How long does it take to build a car

nheather

I have a BMW on order and I have just received three texts as follows

8th Nov 11:02 - the bodyshell has reached the paintshop and will be undergoing an exacting 5 stage paint process

8th Nov 13:01 - you car is now fully assembled

9th Nov 11:02 - your car has now left the factory and is on its way to the UK

This can't be right surely.  It must take more than 1 hour and 59 minutes to go from an unpainted bodyshell to a finished car.

I would have thought the painting process alone would take a few days.

Cheers,

Nigel

Gary D

I think that's about right for a 21st Century production line.

un1eash

A car rolls of the production line almost every minute at Nissan in Sunderland

nheather

So how come when you go to a main dealer paint shop they tell you it is going to take days because of the number of layers they have to put on each of which needs to be baked.

It's hard for me to imagine that five coats of paint and a lacquer can be applied in a few minutes and be tough enough to start working on a few minutes later.

Cheers,

Nigel

Gary D

No idea.  I don't work in a body shop.  But I'd imagine that the factory has better ovens and more joined up processes as it passes through production.

One thing I do know is that it doesn't take days to make car.  Unless it's a hand built Morgan or similar.

JimmyMac

might give some insight to it, bare in mind thats 5 years old so chances are its been improved since then

Aerojon

the complete drivetrain is on a jig,then to two are married together on the production line where the fitters then bolt it together..

Greg Hook

I’ve been on a few tours of truck plants. It’s amazing when you see how it all works. Especially when it takes 12 weeks to get a damn chassis delivered but they make so many in one day!

With modern quick drying paints and paint booths it takes no time at all to paint a vehicle.

If you ever get the chance to have a tour of a modern vehicle plant, do it as it is fascinating.

JimmyMac

Did a tour of the bentley factory some years back, takes a little longer there! Hand stitching seats, hand made veneer, amazing to see the engines being built

Chevyonfuel

As noted above, it's a varying thing depending on manufacturer. The more mainstream manufacturer's have an assembly line that requires each action to be carried out with the timing of an order picker at Amazon - all quite busy. In terms of how long it takes to get a car delivered from date of order - for your average car, the wait is primarily because you as a customer are in a queue in terms of where your car is on the line, so it might not take long to put together in isolation. It's more that it's got to go through the sausage making machine among all the other orders.

Some manufacturer's will have body shells in stock in the most common colours, knowing it'll be chosen by a customer at some point. That might explain why the paint process appears so quick; it might have been sat waiting to be plucked for assembly.

I had the Gaydon factory tour from Aston Martin last month (part of the day prior to being shown the new Vantage). They average 27 minutes per station, but due to the complexity of things like the upholstery, they're done offline from the busier bits, to become a more modular assembly later on for the interior fitters. With cars like the current Vantage, it's something like 150 hours to hand stitch the door cards. The robots building Honda Civics can churn out several completed vehicles in the same time.

If you get a chance to visit any of the factories for a tour (I'd heard Mini and Honda are quite good), they're wonderful places to see. The engineering involved in just the processes for producing vehicles is impressive itself .

p.s. it's all impressive compared to my taking almost 4 years to put an old banger of a Corvette together...