trouble matching WVB
 

Thanks to a deer, I had to have my left front fender replaced. I took it to a body shop that is supposed to be the best in the area, and they blended hood, front bumper, and door, but when I went to pick it up, the paint did not match. And so, they are going to try again. Bummer! :mad:

bummer. I had a similar deer situation, but it was hood, grill, bumper, 1 fender, rad, and more. The paint matching was very good (torch red) but the clear is considerably softer than stock, and swirls up easily. I hope they get it right for you.

A friend of mine had a few incidents with getting keyed, his car is Satin Silver like mine. The first time it got painted, the paint didn't match mine at all, was at least one shade too dark. The second time, it got re-sprayed again by a much better shop that took the time to do it right, car looks much better.

I have WB and when I have my fender and front bumper replace in the Ford dealer. I have to take it back 3 times because the color doesn't match. The dealer explain to me that WB have 3 different color code mix depending the year of your car. I thought it was BS.

Actually, I don't believe it is BS. I just had a new hood put on and the guy who painted it showed me that there can be levels of tint above and below the stock color and a couple of different base stocks. This makes sense if you think about normal manufacturing variations in paint. Plus, if you have metal flake, it can be difficult to get the same grain and lay of the flake. He showed me some samples that looked the same in normal light, but when he took them out into the sun and held them next to each other, you could see slight shade differences.

The quality of the paint as well as the experience of the painter are part of the mix too. But I was surprised that he said that white can be the biggest pain to match.

I was surprised to see that there were 3 different mix variations to the 2005 Redfire when I had my 3dCarbon ducktail painted to match my vert. The paint guy brought the samples out to my car and held each one next to it in the sun. One matched perfectly, the other two were way off. Things that make you go... hmmmmm. :)

When I had my Screaming Yellow parts painted the shade actually changed with each coat of color they applied. It started off having a green tint and finally turned yellow and then towards Orange with additional coats. I was not happy with the match even though they said they couldn't see a difference. I eventually had them just paint my entire car so it was uniform. I had a pretty bad wreck so 70% of the car was being painted anyway .... They matched the front bumper perfectly but must have painted the rear bumper on a different day because the color is slightly off. From the looks of it they needed one more coat of yellow on the rear bumper and it would have matched.

http://homepage.mac.com/dmhines/mav/fix1.jpg


http://homepage.mac.com/dmhines/mav/fix4.jpg

I'm going to give this shop another shot. Then - who knows?:dunno:

You really just need to find a body shop that knows what they're doing. At my brother's shop, they do what they call a spray out - they basically take a piece of metal on a stick and spray the base formula and the variations at different volumes and pressures, then they look at it indoors with color-corrected light and outdoors as well to find the right match. Many times they'll have 6-9 different spray-outs based on the formulas they're given. It's all about experience. Plus they generally always "blend" into the adjacent panel which means if you need your fender repaired, they'll fan the paint half way into the door, then clear coat the entire door and fender to give it a gradual transition from the new to the old paint. They even apply less clear over the "unpainted" section fo the blend (the right side of the door in this case) because too much clear can change the color of the rest of the door. People think it's easy, but it really is complicated. If you want to see a great body shop, check out his website at www.autopaintri.com.

Good luck with the repair, and if you're anywhere near RI, PM me and I'll set you up with my brother's shop.

GF had to get a hood replaced ( someone hit her ), Body shop said that year there were 12 different variations of silver for her car (Cavalier). they hit it with a scanner and you cant tell the difference. First shot.

Man that is one fine body shop.It always pays to ask around before you get your work done.I had a Macco job done on an old car and it was fine but I wouldn't let them paint inside of the trunk on my stang.

Being that mine is the same year and color as yours:D, that's uh... Not cool. I hit a what looked like a wolf about 3 weeks ago on the interstate at o-dark-thirty headed to work. Thankfully there was no damage. Just grey wolf hairs. I freaked because I figured this would be a tough color to match if there was any damage. I went through this with an 89 Camaro I had, when my neighbor backed into my door. The body shop had to remove the gas door to match the paint. It was like a medium blue metallic set up.

This body shop was supposed to be one of the best around. They fell down on this job though. To top it off, the shop owner tried to convince me that it was a good match and that my expectations were too high.

Its really hard to match plastic to metal painted parts