Paint Quality Issues

I had my car #103 detailed and whilst it looked great to me before the treatment it had many minor blemishes consistent with other marques. In fact the detailer told me it was far better than ferraris, Aston Martins etc... Fact is that any decent detailer will find faults with a factory finish which is (even on a supercar) completed in a very limited time and to a minimal budget.

I thought the paint was quite good. Of course, these guys want to sell you paint correction.

You should look at the car FIRST. These detailers use special lights and a very keen eye to spot these issues, that to me are minor.

My car isnt perfect but it is very good, IMO.

I took delivery of my car and must say the paint was a dissapointment, maybe made worse as my car is Carbon Black but is covered in spiders web and holograms. But credit where it is due Mclaren London agreed to correct the deffects, some may say they should not have been there in the first place, and I agree, but hey as long as its sorted i'm OK with it.
Get in touch with your dealer and tell them if you are not happy , they are not mind readers i my experience they will listen and help, quite novel for a main dealer

Squirrel said:

I had my car #103 detailed and whilst it looked great to me before the treatment it had many minor blemishes consistent with other marques. In fact the detailer told me it was far better than ferraris, Aston Martins etc... Fact is that any decent detailer will find faults with a factory finish which is (even on a supercar) completed in a very limited time and to a minimal budget.

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Same here- my dealer found many minor blemishes but said overall it was good for an exotic. Never thought to ask the dealer to reimburse the detailing cost, but not a bad idea if you really are not pleased. I would advise going to see the car or at least having the detailer send you pics of the imperfections. Seeing in person is better, because if the car is like mine you will notice that you can't see many of the blemishes unless you shine a bright light directly on them. As I said in my detailing post, most owners will never see them and never be concerned at all.

I actually just noticed a pretty serious paint flaw yesterday - at the crease of the driver side rear window, there is significant creasing in the paint, up to ~1.5mm. I'm taking it to the dealer to address AC issues, will have them look at that as well.

HyperMac954 said:

I actually just noticed a pretty serious paint flaw yesterday - at the crease of the driver side rear window, there is significant creasing in the paint, up to ~1.5mm. I'm taking it to the dealer to address AC issues, will have them look at that as well.

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What are they doing with your AC?

the paint quality is pretty bad. i've noticed quite a few problems on all the cars i've seen. mine is no exception. i'm having my detail guy to go over it this Sat even though i won't be able to get it clear bra-ed until the 19th. i just can't stand it.

I must be lucky or something. My MO paint looks great and there are no chips (knock wood).

HyperMac954 said:

I actually just noticed a pretty serious paint flaw yesterday - at the crease of the driver side rear window, there is significant creasing in the paint, up to ~1.5mm. I'm taking it to the dealer to address AC issues, will have them look at that as well.

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I have had the same issue with one of the doors but not the other - going in next week....

I was looking at 3 Bentley coupes last week, all parked by each other, and the pant was finish was perfect. Made me realise Mac have some way to go.

How about your Bentley Andy?

I was generally happy with the paint finish on mine even before getting it detailed and never considered looking to recover any of the detailing and minor paint correction cost.

Having said that it did come back looking significantly better still after detailing, but I would agree with the comment that detailers will always look to highlight imperfections which are barely visible in normal light. Overall, I would say the factory paint finish was better than the recent F cars I have owned.

More of an issue for me is the panel fit on a few areas - primarily the roof edge 'ribs' being misaligned where they join the A pillars / rear buttresses on one side of the car and poor fit of the small panels in the door shut area just below and in front of the leading edge of the turning vanes.

that sucks! They either fitted the molding too soon, or had to go back an re-paint the panel and those flaws are all masking-related?
Soon as I get back from this trip I'll go over my car with a fine tooth comb!

Very happy with the car paint job. Better than my Ferrari.

Mclaren are very supportive if paint defects are present. My dealer spotted a tiny defect and the car will be resprayed, no quibble. Disappointing, yes, but it is early days and should not happen at 8 to 10 cars a day. Main thing is Mclaren are supportive.

Mine is the same spot, but one side is significantly worse than that. I'll take pics tomorrow.

Having checked after seeing these posts I have noticed that my car has the same paint fault at the back of the driver's side rear quarterlight, although the passenger side is fine, so I am assuming it must be an occasinal consequence of McLaren's assembly method.

Having said that, it is not particularly noticable (in the case of my car at least) and the most I may consider asking my dealer to look at later is to remove the quarterlight and flat off the small paint fold which is visible itself, rather than undertake any respraying work, as I think this is one of those issues where the 'cure' could prove to be worse than the 'symptom'.

Mines Mclaren Orange and had it detailed before I collected - overall finish is superb but under certain lights in the Garage for example there is too much orange peel effect particularly on the air brake.

Panel gaps are good apart from the doors where the gap just seems too big from the 3/4 rear view you see 'into' the gap between the door and rear panel that makes the gap look bigger - most modern cars don't have a full gap but use an overlapping panel that is offset behind so you don't look into a hole.
Compare an Audi with a Mclaren and the panel gap on the Mclaren looks like it was built in the 80's.

20C4S said:

HyperMac,
do u mean where the paint meets the molding?

i have the same problem on the passenger side & i think it's worse than urs because it's bigger than 1.5mm, much bigger. besides other minor issues i noticed, this is just unacceptable. clearly someone installed the molding when the paint was still fresh. and frankly no one caught the problem before it came out of the production line. it's very noticeable from distance. i'm gonna ask the dealer what will be my option. looks like if i get a new molding that comes out a little would hide the problem...

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I have the same problem and when i went to the MTC a couple of weeks ago i showed a picture to Alan Foster the factory manager.He did say it was an issue that they knew about and would have to be sorted as they had a fix for it.! But it looks like its a big issue if alot of cars have this problem.
Ps its nothing to do with the molding being put on when the paint was fresh,its some kind of chemical reaction i think they said.