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...It has been said that a white van has 1 extra coat of paint that the other color Transit vans do not get.
Been on this forum for a long time, this is the first time I remember having heard of an issue like this, and you think it would have been reported before if it was a QC issue.
From your assessment of the roof paint appearance,
maybe send your VIN to CrewVanMan to have him check the info to see if maybe it was one of the many factory or hail damaged and repaired Transits being sold by a dealer not reporting same.
Good Luck.
Semper Fi
A high class body shop has a paint detector tool that they can scan the body to detect any paint variations. Something could have been done around the dealership like repair work on the building roof with a sealer that got sprayed on the roof and with time and heat over the past few months, this is what happened.
First....Call the National Ford Customer Service line 800 392-3673. Have your VIN ready and tell them what the problem is. You want to get this on record with Ford directly so if it comes to getting another Transit vehicle, there is a record of your problem up front at Ford. They may give you a incident number for your call and that is the number you want to use when having anything looked at with a Ford dealer.
Are you close to the dealer you purchased the Transit from? If you drove in and got it from another state or location, there may have to be contact with the original selling dealer especially to know if they did something at the dealership to cause this problem. They may have had other paint problems with other cars or trucks if it was something that got sprayed or fell on the roof to cause the problem.
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It's not like this is some sort of an exception. The Internet is full of complaints about flaking white paint on Fords (not Transits though). I have attached a Youtube screenshot. Looks exactly like mine, down to the primer color (except it was for a 15-year old car, not a 8 months old).
Apparently, it's a common problem for Fords.