How does the Porsche Factory fix mistakes?
 

I was thinking about this on the drive home today.
I'm talking about bodywork dings during manufacture. In the old days they had a dedicated crew of very skilled people who would knock the dings out, file finish and lead-load if required. Of course lead has been replaced in the refinishing industry by polyester. But do mistakes still occur in the Robot World? How is this addressed?

Lol Paul, completely correct!

Probably PDR.

And being German they are always on time.

You know though, there must be a couple of dings from a wayward Hazet?

...only happy little accidents...

Not sure about Porsche, but I saw a red Jeep in the showroom of the largest Jeep dealer years ago that had been repainted. It was obvious, but the salesman said it wasn’t

I turned up to collect my brand new Renault panel Van only to discover bare metal the size of the palm of my hand on the nearside rocker panel.The salesman said oh we will touch that in for you in 10 minutes, so I told him in that case I would reject the vehicle, and walked across to the RAC( like your AAA) office who inspected the vehicle and said they would check the rocker repaint at each stage to comply with Renault painting procedure.24 hours later it was ready, and no rust appeared in the 12 years that I owned it.

Not all that uncommon. Lots of cars get flaws from the factory that have to be corrected or damage from shipment. I've seen them advertised with full disclosure, and seen them advertised without any disclosure. Sad that you have to be careful even with a new car.

When I went to trade-in my wife's 997S, the dealer did a paint thickness meter test. They asked why the roof was repainted. I thought they were joking and said, "My wife rolled it at Laguna Seca and slip down the Corkscrew on her top". I could see by the look on the faces that they we're kidding :eek: We bought the car new and the top was never painted. Everybody came to the conclusion that it must have been damaged before delivery and repaired by the factory. The dealer said it's fairly common.

I would hope that covers +90% of it.

Paintless dent repair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paintless_dent_repair

Paint meters have leveled the "in my professional opinion" playing field. They turned opinions into objective discussions. I'm not in the business of buying cars but I bought a meter for this very reason.

GM end of line they had a bodyshop. I did several tours of the factory and made training vids for GM in my early 20's. I did a vid on the end of line testing/QC, right beside the body shop, any dings it went straight in the shop.

RE: Paint meters.... I've had a ding on my 991 repaired lately that could not just be PRD'ed - tiny thing but it irritated me - that caused a whole panel to be repainted... The paint meter gauge I have can't tell the difference in thickness, not sure what to make of that (other than it's probably not 100% accurate, but it does spot tons of variations on my old Alfa). But if it could and somehow disqualified my car from a sale, I'd be annoyed, it's just a repaint for a small dent...

I haven't been to the Porsche factory since before they started building 997s. But back then, while on the tour and walking around the factory grounds, they drove a lot of those new cars very spiritedly around the place. They all had plastic all over them, but I have to think some of those picked up rock chips and dings now and then. They really did drive them fast for what I'd probably treat like a parking lot.

There was a discussion over on Rennlist about M96/97 engines that had a paint mark on the side of the engine case which meant they did not pass testing and were send back for internal engine repairs at the factory before being placed into a 911.

My friend worked a bodyshop that was right next to a large Mercedes dealer. He used to fix dings and dents on new cars all the time.

Factory level is one thing, but dealer level is quite something else. I think it's rare to find a new car that hasn't been dinged at a dealer.!!

I thought the whole "blue paint" theory was debunked eventually?

Maybe so.

Short of Porsche making an official statement (not likely), it will never be proven.