DIY car spray paint? not available from dealer or Halfords

Many places inc halfords and even car shops will mix paint while you wait, either loose or in an aerosol. Otherwise just look up paint suppliers and go there, most big industrial estates have some sort of car paint supplier. Movac are one of the largest companies.

Some Halfords have a mix to order paint service. They should be able to supply any colour not in their standard range - they could for my BMW.

Google translate might come in handy to check the details!

Can get surprisingly good results with a scratch and decent paint applicators (or cocktail sticks at a push). Build up about the the paint, razor blade it down and then 2500 grit wet and dry and polish

paints4u.com have been briliant in the past for me and friends. They are also recommended on detailingworld.com (and you won't find a fussier group of people!)

is a decent kit. Or take your pick from their selection:

As I say, I know several people who have used paints4u with great results.

Your milage may vary etc etc, no connection just a happy customer!

Darren

are good IME.

The first thing you must do with all the scratch repair kits is to throw away the brush it comes with. Use a small artists brush to apply the paint only in the scratch. The artists brushes found in pound shops at

10 for £1 are often 10+x better than the brush that comes with a kit. Just remember to wash and dry the brush first as they seem to (water base) glue the bristles for display purposes.

Indeed. In fact, the kits I linked to don't come with brushes but "paint spears".

These are much easier to control - small pointy things :-)

Darren

Cocktail sticks. ;-)

OK, interesting... hadn't occurred to me that that might be an option I have to say. I'd certainly much rather do that if possible rather than the faff of aerosols etc. And I think both daughter and I would be happy if it wasn't totally a showroom-finish repair... that said, there's a small dent elsewhere which I suppose I could sort out at the same time...

I've posted a hi-res photo of the damage here: does this look like it might succumb sto a touch-up kit? This is in the middle of a door panel; scratch is 3mm wide at worst, and 200mm in length. Bastard.

Think they were one of the outfits I found; but discounted them as the colour there is described as PASSEDENA (with the correct paint code) rather than PASODOBLE which doesn't inspire confidence! However the registration number checker tool on their website does generate the right name, so I'll explore further!

It is entirely possible that the European name is different to, say, the US name.

Their spray cans get pretty good reviews as well - I've never used them but I know people who have to paint matched mirrors etc.

Hmmm.... 3mm is a bit wide. Depends on the finish you want. You'll be able to improve things with a touch up kit but they work best with nice thin scratches.

Drop them an email with a photo showing the vin plate with the paint codes on and they'll confirm what paint you need. They are very helpful in my experience!

Darren

Indeed. I used paints4u for my Audi's paint, which no-one stocked: UK name is Kingfisher Blue, original name Pelikan blau.

Hence my link to an item called "Fiat 111 Rosso Sfrontato"

This is just a follow-up to say thanks for the advice - I went with paints4u and the colour match was perfect!

Also - I'd really appreciate a bit of further advice please at this point...

I've sanded, primed, and applied the top coat; all good so far. Colour is fine but the currently the finish is definitely slightly matt ie not perfectly smooth like a finished car body. Should I be using more wet-and-dry now? If so, followed by more paint, or is it straight to the lacquer then?

I've been googling for this stuff all day but am getting conflicting information (some may just relate to metallic paint? and there's a helluva lot which assumes you have pro kit and 2-part paint/lacquer/hardener systems etc)

FYI the paints4u kit I bought includes aerosols of primer, paint, and lacquer and a glass vial of polish.

(Do you actually use lacquer with non-metallic paint, which is what I'm dealing with?)

Thanks David

If it's a solid colour, you'd normally finish it with cutting compound before final wax polishing. If it is still slightly rough, and there's plenty paint thickness, you could flat down with very fine 1000 grit wet or dry used wet first, then compound to a shine. Farecla G3 is probably the best cutting compound.

It want's to be shiny before you apply the clearcoat, if it originally h= ad =

clearcoat then use it, if not don't.

did you ask Halfords about mixing it ? ... they can mix aerosols of paint as long as youy know make/model .... even metallics ... I used them last year worked fine.

OK.... how do I tell whether it had clearcoat before? It's just a bog-standard Panda with ordinary non-metallic paint: does that mean 'no'? If so I'm wondering why paints4u would flog me a repair kit containing the primer, paint and lacquer?)

Any chips on it which might give a clue? I thought the idea of using a lacquer over solid colours was short lived - I had a black early '90s BMW which did. One of the worst paints ever - was covered in stone chips.

I had the SD1 re-sprayed about 5 years ago - again in black - and that is water based paint with no clear coat. And it's lasting very well.

It might be obvious if you examine an edge with a magnifying glass?