More paint failure on Clarity

I would say that it is reasonable to expect to see some small imperfections in the paint. I would keep an eye on it though and if the spot grows larger or develops any cracks, take a picture of it and take it to the dealer immediately so that you have it in your service history that the paint is starting to crack.

I don't know if that would do you any good or not. My own situation is still playing out.

(If the spot starts to swell in size, get a picture of that as well, and take it to the dealer at that time.)

 

Latest pic. About 5 days apart. The yellow line shows what used to be two separate spots where the paint had come away from the primer, and the right picture shows how the paint between them has now come away from the primer to merge the two small spots into one larger spot. Also, I suspect that this particular spot is over a spot weld in the roof.



Does anyone know what the white is? It appears to be under the primer. As far as I know, the roof of the Clarity is steel, but perhaps it is treated with some chemical to etch it.

Here is a picture of a crack that appears to be growing in length. The root of the crack is visible in the left picture but that picture either did not catch the full length of the crack in the finish, or it has grown considerably. I can't say which of these is the case, but what I can say is that there are several cracks radiating out from this spot on the roof.

 

Thank you so much. So I think the white I see must be the E-coat, which is under the primer. Very useful.

Again, thanks.

 

Is he sure it is not actually plastic wrap from the delivery wrapping? I still find little pieces of plastic wrap around my rear view mirrors and door sills.

 

IBex sent someone out to look at the issue and IBex said that it did not look like environmental (which IBex would be on the hook to cover).

Honda closed out the issue and said that it was environmental, however the dealer said that they worked with Honda and IBex and are going to repaint the top, passenger C pillar, and trunk lid as a "Customer Courtesy" gesture. That has not happened yet, but the dealer is working on having an independent collision center do the work and will contact me when it is scheduled (and provide a loaner car). I feel like the problem is close to resolution, but again, Honda itself did not accept that it was a paint defect, but in the end, I think it is going to get fixed and the re-paint will be lifetime guarantee by a national collision repair center.

So, finger's crossed.

 

The end of the story.

While Honda maintained that it was not a factory defect and was probably environmental, IBex, professional painters, and a major paint distributor all individually said that it did not look like any kind of environmental problem they had ever seen. In the end, a I understand it, the dealer, IBex, and Honda put their heads together and agreed to team up to paint the affected panels as a "Customer Courtesy".

I picked the car up today, and looks as good as new. The work was farmed out to Caliber Collision, so a lifetime warranty on the paint.

Now I was upset that it took the amount of effort that it did require to resolve this, but in the end, I am pleased that the situation did get handled to my satisfaction. I know that I can be hard to deal with and played very hard ball to get this done, but it is just business to these guys, so in the end, they did the right thing which was to fix the problem and if they chose not to call it a warranty issue, that is fine with me. Issue has been resolved.

 

It worked out. I was confident that with persistence that a resolution would present itself.

I Love the car. The experience was not enough to change that. Considering the State of Texas $2500 rebate and the $7500 tax credit, this was an absolutely insanely good value.

Heck, the City of Austin even paid half of the cost ($1200) of a level 2 charger and the cost to install it, including digging the trench to get the wiring out to the driveway. Now we are future-proofed if the next car is PHEV or full electric.