Found the dick of the group...
I can probably get someone to go look at it.
Many times the cars are repaired at the port, so dealers are off the hook. Just ask man; tell them to investigate, and report back to you. If the answer is NO, then I'd definitely believe them. That's what I did when I bought a new Porsche in Cali 4 years ago (also sight unseen). By the way, since you're going to wrap the car with PPF, it's going to be less noticeable, so not a huge deal if it wasn't repainted. Good luck.
Everyone's situation is different. You do what works for you.
My life is not "on hold," but thanks. Like I said the COVID aspect was more an issue for my partner than myself, personally I don't see the point in worrying as long as you're taking the standard precautions like you listed. But we also know two acquaintances our age (mid 30's) and otherwise healthy who have gotten it and 1 had a stroke, the other heart failure and is dead, so I'm happy to respect her own wishes regarding it. But this isn't the topic at hand and doesn't matter.
Thanks so much! This is exactly the kind of help I was looking for and fascinating insight. I can see how two panels meeting at an angle would throw people off. Funny story I actually did some of the graphics for the Aviator ICE. I don't know if any of that wound up in the Navigator as well.
It's so odd to me because I can't understand the disconnect with respect to warranty claims. Some times it's the dealer (I believe just being lazy) denying the claim without actually submitting it to FOMOCO and other times we had to cover BS warranty claims. The two worst issues I ever had to deal with (both worst by ridiculousness and cost) was 1) we had to pay to have a dealer repaint an entire expedition that had been egged (not just one or two panels), and 2) we had to pay for a dealer to repaint an expedition that came from the factory looking terrible (it genuinely was our fault and I'll admit that every time I'm asked), BUT the dealer then sold it at auction to another dealer that submitted a 2nd warranty claim for the same vehicle. It turns out the first dealer did such a HORRIBLE job of repainting it the vehicle looked even worse and a second dealer got us to repay to re-repaint the same vehicle.
I'm a mechanical engineer and interested in this. I understand paint flop, but can't tell exactly where the problem areas are by just looking at a photo of the Navigator. Is it at the seam, the angle from the light down to the wheel well? I looked at a 2018 Navigator and a 2020 Navigator side by side (below) and couldn't really tell an obvious difference between the front fascias except for some minor linework changes above the lower grille.
I found a couple photos with more metallic style paint that might be showing the issue he's talking about, you can see a sudden brightness change here at the wheel well seam. They originally must not have met at a flush angle for some reason, which does indeed seem like an odd choice for that area of bodywork. The paint color is correct but the specular highlight is being interrupted basically by the sudden change in reflection angle.
Yep, that's exactly this issue to which I was referring. Some colors did it much worse than others. All of us in the paint shop would cringe when we saw that, especially when Venus Williams got hers as one of the first few deliveries and showed it off. I think it was on a website or magazine or something. That particular color did it the worse... Chroma Crystal Blue. You think you have it bad... imagine being the engineer that has the responsibility of dealing with warranty claims, fixing processes to prevent the warranty claims, and also being in charge of the automation that paints these bad boys lol. I see EVERYTHING. There's no such thing as a perfect paint job.I found a couple photos with more metallic style paint that might be showing the issue he's talking about, you can see a sudden brightness change here at the wheel well seam. They originally must not have met at a flush angle for some reason, which does indeed seem like an odd choice for that area of bodywork:
...I feel like I'm cursed now, I see issues everywhere now, every other photo and car I see on the street I notice mismatching panels now. I noticed it last night in very nice photos of a mustang in 2020's grabber lime! it's like the world's worst superpower
Ah OK, I was wondering if those were the areas, but I didn't see a 30 deg difference at the fender to fascia interconnect. Makes sense now. Thanks for the explanation.
So in the blue circled area, the mating angle was basically zero, and in the red circled area, the mating angle was something like 10-13 degrees (or maybe even less, I misspoke earlier when I said 30, it's been a while since I dealt with this and I am having a hard time remembering all of the exact details). The panels were designed to be flush with one another but with the front fascia, having been injection molded plastic, had something happen in the fascia/fender mating area that made the fascia "flare out", in the area in which it was to mate with the quarter panel. the result was a relatively large mating angle which was simply a byproduct of the fascia molding process. If I remember correctly the internal specification for mating angles is something like <6 degrees. This is really only an issue with metallic paints, because solid colors do not "flop" like metallic colors do.
The redesign of the fascia for 2020 is very subtle but appears to require a new, or at least reworked mold. It's likely that area was reworked to prevent the "flaring out" of the fascia. I was no longer with Ford by the time the 2020 rolled around so I do not know all of the details behind it.
