Vehicle delivered missing paint.

[Johnson]

@BWAK sorry if I missed it, but do you know what colour the underside of the bumper was before respray? I’m intrigued how Lotus could miss something so obvious, particularly if the undercoat was a grey colour…

 

[Porter]

I am currently going through something similar. I took delivery on 12/20/24 and returned to the dealer 1/6/25 to have PPF and tint done. When the installer attempted to cover the rear with PPF, he noticed a spot that wasn't painted (about two inches wide) on one of the panels close to the rear passenger tire. It wasn't visible unless looking at it from the ground. Lotus admitted fault the next day and approved correction under warranty. So then my car was loaded on a flatbed for transport to a specialty paint correction facility. No idea when I'll get it back.

The issue (as described by my dealer contact) is that when the PPF is eventually removed, it will likely take surrounding areas of paint with it and create a much bigger problem. Since the affected area isn't visible from almost any angle, I'm less concerned with their proposed fix. Just hoping to have my car back before the weather warms up and I can actually drive.View attachment 57616

That's not unpainted, that was painted and then something pulled the paint off. The car didn't leave the factory that way, I'd lay money on it.

 

[Nova]

They said they would blend the bumper color into the hood and fenders, meaning they would sand the hood and fenders to blend the lighter color into the darker color. The body shop said the paint they were given was even lighter then the bumper when they added the color to the underside when my salesman pointed out the first time that it looked off. Hence why they want to blend into the hood and not into the bumper which I am totally against. If it was the other way around I'd say give it a shot since worst case scenario I can just get a new bumper since that's the part that is under the warranty claim.

I did see a cargo delivery list that had my vin along with 53 other Emiras with the container information. The delivery from port arrival to the dealership was only 3 days so it doesn't look like it was delayed on entry. There was damage to the canards underneath that was completely replaced during PDI as well. But no other shipping damage during inspection.

We were never given a VIN during our order. The dealership was bought out and everyone included the original salesman that took our order was let go. When the car arrived they didn't know who it belong to until they called Lotus and our last name was attached to the order. The spec is verbatim to what we submitted. It's possible it was a diverted order because weren't even sure it would be a first edition.

From my experience, Lotus may have different paint batches for their colors. The good body shops have access to this information and can get the lighter/darker mixes. However, it may still not be a good match. But a good body shop will be able to get a close match without blending. We are not looking for perfection here. Some mismatch between bumper and other parts of the car is expected. But a good body shop should be able to custom adjust the paint to darken/lighten, warmer/cooler, etc to get a good match. I would push for that and NO BLENDING.

 

[Fasttoys]

No way to get a factory painted bumper it would not match the car regardless & that is not how it works. Any high end paint shop will need to fade blend it, hood and fenders would be involved most of the time if it’s the bumper. My concern would be that it shows up on Carfax or some sort of system showing that the bumper was re-sprayed and that will hurt your resale value.. If it shows up now you have to explain what happened to a buyer.

 

[chirowolf]

In the picture where the sun is on hood and bumper it is pretty clear the difference in color. Unacceptable for a $100k car.
As mentioned above this has a fix but would be expensive. This is on Lotus

 

[JimH]

That's not unpainted, that was painted and then something pulled the paint off. The car didn't leave the factory that way, I'd lay money on it.

Probably the transit tape/fixing for transit cover......

 

[Mfonseca]

That's not unpainted, that was painted and then something pulled the paint off. The car didn't leave the factory that way, I'd lay money on it.

As a detailer, I agree 100%.

 

[Dino67]

From my experience, Lotus may have different paint batches for their colors. The good body shops have access to this information and can get the lighter/darker mixes. However, it may still not be a good match. But a good body shop will be able to get a close match without blending. We are not looking for perfection here. Some mismatch between bumper and other parts of the car is expected. But a good body shop should be able to custom adjust the paint to darken/lighten, warmer/cooler, etc to get a good match. I would push for that and NO BLENDING.

I second this as the way to go. I would take a slightly mismatched bumper over a front end that was completely resprayed. A shop that does high end work should be able to get it pretty close.

One shop I used told me there were six variants for the paint code on my car. They sprayed test cards with the two closest and picked the best match. They only do this for higher end cars. If it is a grocery getter, no one pays for that level of work. They just spray it and slap it together.

 

[Carig5A]

Image from the Harry's Garage factory tour video, showing the factory panels on frame jigs coming out of the paint process. These are all painted by robot and get absolutely consistent paint coverage, then are individually inspected and approved for forwarding onto the production line for fitment. The idea of a whole surface of a panel coming out without paint is not believable.

View attachment 57608

There are multiple steps in the process where this would have been caught, including the assembly/mounting process on the main production line itself. They would have rejected the part when they took it off the rack to fit to the vehicle.

Here's the final paint confirmation and inspection bays, they look over every surface of the cars again before approving them. A bumper coming out partially unpainted is, again, not believable.

View attachment 57610

This !

 

[Nova]

I second this as the way to go. I would take a slightly mismatched bumper over a front end that was completely resprayed. A shop that does high end work should be able to get it pretty close.

One shop I used told me there were six variants for the paint code on my car. They sprayed test cards with the two closest and picked the best match. They only do this for higher end cars. If it is a grocery getter, no one pays for that level of work. They just spray it and slap it together.

The same with me. My shop used one of the two pre-mix Nimbus Grey colors and it just didn't look right. They ended up custom blending 4 more mixes, painted them on swatch cards for me to pick. The results are a great match with no blending.

 

[BWAK]

I'm out of town until Sunday, but I opened the original photo in Adobe Photoshop and now I'm convinced it's the clear coat the auto body sprayed. The Lotus emblem typically needs to be removed when painting the whole bumper and it always breaks, but our sales guy said they never removed this one. When I look at it through adobe there is a dark halo around the emblem that matches the hood paint spot on. I'm assuming the body shop simply masked over the emblem to spray the clear coat. It's hard to see in the photo I supplied because its been compressed twice already.

I've asked around and was told clear coats can become cloudy if applied incorrectly. Was asked by another body shop that does high end exotics and they said to bring it in so they can wet sand a test area to see if its the newly applied clear coat. They all agree that the color is absolutely off and something is awry. I also pulled every Meridan Emira I could find online and none of them have a mismatched bumper. I even found the original photos I took with the same camera when the car first arrived. Despite the different lighting and environment, the color matches the fender perfectly and with more sharpness.

Just to reiterate, the car arrived with missing paint along all the bottom edges. Dealer was approved to do warranty work to fix the bumper. Hired a body shop nearby to spray the missing paint. Body shop did so, as well as sprayed the entire bumper in clear (the bumper was removed the whole time). Upon inspection our sales guy said the color looked lighter. The body shop said they used the paint Lotus gave them and that it didn't matter cause the rear bumper was slightly off too. I tooked delivery and brought it home and immediately noticed the paint difference when paint correcting. Took it back to the dealership and showed him the picture I attached here. He called his guy, a detailer and a PPF guy. All three said the only way to fix it is to blend the paint lotus gave them (without tinting or panel matching) into the fenders and hood.

If it's just the clearcoat they should know better and their resolution seems extreme and misguided. I don't trust this bodyshop so I will personally take it to a different one. I'm with Dino and Nova on this. I'm not looking for a perfect match, but there is no reason they can't put forth the effort and actually tint the paint given to get a better match. The two colors currently are so far off blending them would look rediculous. Is it possible to wet sand clear coat to the base paint? Or is this going to be a full on repaint? Will the clear coat become clear over time, or worse?