GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Not sure if this was posted before, went to thier site and read it. Seems interesting although it doesnt give me any better feeling about our paint jobs, From, http://www.nummi.com/painting.html----- ... ---------A great paint job may not have much to do with vehicle performance, but it’s one of the first things a customer notices, and you know what they say about first impressions! That’s why the team members who work in Truck and Car Paint spend their workdays making sure the vehicles leaving the plant look their very best.Paint takes over where Body and Weld leaves off, and like any paint job, the bulk of the work is in the preparation. Vehicles first go through a phosphate bath to remove dirt and oil. Then, a rust-prevention coating is applied and the vehicle is baked in a huge oven at 320°F for 20 minutes.Sealer and two more coatings are added to muffle sound, prevent chips and waterproof the vehicle. This is followed by a second trip to the oven, this time for 10 minutes at 230°F.Primer and interior paint come next. Interiors, trunk and engine compartments are sprayed manually, while exterior paint is applied by robots. After team members inspect and sand vehicles to remove any defects, they are washed, blow dried and baked at 250°F for 10 minutes.Finally we get to the colorful part of the work. A base coat and - for all colors except white - clear coat are applied. Again, team members paint the interiors while robots spray the exteriors. Then it’s back to the oven for another 45 minutes.This is followed by another inspection for defects and any repairs that might be necessary.Team members in paint wear coveralls and keep their heads covered, not just to keep paint off themselves, but also to prevent any lint, pet hair or other contaminants that might be on their clothing from getting on the paint. Before entering the shop, they pass through a chamber that blows off any dust. NUMMI goes to extremes to protect the paint job. Team members cannot wear deodorant, hair spray, cologne, or other scents that can become airborne and could pit a vehicle's paint surface.Another interesting fact is that Tacoma cabs are painted at NUMMI, but the beds are done at Toyota’s manufacturing plant in Baja California, then trucked to Fremont for assembly.From paint, vehicles go to Assembly, but will have to detour to the Paint Hospital if any damage occurs to the paint job during assembly.---------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote »Sealer and two more coatings are added to muffle sound, prevent chips and waterproof the vehicle. This is followed by a second trip to the oven, this time for 10 minutes at 230°F.Yeah, imagine where we would be if they didn't take such good care! We would have paint that's chipped all to hell, a good amount of road noise entering the vehicle, and many cases of water leaks! Whew, good thing they're doing such a good job there. Thanks for the laugh, I needed that. Nice high quality paint jobs indeed! Why didn't they bother to give us paint before loading our Vibes on the trucks?

Maybe the fumes from the workers not wearing deodorant, thins out the paint as its being applied, lol. . Or maybe the extra sweat water gets into the paint and thins it out even more.

lol! Armpit funk, that's what does it. They're investing on some new equipment in the paint shop soon, so hopefully their quality will improve.

After reading about the rust issues on fairly new vibes, I'm going to take the advice of the Canadians and go north to get my vibe treated with Krown rust proofing. Its about 150 miles north of where I live in Maine to the closest dealer in Sherbrooke Quebec, but I think it will be worth it to take a drive up there once a year and get it treated. I've already had a clear bra installed all over the front end. This site is making me very paranoid, but maybe thats a good thing.

Hey, it never hurts to be too safe. In the long run, it'll probably be worth it.

It's the lack of armpit deodarant that helps have a smooth paint job. My cousin works in the paint department for NUMMI, but he doesn't do the top coat. I've spent one week working at NUMMI, last week, and was recently terminated for supposedly using "ecstasy." It was a quick thousand that I made though. ****ty part is, I couldn't fight it and when I went to pick up my test results they slammed the door in my face. Now they won't return any of my calls. I hate NUMMI. Anyways, I was in quality control and they were doing the auditing of vehicles. I had to take the cars with "good paint" on them. I swear I got like 1 out of every 30 cars that had decent enough paint for them to look at. That is a bad ratio if you ask me. Did I mention I hate NUMMI. I lucked out getting quality control to start off. It takes people 8 years to get to where I was. I'm glad I got fired. What kind of reward does someone get working for that long. Valeting cars. Sorry I'm kinda off subject. Bye

That's very interesting.... I'm always intrigued to hear what goes on behind a factory's doors, NUMMI or otherwise.

Quote, originally posted by SuPeRioN81 »I'm glad I got fired. What kind of reward does someone get working for that long. Its called RETIREMENT, thats where you get to sit around and do anything you want and get paid good money (around 2 to 3k a month) to do it.the paint shop where I work is a cleanroom you wear blue suits, hair nets and they frown on perfume and other stuff that has bad reactions to paint. so there is some truth to the deoderant thing.

Quote, originally posted by SuPeRioN81 » I've spent one week working at NUMMI, last week, and was recently terminated ... What kind of reward does someone get working for that long. Valeting cars. Sorry I'm kinda off subject. ByeI am confused. You worked for them for one week, got fired, I would think the reward for working for them that long would be relatively zero. What am I missing?

Quote, originally posted by SuPeRioN81 » I've spent one week working at NUMMI, last week, and was recently terminated for supposedly using "ecstasy."man, you shouldn't have come to work huffing vapor rub and twirling glow sticks!

Quote, originally posted by navydave »...A base coat and - for all colors except white - clear coat are applied.(removed)?!?!? Why doesn't white get clear coat?!?! I've been jipped!

The "area" that I was working at takes 10-15 years to get to, and that job wasn't all that great. Everyone said I would be lucky to even get to this position after getting put back on the production line. So basically, the word is that if I'm lucky, I get to wrap cars with plastic and then drive them off to teh shipping yard. That was the cream of the crop if I was to be a loyal employee for 10 or so years. I was a 180 day temp hire so they put me where I was needed. If I got the permanent job, I would have started on the line. Basically, all I ws saying is that, you work hard for 10 or so years, I get to be miserable like the people at the end of the line at quality control. And believe me, they were all miserable and didn't like what they did.

No way, disgruntled employees? Say, that explains a lot. Perhaps I'm well on the way to finding out why my car fell off the assembly line, they duct taped it back together and still shipped it on out. I guess it fell off the truck somewhere along the way, but the dealer at the end of the line did a good job at fixing it up making it look like nothing ever happened. Sounds far fetched, but with the luck I'm having, uhh...

Oh my god and do they abuse the cars at the 99 line(right before the shipping yard). I've seen so many peel outs, sharp turns screeching tires and the occasional e-brake while turning. And these have like 2.0 miles on the odometer at the most. I was surprised how crazy these people drive these cars. I caught on and did the same but... hehe I guess I'm just bitter that I got fired... The job is cake, just not much moving up the ladder though

Quote, originally posted by gargoyle »(removed)?!?!? Why doesn't white get clear coat?!?! I've been jipped! that's excactly what I was thinking....dang it.....

then again it could of been built on a Friday at 4:30pm.....slam, bam , thank you ma'am..... Or on a Monday at 8:00 am......

What the heck, why no clearcoat on white? I thought EVERY color had clearcoat on it these days, unsure what's so special about white that gives them the liberty to slack on clearcoat application. I've had three white cars, two of them had clearcoat, the third didn't because it was a 1982 model. I had it repainted and had clearcoat added though.

The title of this thread should read "Nummi's run down of thier paint process and metal prep OR lack theirof."

The process described sounds great. It's too bad it doesn't have excellent results. I read a lot of car forums and it seems to me that the Vibe is "attracted" to paint chips a heck of a lot faster than most vehicles (maybe the other vehicles have "a better" paint job. I don't read the matrix forums...do they, with the same paint jobs, 'attract" stones, etc. as the Vibe does??

It seems to me this topic shuld be combined with the "Paint issues" topic. That topic is certainly getting a lot of responses.