Tyse
Member
Brendan Knowles from Sydney posted the following on FB and asked me to share it on this forum, especially the Oz section.
Hey team, I know some of you will have heard my story and seen my posts but I continue to see people posting about paint issues who haven’t. For those people, here is my story...
(Admins - could you pin this post?)
Im from Sydney, Australia and was one of the first in the world to take delivery of a Sunset Yellow Stinger last October.
About 24hrs after I collected the vehicle, I noticed the first chip in the paint. What followed was an alarming number of them and some very tense and honest discussions between myself, the dealer and Kia Australia. The car was inspected three times and finally after trying to play hardball, Kia agreed to do a bare metal respray on the entire car, which took six weeks.
From what was explained to me, this issue exists on EVERY Stinger manufactured to date and the issue is that they only applied an etch primer on the raw panels and then applied a white base coat which they baked at high temperature for a considerable amount of time. Then they applied the colour and clear etc and baked again.
Apparently there shouldn’t normally be an etch primer nor should they fully bake the white base coat. They did it apparently because they were having issues with the paint adhering to the bonnet because it’s aluminium and Kia have never used aluminium panels before. So they developed this process and rather than just use it on the bonnet, they did the whole car so there wasn’t any cosmetic difference. However the process is not a proven way of making paint adhere to aluminium, let alone any other surface.
It was suggested that they were desperate to get the car into production and meet deadlines to they did what they had to, which has ended up with where we are today.
To anyone affected, if I can offer advice.....push for a total respray. Individual panels will not fix the issue as it will likely appear on others later on, not to mention trying to colour match.
I reiterate that when they removed my front and rear bumpers, paint was literally flaking off the concealed surfaces. They also replaced both bumpers and the bonnet. The bonnet was replaced as the original was used in destructive testing at PPG at Eastern Creek in Sydney and then sent to Korea is my understanding. There were also executives from Korea, in Australia who inspected my vehicle.
Apparently any warranty claim greater than $5k, must be approved by head office in Korea. So it isn’t Kia US or Canada or Australia that you will be battling. They will most likely be on your side even if it doesn’t seem it. They originally offered me a full refund and refused to assist me in buying another one. I told them to forget it and that I would keep the car and go to the media, get the paint independently tested to find out the real issue, as well as park it outside their biggest dealers every weekend. That is when they finally agreed to a respray.
Even during respray, it took quite a bit of effort to get the body in a clean condition and rid of all of the original etch primer and base coat. You can just tell now how much better the paint is. It even looks and feels thicker (stupid I know)
But to be clear, this issue is NOT restricted to a certain colour/s. I have seen and heard from owners all over the world and have had reports for EVERY colour. In point form, the problems are:
- Etch primer used
- No normal primer
- Base coat applied on etch primer
- Base coat baked when it shouldn’t be
- Because of the poor prep, the colour coats are very thin.
- Where panels run together, paint will flake/peel.
I hope this helps and feel free to hit me up if you have any questions or need more info. I want to help as many people as possible.
Cheers
Brendan
P.S. I have also included a copy of the Kia paperwork I was given when collecting the vehicle after respray.
Hey team, I know some of you will have heard my story and seen my posts but I continue to see people posting about paint issues who haven’t. For those people, here is my story...
(Admins - could you pin this post?)
Im from Sydney, Australia and was one of the first in the world to take delivery of a Sunset Yellow Stinger last October.
About 24hrs after I collected the vehicle, I noticed the first chip in the paint. What followed was an alarming number of them and some very tense and honest discussions between myself, the dealer and Kia Australia. The car was inspected three times and finally after trying to play hardball, Kia agreed to do a bare metal respray on the entire car, which took six weeks.
From what was explained to me, this issue exists on EVERY Stinger manufactured to date and the issue is that they only applied an etch primer on the raw panels and then applied a white base coat which they baked at high temperature for a considerable amount of time. Then they applied the colour and clear etc and baked again.
Apparently there shouldn’t normally be an etch primer nor should they fully bake the white base coat. They did it apparently because they were having issues with the paint adhering to the bonnet because it’s aluminium and Kia have never used aluminium panels before. So they developed this process and rather than just use it on the bonnet, they did the whole car so there wasn’t any cosmetic difference. However the process is not a proven way of making paint adhere to aluminium, let alone any other surface.
It was suggested that they were desperate to get the car into production and meet deadlines to they did what they had to, which has ended up with where we are today.
To anyone affected, if I can offer advice.....push for a total respray. Individual panels will not fix the issue as it will likely appear on others later on, not to mention trying to colour match.
I reiterate that when they removed my front and rear bumpers, paint was literally flaking off the concealed surfaces. They also replaced both bumpers and the bonnet. The bonnet was replaced as the original was used in destructive testing at PPG at Eastern Creek in Sydney and then sent to Korea is my understanding. There were also executives from Korea, in Australia who inspected my vehicle.
Apparently any warranty claim greater than $5k, must be approved by head office in Korea. So it isn’t Kia US or Canada or Australia that you will be battling. They will most likely be on your side even if it doesn’t seem it. They originally offered me a full refund and refused to assist me in buying another one. I told them to forget it and that I would keep the car and go to the media, get the paint independently tested to find out the real issue, as well as park it outside their biggest dealers every weekend. That is when they finally agreed to a respray.
Even during respray, it took quite a bit of effort to get the body in a clean condition and rid of all of the original etch primer and base coat. You can just tell now how much better the paint is. It even looks and feels thicker (stupid I know)
But to be clear, this issue is NOT restricted to a certain colour/s. I have seen and heard from owners all over the world and have had reports for EVERY colour. In point form, the problems are:
- Etch primer used
- No normal primer
- Base coat applied on etch primer
- Base coat baked when it shouldn’t be
- Because of the poor prep, the colour coats are very thin.
- Where panels run together, paint will flake/peel.
I hope this helps and feel free to hit me up if you have any questions or need more info. I want to help as many people as possible.
Cheers
Brendan
P.S. I have also included a copy of the Kia paperwork I was given when collecting the vehicle after respray.
