Is white paintwork easier to match up?

There are whites and whites so don't assume matching is any easier.

I think black is the easiest to "touch up" but not only if the surface is smooth. To me black shows every little ding.

Brian

One of the worst colours to match up. My neighbour used to run a paint buisness, and he hated trying to match whites.

If you could see the botch job Williams BMW bodyshop* (Liverpool) did to my accident damaged Hyundai (and after several attempts too), i`d be tempted to say no.

Either that, or they couldn`t be arsed to buy the correct paint.

*i`ll be more than happy to provide evidence of their handywork, but the colour mismatch is hard to see except "in the flesh" - mine had the boot painted in a blueish white, whereas the rest was more of a "white white" in comparison.

It's an absolute bitch of a colour to match.

At one point we had 2 white cars on the drive - my Alfa 75 and the Primera I was using as a commuting hack at the time. Totally different shades.

The 75 is what I can only describe as 'fridge freezer white'. The Primera was closer to magnolia.

Not a chance. In fact, it's harder. Ford have several shades of white for a start.

No, white is difficult to match. The original colour tends to "yellow" slightly. I usually spray whole panels on white if I can (but I refuse to attempt my wife's Previa - seen the size of those panels?!) Even then you can end up with a mismatched panel.

That's true of lots of colours though; my Elf looks fine in daylight, but under sodium lamps the doors clearly don't match.

Was it "Noble White"? if so there's about a dozen different shades, still doesn't excuse them for not trying to match your existing colour though.

Steve.

Not in all cases but sometimes the primer or undercoat colour can make a difference to the final shade. Take Ford Venetian red for example during a repair job if a grey primer was used instead of the original white primer the venetian red would end up far too dark.

Steve.

In the case of the Elf, I sprayed the whole thing, but ran out of the original paint. My local paint factor got out the paint chips and declared it to be Vauxhall Flame Red - Rover also do a Flame Red and it may have been that. In daylight you have to look hard to tell, but under sodium it's obvious.

Not a clue what it is tbh, but they really were sh*te, and they had, IIRC, at least 3 attempts at repainting it, and additional damage to the o/s/r they caused - tried to deny - and were caught out by their own initial report saying there was no damage there - into account and having to repaint that too - in the wrong sodding colour again !

I gave up in the end (the car`s probably worth less than a grand anyway) after making damn sure the insurance company footing the bill knew how bad they were.

It was a boot repair (some plonker, aka "me" backed it into something that was hard to miss), and following their "repair" the boot would open while driving along, the roof lining hadn`t been screwed back, other minor ancilliary bits like a plastic boot lock cover was loose and missing a screw (it only has two to start with, and this was loose enough to foul the lock entirely), and the panel alignment is non- existant. They also had a fetish for stealing car mats - I had to get them "found" at least twice when they tried to hand the car back to me, the first time i`d already driven home before I realised.

It still takes about 3 attempts to shut the boot, and requires a hard slam or you`ve got no chance :-/

Early 200SX S13 had that "yellow snow" KG5 arctic white colour. Late S13 had a different whiter white 326. But there are 72 different shades of that white. Known variously depending which car it's on and country it's sold in as Crystal White or Super White.

-- Peter Hill Spamtrap reply domain as per NNTP-Posting-Host in header Can of worms - what every fisherman wants. Can of worms - what every PC owner gets!

I always buy solid colour cars after my only experience with a metallic, where touching up stone chips were visible 50 yards away. Have owned 2 white cars which were a damn sight better than the above, in fact with the dealer provided touch up stick when standing back , it just blends in. Thats good enough for me. There should be a paint code on the car, or your dealer will find it. I would not bother with an accessory shop paint, there is no significant cost saving. Now if you are talking of spraying a large area, well thats a different matter re matching.... Try this test, touch up in white a standard size stone chip. Stand back from the car 5 yards and look at the whole car, not the touched up chip, you wont notice it. Now try this with a metallic......

SteveH ( snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Seems... appropriate.

If you have a proper spray gun for metallic and some skill, it'll blend right in. I've had small repairs done on two metallic cars now (one cracked bumper on a blue car and one 6" bit of rot on a silver car) and the new paint has perfectly matched the old.

The boot catch can be adjusted to align with the slam panel recess or vise-versa, the catch may need raising slightly to enable the boot to close easily, though you could adjust this yourself.

A vehicle paint code (found under the bonnet left side on BMW) will always identify the colour but won't always identify the shade or colour variant from it. Colour mixing and matching has to be done at a paint shop who should have colour matching experience to compare the original existing vehicle colour to the paint swatch and if this doesn't prove successful then the guy mixing the paint should be able to alter the formulae to obtain the exact match. Half the time they can't be arsed and just take a guess without doing an experimental test spray first and allow the paint to dry before actually spraying the panels properly.

It just goes to show that even main dealers don't always know what their doing, especially when it involves paintwork, These particular people would be better off farming out the work to a body shop who are capable of the job and your best bet (which is what you've probably concluded anyway) is take your car elsewhere for paintwork.

Steve.

[snip]

Metallic has only been easier to match and blend than straight colours, with the right equipment of course.

Steve.

I suspect the repair was not quite as comprehensive as it should have been, and that the horizontal bit on the main body of the car is a little bent inwards - there seems to be very little scope for adjustment on the lock itself unfortunately :-/ and after the bodyshop had had it in three times for the same thing, I would expect they`d tried the adjustments themselves, although... (i`d already involved the MD of the chain of dealers by this point)

Stephen Hull (Steve@127.0.0.1) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Oh, I'm sure they know the theory... but who's paying for the bodyshop to mix/test spray/clean gun/wait to dry/check/remix/test spray/clean gun/wait to dry/check/remix/test spray/clean gun/wait to dry/check/spray car on the average insurance repair to a scrape?

Indeed!, now a computer tells them how much a repair will cost not the insurance assessors own judgement.

Steve.