Hello my friends,

I am The Ceramic Guy from Sydney, back once again with another guide, I am bored and can't sleep. You may have seen my other guides in the sub - My Paint protection guide and my how to properly wash your car guide.

Lots of detailers seem to like bashing on modern car paint, for what reason, I don't know. Yes, paint is thinner these days but its also much higher quality (in general) than it use to be. Paint depth really has no long term consequence on functionality, lifespan or durability, the only thing it effects is how much you can remove (Paint Correction/Polishing). Overall, new paint has my thumbs up, I think its pretty good, besides a bunch of orange peel from modern painting methods, in SOME brands.

This guide will provide you with a checklist to collect your car and ensure you're not paying someone like me to fix the mistakes you inherited during collection.

Checklist Items -

Paint & Panels

• Ensure the car is collected in good lighting. Dealerships 90% of the time will position your car in a shaded area to cover imperfections
• Check the panels for scratches, swirls, dents, & chips. This is something the dealership will fix for you if pointed out before you leave the dealership
• Check wheels for scratching, gutter rash etc, ESPECIALLY GLOSS BLACK WHEELS. Gloss back is scratched on delivery 100% of the time. Shine a light up to them.
• Check front grilles for scratching and swirling. Modern grilles are usually gloss black, and almost always hammered. Good example for this point, every single new BMW m3 competition's front grille is decimated beyond repair from manufacturing. Haven't seen a single one yet that was considered passable.
• If you ordered window tint from the dealer, put a light up to the film and check for any dirt and debris under the film. Dealerships do tints very poorly, yet to see a dealer applied film that we couldn't find any faults with.
• Check along body lines to ensure all glue from the transportation wraps has been removed. This isn't a big deal, but wrap glue looks the same as a deep scratch, so you want to ensure you're not confusing the two before you leave.
• Check panels for consistent gaps. This varies brand to brand and year to year, but the worst I've ever seen was pre 2023 Tesla, you could have a variance of 20% between each side of a panel. Worth checking because at some stage in the future a buyer may consider this a sign of a car that was repaired from a crash.
• Check for moisture around the top of the inside of headlights and tail lights - Implies the seal on the headlights isn't done properly, may either need to be reseated or replaced.

Interior

• Check for any marks or tears on your seats and floors. I have personally seen a brand new Gwagon with carpet torn up in the drivers well before, no brand is immune.
• Ensure any floor mats you ordered are in the car (Telling the dealership you won't collect the car until they're in the car helps them find a set that is supposedly on back order for 3 months, very quickly)
• Shine a light on the screens in the car to ensure there aren't any scratches on them, ideally the original factory film will still be on there.
• Set up your phone to ensure Carplay/Android auto are functioning.

Electric Cars

• Confirm that the charging port opens and closes properly
• Check the battery health if possible before you leave the dealer

Keys

• Confirm what keys you will be receiving. Standard is two for a petrol car, and one + a card for electric.

Aftermarket Accessories

• Make sure all aftermarket accessories are on the car, or they at least have a time frame for when they'll be ready.
• Ensure they're functional (e.g roller shutter open and close)
  
• With roof racks, ensure they've been installed without denting the roof, and that they haven't scratched the paint while installing them.

What to do if you DO find defects with your car

• Document immediately. Take photos on the lot, physically point at the location in the photo to avoid any dealership "Sorry mate can't see anything" idiocy
• Get your resolution documented before you collect the car. This doesn't mean they have to fix it on the spot, but get their written confirmation that it will be fixed at their expense, asking them to send you a text confirming it is the least aggressive method if you're shy.
• Decide whether the defect is something you want to deal with on a new car. For example, a bodyline dent with paint missing means the panel needs to be resprayed with some minor panel beating. Personally for a new car, I wouldn't want that. Resprays aren't always as good as factory sprays, there are often paint match issues etc. What should be a simple task might end up being 2-3 resprays before they get it right. You can reject a car for significant defects. Things like this can effect resale value.
• To touch on the resale value point a little more - Many people are doing pre purchase inspections these days, part of a PPI check is that they will check the depth of the paint, this is because resprayed paint is much thicker than factory paint, and paint depth gauges will also show you if there is any filler in the panel, so even a scratch repair from the factory will be assumed as a "repaired incident" because why would a random person trust you when they're buying a car. Its important you keep your documentation on the issue for this reason.

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Hope this helps someone out there, if there are any more guides you would like, let me know. I enjoy writing these and get messages daily about how they've helped someone out there, so thanks for reading if you made it this far.

G’day everyone. Hazey here. Hope you’re all having a cracking day.

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