV which I think has an excellent fire engine red paint. The only car I have seen that has a flawless paint job is a new Lambo which was hand painted.

 

Yeah. Nissan paint is really soft. I can't even look at my superblack maxima anymore up close without getting pissed off. On the other hand, my girlfriends 94' mx-6 only has a couple of rock chips...


maybe due to environmental restrictions, newer car paints are softer...

 

Ohio,

I am sorry to hear that you don't care to discuss this topic, but for some of us this is a major issue. The orange peel on the rear bumper of my car is so drastic, it can actually be felt. Not to mention, the bumper has varying degrees of shine. I have clay-bared and Zaino'ed the car to no avail.

Instead of expressing your frustration with the subject, maybe you could just skip on to the next discussion.

As to the main point of www.nissanpaint.com, several of the local members can attest to my frustration with this subject matter. My car was pelted with rocks from road construction, less than a week after delivery, on my way to a Z meeting. Needless to say, I have a fair number of paint chips due to this. The thing that seems strange to me about the "chips" is that most of them aren't chips, they are indentations. If you have ever pushed almost dry paint, the effect on my car is similar to that.

My dealership has requested a Paint Inspector come out. I need to check on the status, because it has been a while since they requested the Inspector come out.

JD

(Sorry for the long post)

 

Soft paint is bad. I'm glad I got the 3M stuff put on. But is Nissan really a lot worse than others? My other car (SLK230) has lots of stone chips on the front, too (from normal use, not driven on gravel roads!)

Also, re orange peel: I just noticed my friend's Porsche Boxster has it too!

 

Well i dont have any orange peel on my car but i do have 3 chips in my paint. I have only had the car for 1 month driven less than 1k mi and never taken it about 4k rpms or 65mph. My main concern is that in one year from now the hood of my car is going to look like it has a bad case of dandruff.

i have purchased a new 325, miata, accord, and g20 in the past 10 years and none of them chipped as easily as my Z.

but i figure after one year and 20 chips later i'll just repaint my car jet black.

 

Ha, you should see paint come of an S2000. It's almost like a solid sheet of plastic.