Painting one panel on an older car

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Leemc2008

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BMW e39 540i 4.4 V8
Hi all

I've had some experience before with bodyshops touching up panels on older cars that the colour never matches.

Had a 95' E36 318i saloon where bumper, and front wings were different shades to the rest of the car.

Worried that if I get a bodyshop to sort out my areas of rust those areas will be different shades to the rest of the car.. how do you get around this? Have to paint the entire car?

My car is 199 blue/black, 94' W202..
 
If you take it to a reputable body shop and they say they can colour match it they will, if they dont, you keep taking it back till its right, but anywhere decent will soon tell you if they need to paint more than one panel.
 
You are lucky in that Blue -black 199 is reasonably easy to match unlike the lighter colours especially -the various Silvers which are almost impossible. Really depends on the skill of the sprayer. That said most like to paint whole panels and often feather onto an adjacent panel too.
 
You are lucky in that Blue -black 199 is reasonably easy to match unlike the lighter colours especially -the various Silvers which are almost impossible. Really depends on the skill of the sprayer. That said most like to paint whole panels and often feather onto an adjacent panel too.
I was told this only last week by a bodyshop. Apparently colour matching on 189 emerald black isn't too tricky.

White, silver and gold are apparently the hardest!
 
I was told this only last week by a bodyshop. Apparently colour matching on 189 emerald black isn't too tricky.

White, silver and gold are apparently the hardest!

When I had work done recently it seems to have been blended in really well (blue black). One bodyshop wanted a lot of money to spray the entire side of the car as they reckoned it wouldn't match.

The guy that did seems to have managed ok although I've not seen the car in bright sunlight since having it done.

I suppose the only way to be really sure is to paint the whole lot - depends on your budget/standards.

Ade
 
I have just got both front wings repaired and resprayed in Smoke Silver Metallic. The new wing appears slighly darker to the rest of the car... a lot better than rust but a bit dissapointing nevertheless. Car is a 1995 model. My budget didnt extend to getting the whole sides sprayed to get it to blend in.....

My previous silver met BMW required a door resprayed - the bodyshop sprayed the whole side of the car - it was an insurance job so i didnt pay ;)
 
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Yes, darker colours are easier to match-up than lighter, but that being said, basically any colour can be matched other than multi-layer pearls, where the colour changes art differing angles, by a proper spray-painter.

The problem actually starts at the colour-mixing stage.

This is the formula to make a litre:

Base----------Amount----------Cumulative---------UNIT 352-91--------174.0-------------174.0-------------g M99/10---------46.4-------------220.4-------------g M99/12---------24.4-------------244.8-------------g A974----------278.5-------------523.3-------------g A929----------205.8-------------729.0-------------g A531-----------61.2-------------790.3-------------g A125-----------52.1-------------842.4-------------g A552-----------42.5-------------884.9-------------g M1-------------33.2-------------918.1-------------g
=========================================

LINK: http://www.glasurit.com/COLOR/new-c...code=1409803&cop_node=MS&unit=ltr&amount=1.00



As you can see there are .1 of a gram in some cases, now what the painter tries to do is make as little as possible to save costs, so they try to make 100mls, so now instead of having 61.2 grams of A531 they can only measure 6.1 grams. That's where it goes wrong in the first place, a half litre is the least you should make where you can!

Then of course they are either not qualified of too lazy to 'Blend-in' correctly, making sure that the aluminium flakes all lay down properly the correct way, which is done really only with skill and practice. It isn't easy by any means!

Of course one way to get around this is to say to the Spray-Painter, if you know him, is that you want a litre of the paint he is going to use, or what's left of that litre after he's finished, thereby ensuring he makes a litre to begin with, then at least you're half way there.... ;) The rest is up to his skill. But if it ain't right, it ain't right, so don't except it.... :)

Ciao.

NB: I'm sorry, but the bluddy thing wouldn't stay in the format I typed it in, but I'm sure you'll get the gist..... basically the figures on the right after the 'g' should be underneath the other figures.... :rolleyes:
 
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the shop i took it to told me before he agreed to do the work that he couldnt gurantee the shade - same thing a few years back with a spoiler i got sprayed.
 
I'm sorry, but whoever says that before they even get the job knows his abilities are questionable..........
 
I'm sorry, but whoever says that before they even get the job knows his abilities are questionable..........

His argument was because the original paint would of faded in the sun etc etc.
 
Thanks alot for all of the information.

Realistically.. I would need front drivers wing, front bumper, drivers door, rear passenger dog leg.. the rest of the car is immaculate.. just those areas letting the car down..

I would go for a full respray.. but I really like 199 blue/black.. so I would want that exact colour over the whole car, wouldnt want to spend anymore than £1000 on re-spray.
 
In that sort of case it would be worthwhile to do the whole side of the car blending into the bonnet and boot. This would be advantageous because realistically you can only look at one side of the car at a time anyway and because of the differing angles of the bonnet and boot you wouldn't notice any changes because they look different anyway because the side you are looking straight on and the bonnet/boot would be at an oblique angle. And you would have natural breaks at the a/b/c pillar which would hide differences.

But I'm sure any spray-painter worth his salt will tell you this anyway.

Cheers, Bill.
 
I was told this only last week by a bodyshop. Apparently colour matching on 189 emerald black isn't too tricky.

I had some small bits done around my w202 in emerald black, you would never have guessed it was so good! :)
 
In that sort of case it would be worthwhile to do the whole side of the car blending into the bonnet and boot. This would be advantageous because realistically you can only look at one side of the car at a time anyway and because of the differing angles of the bonnet and boot you wouldn't notice any changes because they look different anyway because the side you are looking straight on and the bonnet/boot would be at an oblique angle. And you would have natural breaks at the a/b/c pillar which would hide differences.

But I'm sure any spray-painter worth his salt will tell you this anyway.

Cheers, Bill.

totally agree, but in my case my budget couldnt stretch to this as i purly got the wings repaired and sprayed to make it more attractive for sale. The job was "cash in hand". I think the guy did it in his lunch hour.
 
If the painter is any good he will hand-tint the paint to match the existing colour, paint up to a swage line and/or blend it in to adjacent panels

At least that's what my paint guy does

Nick Froome
www.w124.co.uk
 

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