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      11-11-2013, 05:10 PM   #15
jadnashuanh
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Drives: 535iGT x-drive; i3 BEV
Join Date: May 2010
Location: USA

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My guess is that any color other than the 'stock' ones will cost you a fair amount of money. The vehicle likely ends up getting painted by hand, or, someone has to spend lots of time swapping in a new color to the stock painting robots, which would slow the whole production line down, which I don't think happens. Maybe they have a special room where they have a paint robot, but if you've ever seen either a video or been on a factory tour, you'd realize the investment they have in their paint line is substantial and almost entirely automated. Along the production line, after painting, they remove the doors, and they get mated back up with the vehicle later on...pulling one out to do a special color means a lot of extra manual labor, and that takes highly skilled people and extra time...you will pay for it!

If you've never seen it, the paint robots can switch color in seconds - the paint head pops off the arm, and it picks up the next, required head, so it can paint any stock color on any vehicle (and it doesn't matter which body style, either) as it comes in...the computer keeps track of what's needed and paints each perfectly. As a result, each car through could easily be a different stock color, and a different body style...they're al sequenced and controlled by the computer based on what was ordered and when, but it only has enough heads for the stock colors.
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