ericvv wrote:

I suspect that RR painting is almost fully robotic today in a gazzillion £££ worth of paint shop. The Defender paintshop is probably still quite a manual affair, and probably of a very outdated design in which at the end of the life cycle now not much investment is done anymore.

One thing is for sure, I have the impression that these complaints about poor paint job have increased very much in the last 2 years, as opposed to 2007/8/9....... Seems quality control is slipping. Although, there are still good ones coming off the line as shown by the "Hunter" edition of our friend Kitoper. His 2013 model is painted first class, and does not have any of the issues often described here. Gives me more reason to think Defender painting is very labor intensive, and if you get a monday morning or friday later afternoon assembled truck......