rwwlaw

I have my car for a bit over 3 weeks now and the more I look it over the worse the paint seems to be! Little imperfections all over! My 98 Mustang was notorious for the worst paint job in the industry and the CL has it beat hands down! What gives? Does everyone have this prob? Should I complain? My RL had nothing like this.

CO-CL-S

I haven't heard much about imperfections, but there has been a lot of talk about how bad the paint is in resisting chipping. I know I have over 20 chips on my hood in 22,500 miles.

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Eat Safe, Use Condiments
red CL-S, non-Nav, 35% tint, M6 driving lights, M4 map and door lights

EricL

The 3-M/X-pel/clear bra stuff really helps. I have looked into getting some for the car.


(I only have 1 pit in the grill and 1 pit on the bumper, but I've been really lucky, and have very low miles)

I wish they had put 3 coats of clear coat on our cars like the MDX (at least that is what I heard).

The freeway driving with debris really sucks.




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Silver 2001 CL-S with NAVI

• Mud guards
• Wheel locks
• Toyo T1S 235/45ZR17-97W* Proxies on 17x8" SSR Competition wheels (48lbs less than stock)
• Kevlar/SS Brake lines ordered
• Comptech headers & sways ready
• Silver AEM CAI ready
• 6 coats of Zaino magic

louisn

The only thing all the reviewers agree on (besides the fact this car is the best value in its class) is that the fit and finish are first rate. I think we're being too critical of our CL's. It ( paint) can only be judged in comparison to other vehicles not in a vacuum of perfection.

EricL

My paint looks very nice (except in the inside of the door jams).

Look in the Gallery at some cars there. They are some that are red -- a really tough color to keep right without care. And some of the pictures are great.

I think there is a point that something is probably unacceptable. I don't know where that is.

The point I'm making is, some of the cars have pictures with proof of how great their paint is (from a cosmetic standpoint).



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Silver 2001 CL-S with NAVI

• Mud guards
• Wheel locks
• Toyo T1S 235/45ZR17-97W* Proxies on 17x8" SSR Competition wheels (48lbs less than stock)
• Kevlar/SS Brake lines ordered
• Comptech headers & sways ready
• Silver AEM CAI ready
• 6 coats of Zaino magic

superdds

mine too. you didn't have any probs with the rl because it was painted in japan. i'm probably going to get burned for this but, the quality control in the u.s.(where our cl's are built) needs to kick it up a notch. just my opinion. i don't want to receive any threatening emails and what not.



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silver 2001 cl type s

Crazy Bimmer

acutally you are wrong, For the RL they used i think a 3 step process for the paint, meaning the paint job is done differntly than the cl. My dads RL paint has been holding up real well in the past 2 years he has had it. If you go to the acura website they talk about the process they use for the RL.

rwwlaw

I beleive an Acura should have a better paint job than a Ford Mustang! It's completely unacceptable. Take a look at your finish after you clean your car and you will notice little pits in the paint. You have to look at the right angle to notice but beleive me it's there! My 93 and 95 Accords did not have this and nor did my 2000 RL. Someone should get fired over this! The direction Acura is going here scares me

sniper

dude I'm not gonna flame you, but it has nothing to do with where it was built but instead "how". evidently they cut many corners i.e. telescoping wheel, paint, fogs...to save on costs so they could deliver this car at an attractive price. there is no doubt that Acura screwed us on the paint, and for you guys that don't see it yet, just wait. And as for the comment on the pictures...well lets just say that my car looks great from 15 feet or in pictures, but once your up close it begins to tell the rest of the story. I am seeing as many problems with the durability of this paint as I have ever seen. Its bad...hell my hummer has better paint than this, and it doesn't even have a clearcoat.



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Black Type S, Spoiler, Comptech Headers, AEM CAI, Comptech Springs and Sway Bars...touch my car I WILL kill you
my other car is a hummer

bc01cls

Filling my tank the other day and the pump overflowed...........the paint right below the filler neck, inside the fuel door, dissolved!! It literally rinsed off and left the plastic showing through!! Thank goodness it's inside the flap and not visible. I spent 20 min. brushing on touch up cover up!
Rest is holding out but I wax it a lot and use the mask on the interstates. Paint could be thicker for sure-ain't no BMW metallic.

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CL-S PDG, TR Typhoon Wheels, Solaris 9005, guards, nose mask, V-1 & remote.
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?...493&p=31386570

rwwlaw

This is exactly why Acura will NEVER be as highly regarded as MB, BMW and sad to say even Lexus. Non of the prior companies cut costs on critical areas JUST to bring a car in under a certain price range! ie GS 300, IS clk, 330ci etc...

Technique

Dude, you are totally correct. Quality control in the US is shit compared to Japan. This is not even a debateable point, it's FACT. US cars are of lower quality than American cars. Anything built in Japan is usually superior in fit and finish to the sloppy work done in America. Think of the old mid-90s Acura Legends. Man, those cars were built in Japan and were ROCK SOLID. I would never buy an American car, EVER. The only exception may come for a Viper or Prowler, but any other American car is going to fall apart after 2 years.

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Silver CL-S w/ Navi, Spoiler, Wheel Locks, Trunk Tray, 19169, 9005
Toyo 235/45ZR17-97W* T1-S Proxes on 17X8 SSR Competition Wheels (47.2 lbs lighter than stock wheel+tire setup)
Comptech Sways
G-Tech (Full tank of gas, 60F, VSA off, SS) - 5.94 seconds
V-1 Hardwired

rwwlaw

Sorry Tech but you OWN and American car!

Technique

Sad but true...... But you know what I'm saying.......

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Silver CL-S w/ Navi, Spoiler, Wheel Locks, Trunk Tray, 19169, 9005
Toyo 235/45ZR17-97W* T1-S Proxes on 17X8 SSR Competition Wheels (47.2 lbs lighter than stock wheel+tire setup)
Comptech Sways
G-Tech (Full tank of gas, 60F, VSA off, SS) - 5.94 seconds
V-1 Hardwired

JZ

All I know is that it is going to be really difficult to keep this car looking good as it ages. I have literally hundreds of tiny little chips on my hood (almost looks like dust unless you look really closely) and the bottom-most pieces beneath the doors look like the paint has literlly been eaten away from driving--they are kind of speckled looking.

I have already resigned to the fact that if I keep this car for a very long time it is going to need a new, high quality paint job. It is impossible to keep the stock paint in good condition. The paint on my girlfriend's civic appears to be ten times as thick as our paint!



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Black/black CLS
Comptech headers, springs, swaybars
Koni yellows
Polarg M6 road lamps
Solaris Hi beams
Potenza RE730 225/45/17
Red AEM CAI
Denso Iridium plugs
35% metallic tint

TLcraze

Both the CL and TL paint job $ucks!!! That's all I have to say.

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• 2000 Acura 3.2TL w/Navi
• Satin Silver w/Ebony Interior
• Factory Underbody Kit
• Factory Spoiler
• Mahogony Shifter

NOVAwhiteTypeS

I just applied touch up paint, and langka (blob eliminator) on my door chips , side view mirror chip, front licence plate frame scratch, and a little other minor chips,

I gotta tell ya LANGKA is a must if your going to use touch up paint. It toally makes works.

www.langka.com

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CL-S
White/Ebony/Navi/Spoiler/Visor/Full Bra/Mud Guards/Acura Car Cover/Tint 20%,35%,5% on Sun Roof, Rockford 250a2 Amp w/JL10w6 / K&N Drop in Filter. Comptech Springs. Polarg m-6.
Comptech Headers, Comptech Sways, Eurolite Xenon Crystal high beams.
me.

gtech 0-60 6.03 w/ 438 pound load. preheader.

cdsinger

Slightly off-topic (a post about paint but not specifically about paint quality...)

I just leased a base CL in the blue color and got a spoiler thrown in. I had to return to the dealership two days later as the spoiler was not in stock when I signed the deal. While I was waiting for the spoiler, I parked my CL next to a co-worker who had purchased the exact same car (no spoiler) a few months earlier in the same city (different dealer) and we noticed without question that his blue was different from my blue -- not just from exposure to the elements, but clearly his older CL was a slightly darker blue.

Well, when I returned to the dealer and had the spoiler put on, guess what -- the spoiler is slightly darker than the rest of my car. As best I can figure out, this is what happened:

Acura initially put out the 2001's with a blue called Monterey Blue Pearl (color code B93P, my spoiler) but at some point during the year changed to a newer blue that is also on the 2002 TL's called Eternal Blue Pearl (color code B96P, on my door sticker). When a dealer orders the spoiler for a blue 2001 CL they are given ONLY the option for the Monterey Blue.

Of course I intend to contact Acura to see if this can be remedied, although if it can't it isn't that big a deal, you have to look closely to notice the color difference and I think the spoiler makes the car look better. But it certainly is an example of shoddy corporate management that one "hand" decided to change the color slightly (in my opinion, a good decision as I think the Eternal Blue is cooler looking) but the other "hand" didn't know what was going on and continues to produce parts in the wrong color.

So in a sense this WAS a post about paint quality.

alex2364

First this should be a whole new topic.

Now that we got that out of the way...there are two blues for the CL. There's a dark blue for the CL-P and a ligther blue for the CL-S, which is the same blue for the TL-S. They probably ordered the wrong blue for you.

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Alex

cdsinger

I didn't know the CL-S had the same blue as the '02 TL, but either way I have the CL-P and my car is the SAME lighter blue, so evidently Acura changed the shade of blue on the CL-P mid-year but didn't update their parts catalog.

alex2364

Are you sure? This is the first time I've heard of this.

Acura needs to update their website! They still have the PDG for the CL-S! Come on Acura!!!

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Alex

[This message has been edited by alex2364 (edited 04-15-2001).]

jnliu

I've had my Taffeta White Type-S for about 6 months now with only 2K miles and noticed shortly after taking delivery that both the front and rear bumpers are a slight shade off from the rest of the body (more tan). I was at the dealer the other day for service and carefully inspected a white demo on the property and noticed its' paint matched better. Should I mention this to my service department? Is there anything they could do? Anyone else experiencing this?

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CL Type-S Taffeta White
Stock, Non Nav

ChrisK_RENAMED

It wasn't always this way. Up untill the mid 90s, or so (not sure exactly when) the paint on all the Acuras were similar to the paint on the RL. My old Acura has a 4 paint coat, 4 clear coat (total 8 coats). I don't know exactly when, or why, Acura decided to cut down cost on the painting proccess. To me, it sounds like when Sohiro (sp?) Honda passed away, the marketing people took over the company, and the engineers had to fall in line.


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Chris K.

honey2001CL

Yep, this happened to my car too. I wonder if Acura would cover this?

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White/Ebony CL Type S with Navi, 35% tint, Polarg M6 Roadlamps

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

I must say their paint does suck. I washed and waxed my car on Sat. and I have so many chips and pits it's rediculous. I've been working at the same place for 4 years, so my route to work hasn't changed. My last car ('95 Sunfire GT) had practically zero chips, and that car was almost 3 years old when I started working here!! The Acura is horrible. I really can't believe the lack of quality on this paint job. And what sucks even more is that I want to upgrade to a new CL-S/TL-S this summer, and the paint still sucks!! You would think it would get better from generation to generation.....




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1998 Iced Blue CL 3.0 ** Some mods, but who cares, I want a Type-S!!

Moderator - 1st Gen Forum

Email: juniorbean@acura-cl.com

cdsinger

Yeah I'm sure, though I wasn't until the dealer acknowledged the error. When the 2001's came out, the CL-P came in Monterey Blue Pearl (paint code B93P) and the CL-S came in that lovely PDG (which, as you said, is still on the Acura website). When the PDG bit the dust, they added Eternal Blue Pearl (paint code B96P) to the CL-S lineup, a slightly lighter (and in my opinion cooler looking) blue than the Monterey. But recently they switched the CL-P (midyear) to the Eternal also. The parts catalog wasn't updated yet, which is how they accidentally put a Monterey Blue spoiler on my Eternal Blue CL-P (and it's hard to tell the difference unless you're the picky owner).

Tomorrow I go back to the dealer to get the correct color spoiler swapped on.

And the crap-ass paint quality bug bit me already. Get this -- I laid a packet of papers in a paper folder on the roof of the car for a minute, then slid them off gently...and the paint now has a few tiny scratches in it! I mean, we're talking a paper folder here, with no dust or dirt on the car to be abrasive. And though I slid it, I was pretty gentle (couldn't help it, my hands were full with other packages). For that little friction from clean paper to scratch the paint is totally ridiculous.

But hey, I read the forums before I got the car, so I can't claim ignorance. Gotta live with it.

honey2001CL

Just thought that i'd let everyone know that if this happens to you, take it to your dealer. They'll fix it under warranty. They looked at mine and I have an appointment on Monday for them to touch it up.

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White/Ebony CL Type S with Navi, 35% tint, Polarg M6 Roadlamps