Noticed the other day...

[Bren]

while trying to sort out the thermostat housing on my sister's fiesta, I noticed the under the bonnet was not painted in body colour - it was all primer, even the front edge of the scuttle panel had not been painted. A previous T reg mondeo my father owned was the same.

 

Even my brother's 12 plate focus,  a car which retails at £21K, had patchy paintwork in the door shuts but still passed quality control.

 

I used to think only the americans finished cars like this, it seems to have spread to europe, no doubt to save a few bob.

[Faker]

Ford started this practise with the the very last of the mk3 fiestas. Tight gits!! I saw with my own ears a mk4 fiesta that while undergoing its pre-delivery inspection, it was discovered that it was two different colours down each side. One side was that very dark green, and the other was a very dark grey. The two colours blended perfectly down the middle of the bonnet, roof and boot, to look a bit like that sort of flip paint look. You really had to look hard to spot it, until you looked at each side. I can only assume that the robots painting each side contained different coloured paint. Anyhoo it was like a flat navy blue base colour under the bonnet and in the boot, only the door shuts etc were painted body colour.