... This was clearly due to poor packaging. ...
I have doubts about that, because the box and packaging is no different from any other 22, right? What IS different is the journey to Weber's distribution center.
The damaged ones are either being mishandled prior to going into the box, or the box is getting bounced around afterwards. I vote for the latter, because how would a paint chip wind up being included in the box if the metal was hurt prior to getting placed in the box? Also, if you damage the metal prior to putting it into the box, you'd have to be a Class-A cretin not to care about it.
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Obviously, none of that has anything to do with the missing and misapplied paint issues. Weber's being hit with two unrelated issues here, I suspect. Their somewhat Byzantine efforts to identify purchase locations and so on are likely an effort to determine where exactly the problems are occurring. They can't prevent them if they don't know where they are occurring.
In one of the older Weber videos from a few years ago, they mention that if anything's amiss during a spot check, the entire related run gets opened up and inspected. That clearly hasn't been happening with this model.
Yes, it happened after the grill was boxed. My point is that there is nothing between the outside layer of the box itself and the rim of the bowl. Any type of moderate to severe impact on the top edge of the box, against the rim is most likely going to cause damage. That's what happened as evidenced by the paint chips on the bottom of the box. I suggested to Weber to bolster the sidewall inside the box...or put a foam pipe type of insulation around the entire rim.
I've got 2 boxes here, one for a NOS/never-used Dark Blue and another for a Copper. The grills range from a couple years to around 8 yrs old. Neither has any more protection for the lid rim than the images you shared for this new red.
That's why I claimed the boxes for modern 22's are all the same, and suspect
shipping, and not packaging, has been a problem with these reds.
Perhaps it's semantics since packaging, and resistance to abuse during shipping are directly related. But we aren't hearing about non-reds being defective out of the box, are we?