Sandy Munro talks about the teardown of the Model 3

[MichelZ]

Tesla is charging through the roof for options but I wasn't aware they were charging $3300 for red paint. Are you sure that's for just paint and not for paint and a white interior?

Red is $2500 for the 3. (Still expensive though)

 

[TT97]

Tesla is charging through the roof for options but I wasn't aware they were charging $3300 for red paint. Are you sure that's for just paint and not for paint and a white interior?

@ricohman is from Saskatchewan - I am assuming he meant CAD$ 3,300. He should be happy, with today's exchange rate, that is only US$2,492.25. He is saving almost $8 vs. buying in the U.S.!

 

[ricohman]

Tesla is charging through the roof for options but I wasn't aware they were charging $3300 for red paint. Are you sure that's for just paint and not for paint and a white interior?

I would anticipate needing to polish the car when you get it, or better yet if you find things at delivery that can be finished by paint correction then twist Tesla's arm and make them eat the cost of paint correction.

Mine was pretty good when new, they must have some new detail guys at my local SC. I still ended up polishing it and then did a ceramic coat on it.

Otherwise I think you're really going to like it. Even with the hit to range in the cold weather we get six months out of the year I'm really happy with this car and driving something else now seems mundane.

Yes it is just the paint option, in Canada anyways. I'd prefer to buff it myself if there are minor marks.
I won't accept orange peel though. No excuse for that in the present day.

 

[StealthP3D]

I won't accept orange peel though. No excuse for that in the present day.

Ha! Don't buy a new car then, almost all new cars have a bit of orange peel. The most collectible American cars from the 70's are worth tens of thousands more if they have the original orange peel paint and it could be quite noticeable back then.

Personally, I like a light orange peel on my cars as long as it's fairly consistent. It's also my favorite finish for residential walls. I've paid more to get a light orange peel before. Sheetrock installers don't like the light orange peel because it doesn't cover their defects as readily as a heavier finish.

The things people worry about make me chuckle!

 

[ricohman]

Ha! Don't buy a new car then, almost all new cars have a bit of orange peel. The most collectible American cars from the 70's are worth tens of thousands more if they have the original orange peel paint and it could be quite noticeable back then.

Personally, I like a light orange peel on my cars as long as it's fairly consistent. It's also my favorite finish for residential walls. I've paid more to get a light orange peel before. Sheetrock installers don't like the light orange peel because it doesn't cover their defects as readily as a heavier finish.

The things people worry about make me chuckle!

This ain't the 1970's. And by no orange peel I am referring to an acceptable finish for a new modern vehicle. Not a show car finish.
If I can paint a car with low VOC clear to an high standard I am sure Tesla can do the same.
Seriously, if I spend nearly 100k on a car and it arrives looking like amateur hour I won't accept it and they can find another.
I bought 4 new trucks in the last 8 years including the F450 and new Honda Pilot last year. All are very acceptable.

 

[voip-ninja]

Yes it is just the paint option, in Canada anyways. I'd prefer to buff it myself if there are minor marks.
I won't accept orange peel though. No excuse for that in the present day.

My car has lots of orange peel, so does pretty much every other dark colored $50,000 German car I've owned or looked at.

The below photo not great (car is dirty and too far away) but you can see a bit of what I'm talking about. The reflective lines on the car are jagged, it's noticeable orange peel and it's more noticeable in some lighting conditions.

Personally I prefer a mirror like finish but I have not seen many new cars come off the assembly line with paint like that. You tend to see it on very high end cars. There was an interesting article about what Bentley and Rolls Royce do on the production line to get rid of orange peel and it's not cheap.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Boy...this has turned into a complaint thread......or should I now say a compaint thread.

 

[JeffC]

If they reworked the rear trunk assembly so it wasn't a bunch of welded sub-structures would that classify as major for you? It would for me and we could see that when they start building in China next year.

I would classify that as very minor. Major changes would be removing or signficantly changing parts of the crash structure (really any part of the central body, door beams, or longitudinal crash beams).

It might be interesting to see if they redesign the unit body for the China Model 3. I expect they won't. The Model 3 unit body design was very carefully done and works very well.

Making any major changes at this point costs research and development money, is very likely unnecessary, and could reduce crash performance. A tradeoff could be slightly lower manufacturing costs. Model 3 is already highly cost reduced due to the simplicity of the design, reduction of parts count, combining of modules, and careful arrangement of parts for easier assembly. It's possible there could be ways to economize further, but we may see more progress on Model Y.

That all said, being an agile developer, Tesla (and SpaceX) make nearly continual changes, but I'd be surprised if they made many major changes to the core mechanical structure of the car, which again is very well designed and has very good results.

 

[JeffC]

My car has lots of orange peel, so does pretty much every other dark colored $50,000 German car I've owned or looked at.

The below photo not great (car is dirty and too far away) but you can see a bit of what I'm talking about. The reflective lines on the car are jagged, it's noticeable orange peel and it's more noticeable in some lighting conditions.

Personally I prefer a mirror like finish but I have not seen many new cars come off the assembly line with paint like that. You tend to see it on very high end cars. There was an interesting article about what Bentley and Rolls Royce do on the production line to get rid of orange peel and it's not cheap.

View attachment 367872

All modern assembly line paint processes have slight orange peel. It's a normal result of putting paint on a very clean surface. Manufacturers actually prefer slight orange peel also because it helps hide very minor sheet metal defects.

To get rid of orange peel on a Rolls Royce, custom paint job, or any car requires deep polishing. Only very expensive cars $200k+ do that at the factory since it's so time consuming to do well.

Any vintage car competition for production cars like Mustangs that has cars with no orange peel will be judged to have non-original paint. The factory paint of original production cars have orange peel. Same today for ordinary production cars.

Many people do not understand this.


Here's one reference:

Is Orange Peel in Paint Bad, or Correct?

“Shops trick [car] owners into thinking that orange peel is a factory imperfection. The real reason shops knock orange peel is that they need to sand and buff to remove flaws in the paint. Sanding and buffing takes away orange peel and gives shops one last chance to get out little imperfections; such as dirt, a run, a fisheye, or to touch up a chip they made while assembling the car.”

...

New car manufacturers start with brand-new metal and their paint rooms are pristine and near surgically clean, so the paint is applied in perfect conditions. Even so, most new car finishes dry with a slight bit of orange peel. Orange peel is the result of how the painter applied the paint and the environment in which the paint dried, and while it’s factory-correct (even among high-end cars like Porsches and Ferraris), it does tend to diminish some of the shine in the paint. In the case of a high-end custom paintjob, the process of color sanding and buffing with compound is done to eliminate all traces of orange peel, and create a mile-deep, super-smooth paintjob. But that is very time-consuming and therefore expensive, even for the luxury and high-end automakers, and as Perkins points out, if you’re looking for originality the lack of orange peel is a sign that the car has been repainted and therefore does not have original paint.

 

[JeffC]

Yes it is just the paint option, in Canada anyways. I'd prefer to buff it myself if there are minor marks.
I won't accept orange peel though. No excuse for that in the present day.

See above.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Exactly correct. All modern assembly line paint processes have orange peel. It's a normal result of putting paint on a very clean surface. Manufacturers actually prefer orange peel because it helps hide minor sheet metal defects.

To get rid of orange peel on a Rolls Royce, custom paint job, or any car requires deep polishing. Only very expensive cars $200k+ do that at the factory since it's so time consuming to do well.

Any vintage car competition for production cars like 1960s Mustangs that has cars with no orange peel will be judged to have non-original paint. The original production cars all have orange peel. Same today for ordinary production cars.

Many people do not understand this.

I Love whatever my car has. Orange Peel / Apple Peel / Peach Fuzz.

I love it. LOL

 

[StealthP3D]

I Love whatever my car has. Orange Peel / Apple Peel / Peach Fuzz.

I love it. LOL

Yeah, when I'm lying on my deathbed, I'm pretty sure I won't be moaning and lamenting the fact that all the cars I owned had a light orange peel. Seriously, the longest I've ever kept a car was 19 years (a Volvo, and yes, it had pronounced, beautiful even, orange peel) and by the time I've moved onto another car I'm glad I didn't spend a single minute worrying that the finish was not perfectly flat like a hand-painted yacht that was hand worked by respirator wearing boatyard workers trying to get everything perfect for their anal owners.

Do people like this take a magnifying glass to their dates privates before having sex to make sure everything looks perfect? I'm pretty sure they must. Right before they get laughed out of the room and go to bed horny.

 

[JeffC]

I'm not the iphone guy but I am an automotive enthusiast. Although I am a mechanic I also paint and do bodywork and frame work. As a painter I can be very picky and as a body man I am also picky. I agree with letting some panel issues slide as no doubt they can be made much worse. I saw a video of some guys raising the striker plate on a Model 3 to "fix" a door alignment issue. That is a good example of making something worse.
Going to order red. I can't figure out how Ford can paint my massive F450 in white platinum tricoat for $550 and Tesla charges $3300 for red?
I know candy red is expensive as I have used it before but we are getting hosed here.

Why is raising the striker plate slightly to raise the rear of the door a fraction of a millimeter a bad idea? (Tesla did that on three of my doors to raise the rear, just a fraction of a mm.) In my mind it would be easily within the tolerance of the hinges and just add a tiny amount of the play at the hinges. (It would actually unload the hinges slightly, which should arguably be good for them, i.e., the striker supports more of the load of the door, taking some off the hinges.)

Elon said the multi-coat red is the hardest to apply. I'm not a painter, but If you look at the multi-coat red closely, there appear to be possibly 3 coats above the base color coat and below the clear coat. One with a gold flakes, possibly a separate one with silver flakes, but a definite coat above that which has no flakes or opaque pigment but is a translucent red, sort of like a dark red clear coat, above the other layers but below the regular clear coat. Getting all that right probably is harder or takes more steps/time in the paint booths and likely results in a higher costs and a rejection rate.

So yes, it probably does literally cost more to do due to the additional time in the painting process and higher probability of rejects.

The pearl white seems a similar concept, but maybe without the top translucent color (red) coat.

(I have no inside information about how this is done; it's some guesses based on observations.)

 

[ricohman]

Why is raising the striker plate slightly to raise the rear of the door a fraction of a millimeter a bad idea? (Tesla did that on three of my doors to raise the rear, just a fraction of a mm.) In my mind it would be easily within the tolerance of the hinges and just add a tiny amount of the play at the hinges. (It would actually unload the hinges slightly, which should arguably be good for them, i.e., the striker supports more of the load of the door, taking some off the hinges.)

Elon said the multi-coat red is the hardest to apply. I'm not a painter, but If you look at the multi-coat red closely, there appear to be possibly 3 coats above the base color coat and below the clear coat. One with a gold flakes, possibly a separate one with silver flakes, but a definite coat above that which has no flakes or opaque pigment but is a translucent red, sort of like a dark red clear coat, above the other layers but below the regular clear coat. Getting all that right probably is harder or takes more steps/time in the paint booths and likely results in a higher costs and a rejection rate.

So yes, it probably does literally cost more to do due to the additional time in the painting process and higher probability of rejects.

The pearl white seems a similar concept, but maybe without the top translucent color (red) coat.

(I have no inside information about how this is done; it's some guesses based on observations.)

If my car had doors that were out a fraction of a mm I would leave them alone.
The striker is not meant to hold any weight. It is there to secure the door. The door is hung to fit properly, then the striker is installed. At least when installing a new door for repair. I've installed dozens and dozens of doors. I believe on the production line they hang the doors to fit high and the resulting weight of the components in the door bring it down this fraction of an inch.
If the striker is used to move the door up, wear will occur to the door and the striker resulting in a worn striker and door. And a clunky feeling door.
The hinges must bear all the weight as designed.

 

[Garlan Garner]

So....after all of the lashing I took on this thread.....It turs out that even Munro says that I was right.

To everyone saying that I was simply an exaggerated tesla fan......
Tesla Model 3 teardown expert is exasperated with analysts' inaccurate data

"Auto teardown expert Sandy Munro knows a thing or two about the Tesla Model 3. After initially criticizing the electric sedan for its build quality, Munro eventually experienced a change of heart as he delved deeper into the Model 3’s electronics and tech. By the end of his analysis, the teardown expert admitted that the vehicle made him “eat a lot of crow.”"

I gave him my referral code for when he buys his new personal one. LOL

 

[Brando]

I'm no structural engineer, but you have to think Munro is missing something because the Model 3 collision tests are excellent.

Just imagining a possible reason.
assumption: solid state batteries coming ... cooling less of a concern - battery pack could be built much lighter. (Battery Pack doesn't need large thermal mass)
Therefore a battery upgrade [new battery pack for solid state batteries] could be much lighter and the crash result would not change.

So how is that for guessing why ?? no response expected as we are just speculating and your speculation as good as mine.

 

[voip-ninja]

So....after all of the lashing I took on this thread.....It turs out that even Munro says that I was right.

To everyone saying that I was simply an exaggerated tesla fan......
Tesla Model 3 teardown expert is exasperated with analysts' inaccurate data

"Auto teardown expert Sandy Munro knows a thing or two about the Tesla Model 3. After initially criticizing the electric sedan for its build quality, Munro eventually experienced a change of heart as he delved deeper into the Model 3’s electronics and tech. By the end of his analysis, the teardown expert admitted that the vehicle made him “eat a lot of crow.”"

I gave him my referral code for when he buys his new personal one. LOL

It takes a special someone to resurrect a 90 day stale thread and try to turn it into a vindicating "told you so".

Munro is still critical of the assembly used in the Model 3 and has sent Tesla a list of over 200 changes he recommends they make in order to reduce their car.

He must be a pretty big fan though since AFAIK Tesla haven't paid him anything for his work.

 

[Trevor B]

Tesla Model 3 teardown expert is exasperated with analysts' inaccurate data

Munro himself spoke with Elon Musk, who explained that the person responsible for the Model 3’s body design had been terminated. In response, Munro told the CEO that the response was “not fast enough,” since Tesla “never should have hired (the engineer)” in the first place.

Huh???

 

[Brando]

I think I remember at least 3 interviews on Autoline.tv where Sandy Munro talks about his opinions of Elon Musk.
Here is Sandy Munro's latest interview on Autoline - yes you can "speed up the interview playback" try 1.5 times

many interesting perspectives on today's auto industry (and Tesla/Elon) - well worth your time
side note: deming.org

 

[Msjulie]

Sandy seems to know what he's talking about, the main guy: too smug for me.. and not as smart as he thinks he is..

Liked the 'money making machine' comment..