Haven't seen others reporting this particular problem. If it were an ongoing issue they would be. It is most likely an exception rather than an indicator of a larger scale QC oversight. Should be a warranty covered factory defect.

If it were me I'd approach the dealer only after studying up on auto paint and how to detect other places that might become a problem in the future. Might be worth approaching an independent body shop for this, even if you have to pay for an inspection, just in case it is not only the roof. It would be best to be able to demonstrate this when you make the warranty claim so they can take the finish down to the metal to prime and repaint all panels that show signs of potential delamination.

 

That IS a bummer. But, that's not been the standard among users, here, for the past 4 1/2 years. First I've seen like that. Bad batch of something, something...

I guess it's warranty time (which, in itself, rather sucks).

Now consider this tale of woe, brought to you by General Motors: keep an eye out for white Chevy and GMC work vans from the past 20 years. Almost every one of them has the paint peeled off of the hood, above the radiator grill. It's truly disgusting, and, surely should have become a class action lawsuit.

 

That's an anomaly. I haven't seen anyone else with peeling paint. That's a warranty issue for sure, with only 100 miles.

 

.

 

Any car paint experts? How does one repair something like this? Paint large area? Just the area affected?

I will surely take it to Ford for warranty, just want to know what this will entail.

 

A paint job.


Any body shop that does collision repair will know how to do the job start to finish, and the only one who will ever know it has happened is CarFax.

 

The entire body is dipped in zinc. (Galvanized)

There is a primer, It has a dark green color where the paint has chipped on my sliding door. (There is a long forum thread about sliding door paint chipping.)

I have a white van, It has been said that a white van has 1 extra coat of paint that the other color Transit vans do not get.

 

...It has been said that a white van has 1 extra coat of paint that the other color Transit vans do not get.

My memory is that you have that backward; ALL the other colors have and additional coat of paint that the white does not have.

 

How does one repair this? Take it back to the dealer and have them repair it or replace it with a different new van. If it only has 100 miles on it, it is under bumper-to-bumper warranty.

 

I would expect proper warranty paint work to be extensive. But, you can bet the farm that the dealership's first offer will be to do touch-up paint in the areas that are clearly missing paint.

 

I think I'd rather go with a small area repaint. This is definitely beyond "touch up" though. Needs sanding, priming, etc. I don't think there are a whole lot of other damaged areas (I have OCD and I *notice* things).

I would probably have left this alone, but I want to document it, so if it continues I can get additional repairs done under warranty.

I am in Colorado, the cars here do not rust. Probably not a huge deal.

***

But man... Consumer Reports has almost convinced me that domestics are actually real vehicles. Shaking my head. No fool like an old fool.

 

European vehicles are resting on their laurels, and in my experience are all crap unless you get top of the line $85k+ models. Unfortunately, light commercial vehicles like vans are not "top of the line" anything.
USA Domestic vehicles are no better, but at least they are much cheaper to buy and repair.
Asian vehicles are generally the most reliable and best built. Sadly, the only full size "van" is the Nissan, and it isn't a van and gets as horrible or worse mpg than the Transit.

Brand status is for chumps and only impresses the peasants and some commoners (Mercedes, Volvo, BMW, etc)

Regarding paint and body, the old T1N Sprinters were notorious for rusting through with even a little scratch exposing the metal. I don't know if things got better with the NCV3 (2007+) models. Older GM vehicles had horrible paint that peeled off, it looked like a chemical incongruity between the primer and the top coat, the top coat just wouldn't stick to the primer. You all kinds of GM pickups with the paint peeled of the hood or top.

 

Could it be a previously damaged Transit

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

 

Thanks, great idea! Sent email.

I kind of doubt there was hail damage, I looked real close and did not see anything on the "forehead" area of the van. Unless they rebuilt the body in the factory setting.

But yeah, the van spent a year on a lot in Nebraska. Hail is very common.

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

 

When I picked up the Transit we ordered, I brought a step ladder and checked the roof before I settled the bill.


The salesperson smirked, but I assured him things would be a lot simpler for all concerned if I checked in the dealer lot rather than wait to get home and then find something of concern.

 

Took me a few times hanging around the roof to find it. Thought I did a thorough inspection on the lot, bust was mostly looking for hail. With our recent weather patterns, you get good at spotting hail damage Even ran a Carfax, just in case (I was buying out of state).

Either way, I doubt any shenanigans are involved. Just lousy quality.

 

I'm with USMC Vet. I suspect it was damaged in transit or on the dealer lot, and may have even been poorly fixed by the dealer given the texture of the roof you indicate.

The white vans have a two coat process, the other colors have a three coat process. Here's a paragraph from the Ford Media page about the paint on the Transits.

***
The new paint procedure is being used for white-colored vehicles, which account for 80 percent of Ford Transit production at Kansas City Assembly Plant. As each color must be developed uniquely for the two-wet monocoat process, other colors will be considered based on demand. A conventional three-wet process – primer, base coat, clear coat – remains in use for metallic-colored vehicles.
***

They say white is two part, metallic is three part. Not sure where that leaves the red and black.

 

On very careful inspection of the roof and the rest, I do not think anything has been done to it. The pain is thin and even, the primer (drab olive?) is intact, there's no signs of paint or overpaint, etc. The paint peeled inside the ribs, where dents would be very visible. I guess I'll have to see what Ford warranty says.

 

Return van for full refund. This van should have been rejected during PDI.

 

This is not how it works, unfortunately. Car manufacturers are special.

If it keeps peeling and it goes to paint 4+ times I may be able to invoke lemon law. I don't know that I have the time to waste though. I'll probably unload the thing in a year and get a real vehicle. What's a few K in a big scheme of things.

The lesson was priceless though, let the rental shops and government buy these.

 

Sitting outside for a year? Some dealer stooge probably cleaned it with MEK or something.

 

Yes. It was an unusual configuration (medium roof, short base, 150) on a dealer lot in some little town in the middle of nowhere. The dealer could not move it since January (according to Carfax). Nothing wrong with that. Unless it's a Ford, that is.


Don't get fooled by what you see: the paint was bubbling and peeling but in place. Being an OCD, I scraped the lose flakes with my fingernail. So, it's not a paint stripper.

 

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.

 

Thank you, I'll call that number. I was going to ask a dealer to put me in touch with a regional Ford warranty manager, but this sounds better.

(I bought locally, but it's still a 40 miles away; I have a bunch of dealers closer; I assume it does not matter which one does the warranty service?)

If anybody wants the VIN, I have no problem sharing in a private message. Just don't want it to show up in Google searches.

***

I am just truly surprised by how cheaply the van is made. My daily driver is a 10 year old Forester totaled in a hail storm with stones the size of a base ball. The thing looks like it was worked over with a hammer. I drove this car every weekend for a year through salt and snow (skiing). Still, the paint is holding and refusing to even chip.

When I saw the peeling paint I had hard time believing my eyes. Took a little while to process. Now what is this, wait, really? My first car (1979 Lada, built in the USSR by workers between their first and second bottle of vodka in the morning) had absolutely amazing thick paint, comparatively. It is actually almost funny how bad it is. You'd think it would be cheaper to have a fully automated and controlled process.

Sorry, I had to find a lighter side in this disaster

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.

 

Check roof and other areas with a weak fridge magnet
to see if Bondo was used to fill hail dents -

 

.

 

...

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.

I don't think any of that historical stuff is relevant, since the white on the Transit is done with a new process, as described in one of the earlier links.

 

Why the primer is Olive Drab:

Once at work we used Zinc Chromate metal primer to prime Galvanized Steel for painting recommended to us by Sherman-Williams.


First link says Ford invented Zinc Chromate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc_chromate


The second link under the heading: Zinc, Mentions the Olive Drab color. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromate_conversion_coating

 

Watch out for the Chevy Equinox. They systematically rust under the doors where the body panels come together.

 

Everything rusts, given a few years and the right climate. An old Toyota started having paint issues after 16 years or so.

The problem is, this is new vehicle.

Funny thing, I knew dark colors tend to have issues after many years, so I figured white is going to last and is hard to screw up. Aha.

It does not take long to find a newspaper article with a photo of Ford cars and their owners lined up, all complaining about paint peeling.

 

When people ask me if I like my Transit I tell them it does not seem so not so much when I close my eyes and imagine the current 4th Generation design being developed at Ford's East Berlin offices in 1988.



At least back then paint was paint and parts was parts.

 

<iframe src="https://abc11.com/video/embed/?pid=5389715" allowfullscreen="" width="476" height="267" frameborder="0"></iframe>

 

https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit...lawsuit-news/856346-mercedes-class-action-alleges-mars-red-paint-bubbles-peels/

 

Hey, 3 years is bad but brand new is in its own category. Most people have hard time believing this is possible in this day and age.

 

I get that you're unhappy, and frustrated. The more I read you issuing blanket warning against buying a Ford product, though, the more you sound like a troll. There is simply no logic to taking your one-off issue to extreme, especially in light of known issues for ALL the competition.

 

Did you followup by sending me pictures to my email address? I can send those up to the Ford Transit Brand Group and get some better answers. I need the pictures along with your name, address, and phone contact and the dealer who you purchased the van from.

 

It would be great, if you could do this. What is your email? I am not very familiar with the forum software here, need to check for private messages I guess.

I have been busy at work and did not get a chance to stop by a dealer today. I am curious how it will go, since most dealers I spoke to don't have body shops on premises.

To be honest, I am not very motivated to do anything since whichever way I slice it, I am not seeing a whole lot of benefit. Just doing the touch up repair of peeled spots is probably not going to solve it. Stripping the paint from the whole roof is likely to never be as good as the factory paint and will trigger hidden rust. In the case of a large paint job there will be signs of the vehicle being repainted (subtle overspray, etc). Everybody knows to never ever touch a repainted car. Basically it's going to suck whichever way I go.

Right now I think I at least have the factory primer intact. Cars in Colorado take a long time to rust. I have seen people taking Ford to small claims court and winning money for peeling paint on 12-13 year old cars. Maybe I should just document it and leave it alone. If it gets worse, I can try and get some money then.

Oh, the body shop dude suggested just using compressed air to peel paint. Kind of funny, but smart. "So, let's see if a pressure wash can peel the paint of the whole car".

***

To be sure, I like the van. If I can stomach the fuel economy, the 130" wheel base is very viable as a all around vehicle. Great concept, not so stellar execution.