Years ago I worked as a supervisor in an automobile assembly plant and spent a lot of time managing various areas of the paint department. There are many reasons why some vehicles might have more orange peel than others, but the primary reason is 10-20% of vehicles get painted more than once. If a defect is bad enough, or in a high visibility area such as the hood, the entire vehicle will be repainted. These 2nd run (or 3rd run) vehicles will always have more orange peel than a first run vehicle. Typically orange peel is worse on the vertical surfaces such as the doors and fenders. When the vehicle enters the paint oven, the paint starts to flow a bit before curing and orange peel is created. Typically you don't see orange peel on the horizontal surfaces as the paint flows flat on these surfaces. Years ago Mazda put the Millenia on a rotisserie type skid that would rotate will going through the paint oven in an attempt to even out the paint on all surfaces and minimize orange peel. I owned a Millenia back in the day and it did have a fantastic paint job. Anyway that was years ago. Nonetheless I thought some might find some interest in what happens in a factory.
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