Amen! They are high maintenance. Orange peel is common with all new car paint jobs. If you wanted show quality paint, that would've added another $10,000 to the cost of the car. Color and wet sanding are very labor intensive.

 

Isnt this a BRAND NEW car?

 

You are right, which is why I like hand washing my vehicles. Its the only way to really "get to know them". I'm very pleased that the finish on my '06 is about the best factory job I've ever seen.

If the area with the orange peel isn't too large, and you can get your hands on a buffing machine, you can fix it yourself. Of course, I'd try and get the dealer to fix it first, but if all attempts to get them to fix fail, then you might consider trying this.

You'll need the following items:
600 Grit Wet/Dry sandpaper (stick with 3m brand)
1200 Grit Wet/Dry sandpaper
1500 Grit Wet/Dry sandpaper
Micropolish (something from 3m preferable, NAPA carries it)
Polishing machine
Optional:
Orbital Polisher
Swirlmark eliminator (3m, also available at NAPA)

First, carefully wet sand the area with 600 grit paper. Be gentle. All you need to do is cut the surface to remove the bumps. Next wet sand in one direction with 1200 grit (mentally decide on something like "east/west"), follow that up with wet sanding across that (north/south) using 1500 grit paper. Yes, all this sanding is scary at first. But this is roughly the same procedure a body will use to get it looking smooth.

After thouroughly shaking the micropolish, liberaly dump some on the area you are working on, but don't work an area larger than one square foot. Using the poliching machine, make gentle circles as you work the polish. NEVER stop in place, always keep it moving. There is no need to apply presure, the weight of the machine is sufficient. Also make sure the pad is moving at a high speed. Its actually melting the surface of the clear coat, so a slow speed won't be as effective. This is a VERY messy step, it splaters polish everywhere. Wear old clothes, goggles, and make sure that no one is standing nearby while you're doing it. When you're done with this step, you can either wax, or apply Swirl Mark eliminator using the obital polisher.

I've done this a lot to fix orange peel on cars I've painted, to fix bad scuff marks, and even light scratches.

 

Thanks for the tips guys.

After hearing about all this, I don't think i'm going to be wet sanding the car. The paint isn't in bad enough shape for me to risk ruining what i DO have...

when i go into the dealer for my fobs/programming, I'll ask them if they can try and take off the hard water streak.

Thanks

Sunbound

 

Good decission... there are some paint shop that will tell you that the process is risky and won t polish with a buffer because of the possible damage a high speed buffer can do.