I know the issue of paint quality of our 5th generations is now an old, tired issue but I was at a Nissan dealer yesterday and their service station is shared by Acura so I was overhearing a complaint from an Acura customer who was complaining that his 3.2 TL-type S which was only about 3 months old had excessive paint chips all over and he also complained that the paint was soft and easily damanged. He even claims that he keeps the car garaged all the time plus waxes it regularly. He also mentioned a time when he just lightly scraped the car by accident with a brush and it left a rather ugly scratch.

I just thought I would mention this since we have all complained about the paint issue - so it seems we are not the only ones suffering from poor paint quality these days. My friend's Acura MDX has many, many paint chips all over his hood as well.

 

I know many people have mentioned changes in the painting process for many Japanese cars, but cannot find exactly what changes were made and if so, due to which laws. Overall, it is definitely making me reconsider options for the 'after Max' purchase.

 

I believe the changes were in types of paint that they use. Older paint contained lead as I understand, and because of all the talk regarding lead poisoning w/kids, they switched to water based paint that does not contain lead. As a result, it doesn't bind to the car as strong.

That's how I understood the issue.