or am i stuck playing w/ sandpaper to get rid of the orange peel...

also, how does orange peel occur? here's the how bad it is on my car:

 

depends on how bad the orange peel is you might need to reclear or repaint. sand paper and polish is the only way to go. sand w/ 1500 or 2000 grit until you see it smooth (use squeege to check). once it's good then get a buffer and go to town.

orange peel is due to improper painting or poor prep work (improper use of bondo).
incorrect air pressure when spraying, incorrect reducer, incorrect methond of painting all contribute to orange peel. when you see paint go on a panel the air and the paint comes out and hits the panel. if it hits tha panel incorrectly the paint won't "flow" out and become smooth...hence orange peel look.

 

no body work done on car, neither has it ever been repainted. I guess this is a factory flaw?

 

well double check to make sure the dealer didn't "touch up" a panel w/o u knowing or something.

usually factory finishes are quite good. this...i dunno...sand paper time.

 

lol JEEZ just that word "sandpaper" and "maxima" ... shivers down my back. I guess i'll practice my sandpaper skills on my dented door since it is getting replaced and repainted next week. thanks Dan.

 

Just a hint of warning.... I wouldnt "wetsand" factory finishes. They dont use that much material and it is highly possible to make a bad thing even worse.

If you do "sand", make sure you use water when doing it. Dont just use dry sand paper.

 

Not to mention that you will need the patience of Job to work with wetsanding. Wetsanding can be a tedious process and it can cause a lot of damage if you are not careful. After you wetsand, you are going to have to use a rubbing compound to get rid of the haze and then follow up with a swirl removr and then polish.

 

From that pic, it appears the rear door was repainted. Would like to see some more pics at different angles.

 

The previous owner (my cousin) said the car has only gotten in one accident which involved the front bumper only. He's always taken care of the paint... i don't know how the paint could come like that from factory.

 

Factory orange peel is far more common than you'd think. Even on expensive european luxury cars. To be honest I think you'd have to be really lucky to get a paint job without any orange peel to some degree. Judging from the pics I'd say you have some orange peel effect but it's not "horrible". I've seen much worse.

If you can live with it it's better to just leave it alone since wetsanding is risky. There's the danger of thinning out your clear coat too much and while it looks like everything is fine for now it could cause problems/failure later on. Even worse, you could break through the clear. I suppose a very light sanding just hitting some of the high spots couldn't hurt though...

 

I agree with Bman. From the additional pics I would say the paint has good reflective qualities. Orange peel appears slight. If it was severe, you would get very little/poor reflections. I wouldn't try wetsanding, could make the shine worse. Just keep the car well polished and waxed, paint will look just fine.

 

i think air pressure is not right when i do the painting work, so could you tell me how to adjust air pressure to avoid orange peel? like increase air volume, air velocity or atomizing air pressure, paint pressure?