Nightmare Paint Issues on New 19 GT Premium

[usgiorgi]

A proper paint check should take about 20-30 minutes. You need to get a high powered LED light and go inch by inch on the whole surface of the car. Crawl on the ground and check the bottoms of the side skirts. Check the bottom of the bumper, even if the area is not conspicuous to a standing person, it needs to be done right.

Check for solvent pop which are small bubbles in the clear coat from it being applied too fast.

Furthermore, make sure they do NOT wax or wash the paint after it's been repainted. The paint needs to gas off and cure. This takes about 90 days or so. The fact that it had swirlmarks in it, means that they took it through a touch wash or used abrasive rugs to "clean it up". Fresh paint should not have any sort of marks in it.

I went through a horrible experience with Ford when they repainted my rear end under warranty. 4 body shop visits later, I traded the car in. I will never deal with Ford again. Terrible company which has no respect for their customers.

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[speedfrk]

Thank you. It's incredibly frustrating and I hope that no one else has this sort of trouble.

Yeah, honestly, any of the domestic manufacturers really treat you like you bought a base model economy car even if it is a 40K GT. They just don't get it. I've had a lot of cars from Lotus, to Jag, Mercedes and just about everything else. If you're used to premium brand dealer service (or even Honda) you are badly disappointed with Ford, GM, Chrysler...

 

[Coosawjack]

Sorry to hear about all these problems and just curious if any of the affected cars have WATER BASE PAINT JOBS from good ole Ford???

 

[Decanes]

Progress since 12/2/2019
Ford is buying it back
With a big shout out to Cobra Jet from NJ has been so helpful words cant describe

 

[geep81]

Progress since 12/2/2019
Ford is buying it back
With a big shout out to Cobra Jet from NJ has been so helpful words cant describe

Congrats man. I know the process sucks to have to go through but you did it all correctly if they are buying it back! Gonna get another Mustang?

 

[Decanes]

Congrats man. I know the process sucks to have to go through but you did it all correctly if they are buying it back! Gonna get another Mustang?

Thank you
I have been hunting for one not found one with everything I want yet but that's ok I am waiting on my check from Ford. Once it comes game on lol thinking about going to Lebanon Ford to see what they can do for me

 

[GT Pony]

Thank you
I have been hunting for one not found one with everything I want yet but that's ok I am waiting on my check from Ford. Once it comes game on lol thinking about going to Lebanon Ford to see what they can do for me

So Ford bought it back, but is also paying a shop to have the whole car re-painted while you still hectically own it? Seems a bit strange. What if the paint job is better than any factory paint job on a new Mustang? Anything else wrong with the car?

 

[Decanes]

So Ford bought it back, but is also paying a shop to have the whole car re-painted while you still hectically own it? Seems a bit strange. What if the paint job is better than any factory paint job on a new Mustang? Anything else wrong with the car?

The car has been at Ford since 12/2/2019 had also been there for a total of 9 days before that. They are buying it back under lemon law if they have it for more than 30 days. I took photos of it when I went to get tags off the car. The car also has to be at a Dealership before they will process the paperwork so I will never have it again. So yes it is being painted and yes Ford buying it back as strange as it seems to you. to answer the 2nd part of question there is nothing wrong with car but the paint.Why would I want it if the whole car was painted and value of it dropped if I ever wanted to sell it.

 

[GT Pony]

The car has been at Ford since 12/2/2019 had also been there for a total of 9 days before that. They are buying it back under lemon law if they have it for more than 30 days. I took photos of it when I went to get tags off the car. The car also has to be at a Dealership before they will process the paperwork so I will never have it again. So yes it is being painted and yes Ford buying it back as strange as it seems to you. to answer the 2nd part of question there is nothing wrong with car but the paint.Why would I want it if the whole car was painted and value of it dropped if I ever wanted to sell it.

Guess If it was mine (especially if nothing else was wrong with the car), I'd look at the repaint job and see how it looked. It might be a way better paint job than any factory job. Anyway, good luck on your hunt for a replacement.

 

[usgiorgi]

Guess If it was mine (especially if nothing else was wrong with the car), I'd look at the repaint job and see how it looked. It might be a way better paint job than any factory job. Anyway, good luck on your hunt for a replacement.

The problem here is that you don't get to choose where Ford takes the car. Unless they have an in-house paintshop, which the majority of them don't, they have deals with the local paint shops to do their body and paintwork. They royally messed my car up 4 times and the worst part was, Ford washed their hands clean after they dropped the car off at the paintshop. After I found huge issues with the paint, they told me it was a problem with me and the bodyshop at that point.

Also, do you really want a car that's been stripped, repainted, and re-assembled? Do you think they'll put it back the right way? At what point do you give up on the car you're still making monthly payments on?

 

[geep81]

Guess If it was mine (especially if nothing else was wrong with the car), I'd look at the repaint job and see how it looked. It might be a way better paint job than any factory job. Anyway, good luck on your hunt for a replacement.

If you just dropped 40+ on a new GT and it showed up with bad paint, you'd not want to let the dealers warranty body shop disassemble and monkey around on your car for god knows how long doing god knows what to it, when what you should be doing is driving a brand new reasonably flawless factory car.

On top of that there's tons of potential other considerations of a body shop paint job, like that it generally takes 60-90 days to really harden, and so if this car is your daily driver be prepared to get excess damage during that time. Ford won't give you any consideration there.

You have no control over the process with what Decanes and also I went through, you are at everyone else's mercy for months and months while this gets resolved. Getting any info about what they were going to repaint/how the process would work was like pulling teeth, and I was left with no teeth and also still many questions unanswered. I had a long list of questions from professional body guys/experts and also people on forums like these, and I got answers to like 10% of my concerns. And in between each phone call with anyone you want weeks and weeks.

Ordering a Mustang GT was a dream for me and the first year of ownership sucked. Ford ultimately did right by me and replaced my car and I re-ordered a 2020 GT from them which I am currently very much enjoying. I hope Decanes can get past his rough experience and get the Mustang he wanted too, because they really are great cars.

 

[GT Pony]

^^^ I hear you two ... I wouldn't be happy either with a complete repaint unless some super high end paint shop did the work and it was flawless. Ford probably isn't going to flip the bill for that, so a buy back is probably the best bet to save all the pain.

My GT is black, and I didn't have a good opportunity to really look over the paint well while buying. I didn't see anything majority wrong when I looked at the paint at the dealer, it wasn't until I got it home and looked at it with a strong LED light that I saw all kinds of small scratches from them washing the car when it was probably pretty dirty.

I spent a week rubbing out all the paint and luckily all the scratches came out. Some scratches were pretty deep, but not through the clear coat. The paint looks really good now, and black shows everything.

HINT - Anyone looking to buy a car and if you want to really inspect the paint, get a super bright LED light and bring it with you for paint inspection.

 

[greenmachine]

A proper paint check should take about 20-30 minutes. You need to get a high powered LED light and go inch by inch on the whole surface of the car. Crawl on the ground and check the bottoms of the side skirts. Check the bottom of the bumper, even if the area is not conspicuous to a standing person, it needs to be done right.

Check for solvent pop which are small bubbles in the clear coat from it being applied too fast.

Furthermore, make sure they do NOT wax or wash the paint after it's been repainted. The paint needs to gas off and cure. This takes about 90 days or so. The fact that it had swirlmarks in it, means that they took it through a touch wash or used abrasive rugs to "clean it up". Fresh paint should not have any sort of marks in it.

I went through a horrible experience with Ford when they repainted my rear end under warranty. 4 body shop visits later, I traded the car in. I will never deal with Ford again. Terrible company which has no respect for their customers.

Thanks for the tips!

When I first showed up at the shop, the manager said they had 'washed it up for me', so that was a lost cause. I told him I'd always heard that you had to wait, but he told me that nowadays the paint they use doesn't require that. I'm not an expert so you guys would know better than me.

I'll check it over again for solvent pip when I get there. The first time I looked at it, I didn't see any of that luckily.

As for the stripe, their contracted stripe guy replaced it twice already since my last update, and the body shop manager said it still looks terrible. He said there were lines through it that the stripe said would 'fade in six months'. They're going to put one on in-shop today, so I'm hoping they actually use Ford materials and not some off brand junk the contracted guy was using.

I have been very anal about every little thing on that car, and the manager is well aware of that, so I'm hoping when I get it today or tomorrow, they've got it done right.

 

[usgiorgi]

Thanks for the tips!

When I first showed up at the shop, the manager said they had 'washed it up for me', so that was a lost cause. I told him I'd always heard that you had to wait, but he told me that nowadays the paint they use doesn't require that. I'm not an expert so you guys would know better than me.

I'll check it over again for solvent pip when I get there. The first time I looked at it, I didn't see any of that luckily.

As for the stripe, their contracted stripe guy replaced it twice already since my last update, and the body shop manager said it still looks terrible. He said there were lines through it that the stripe said would 'fade in six months'. They're going to put one on in-shop today, so I'm hoping they actually use Ford materials and not some off brand junk the contracted guy was using.

I have been very anal about every little thing on that car, and the manager is well aware of that, so I'm hoping when I get it today or tomorrow, they've got it done right.

Unless the manager has developed a new form of paint which doesn't need to gas off, he's either clueless or lying. I'm not sure which is worse. If they use gentle detergent, washing is ok, but still not ideal. However, waxing and polishing should not be done until 90 days since the paint was applied.

This also applies to putting the stripes on btw.

 

[greenmachine]

Unless the manager has developed a new form of paint which doesn't need to gas off, he's either clueless or lying. I'm not sure which is worse. If they use gentle detergent, washing is ok, but still not ideal. However, waxing and polishing should not be done until 90 days since the paint was applied.

This also applies to putting the stripes on btw.

That's what I was afraid of. Hopefully they were careful when they washed it, but after seeing the swirl marks, I'm not gonna hold my breath on that one.

I wondered about the stripes too. I guess when Ford manufactures a car, they care about quality as little as when it needs to be repaired. Cheap as possible, quick as possible, get it out the door even if it's not industry standard.

I traded in a foxbody I had restored because of a horrible botched paint job that the guy made worse when I tried to make him fix it. I thought a brand new car would be less to worry about, yet here I am again barely a year later. Lost value in what was going to be a collector car (because of the color) and not much I can do about it.

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