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Nate asked me about the paint meter readings. I wrote-up a multi-paragraph answer which BaT rejected. Repeated attempts to post it in smaller chunks has put me in BaT reCaptcha Hell. I don't have time to figure-out how to hack-around BaT's poor code.
However, rather than waste the comment and time I put into measuring, I'm going to post it here. Perhaps this will spark a good discussion on Paint Meter Best Practices.
Originally Posted by what worf928 tried to post to BaT
I just spent over and hour with my new paint meter and measured 5 928s and 3 21st Century Porsches. My conclusions are: 1) the variation across the body on modern factory paint is far far less than that of 'old' Porsche factory paint (and quite thin!), 2) for an old Porsche a paint meter is not a substitute for a well-trained Mark One Eyeball and 3) the paint meter readings shown for this '95 are not prima facie evidence of a repaint (in my just-started-using-a-meter-today opinion.)
While I have six 928s here right now, I could only get to five of them. I have every reason to believe that three of the five are original paint. Two of them are mine and the other's history is well known. My two are Pearl Metallics and if you know anything '90s Pearl Metallics you'll know that they cannot, ever, be matched. So, either they've both been completely repainted or no paint at all. It is pretty hard to 'cover up' and full repaint so, I'm saying original for both of mine. For these three, there are huge variations in thickness depending upon where you measure. Horizontal surfaces tend to have thicker paint than vertical surfaces and are thicker forward of the sunroof. Sunroof panels have the thickest paint. The rear quarters have the thinnest. There are moderately-serious (~3 mil) side-to-side variations on all. My '94 Iris Blue has the thickest paint of four of five that I measured and while I didn't get any "11s" it came close.
One 928 in da house right now I know has been repainted on the front. That paint is no thicker than the rest of the body rear of the fire wall. The other 928 I measured is a freshly painted bare shell and the thickness of that paint is, everywhere, 2x anything I measured on the other four.
So, the variations on this '95 don't reach out and scream repaint to me. The 'thicker' measurements are thicker than on my '94. Maybe it has been painted, maybe it hasn't. If one is suspicious then one should pull the front wheel well liners and look for overspray in the plenum area where the lights and light harnesses live along with other more-standard tell tails. Also, one could look for a paint line on the headlight riser surrounds (with the lights half-raised so that you can see all of the surround.)
On the other hand, if it has been repainted and you have to take parts off of it in order to tell for sure, then does it really matter?
@zombo Reversed fog light trim also doesn't scream repaint to me. There are plenty of other reasons why those might have been removed and mis-installed. For example: replacement or adjustment of fog lights, OCD detailing, marker bulb replacement, etc. The 928 has a plenty of parts that are asymmetrical and I often find them installed 'the wrong way.' That said, I would expect a body shop to install them upside down.
I agree 100% Dave. These older cars, and even more so with the very early ones, are not at all consistent or even. The earliest were all hand painted, and if mistakes were made at the factory, resulting in QC failures on the assembly line, then the body was sent back for repair and re-spray, in whole or in part. This could lead to a conclusion that a car was in an accident and had to be repainted, when in fact it was only the factory fixing a panel or two. I suppose some of this applies to the later 928s as well.
I agree that BaT is playing games and seem to be censoring some posts. Although it would appear they posted your comment. Mine are the same you hit submit and then it vanishes. Eventually they get posted unless they dislike the content.
I have spent a lot of time these past 7 years at my friends shop and learned quite a bit about prepping and painting to concours levels. Although I spend more time with 90's 911's than I do other Porsche's I assist in a lot of PPI's for people locally and metered about 100 Porsche's from this period. So far I haven't missed a respray or paintwork and only found a handful of original paint cars. Sadly some owners believe their car is all original and I feel bad pointing out the obvious signs. Others are just horror shows and the meter can't even get a reading. I also want to point out I have metered panels that read 5-6 that were clearly resprayed so it works both ways.
IMO
Nothing is as good as trained eye. There are obvious signs of respray and only a handful of people I have come across are capable of pulling off a partial respray that is virtually undetectable to a trained eye. Maybe others can as well but aren't willing to put the time or energy in to remove the obvious signs. I have to disagree that the 90's Pearl Metallics are impossible to match. Incredibly difficult yes, but not impossible. Silver is one of the harder colors to match and Porsche paints vary considerably from car to car. But I know a few who can do work that even the best would be hard pressed to detect and color is usually spot on. Even years later the color and metallic flakes still match. The hardest part is getting them to color shift in the same light and angle as the other panels.
These cars were the last of Porsche's 26 stage paint process and I agree the numbers do vary. I have seen one owner cars with known original paint and numbers can vary throughout the car. Although quite rare I have seen some panels with numbers in the 6's and then I come across a single area maybe a few inches in dia that read as high as 9 or the size of a quarter that read as high as 10 but the surrounding areas are considerably lower. It is not often but I can only assume the car had an issue at the factory in that area and was sent back for rework several times. Looking at all the surrounding areas and all the work needed to repaint the panel would not be done by any shop unless someone was willing to pay stupid money. The time involved to disassemble everything needed to blend in any paint work for an area so small just isn't feasible so you have to draw a conclusion at some point. Although I have never come across an original paint car with numbers over 10 and usually anything over 7 is suspect. If the entire panel is showing signs of 8 or more odds are it has been painted. 11's are pretty much a guarantee unless it is another case of a very small area.
A well respected PCA paint expert who I have known for years told me early on that if paintwork is done to such a high level that even he can not definitively prove if it has been painted or not why should it matter. I have to agree with him on this. If you plan to drive the car original paint can be more of a curse than a blessing. I know my turbo is original paint and my biggest fear is not a rock chip or the car being totaled but a scratch or minor panel damage. It can be fixed to look right but it will always be known by me.
IMO based on the readings posted by the seller the car has had paintwork. Hard to tell from pictures but it appears to be a quality job. I know when I meter my GTS it shows around 4-5 on most all panels with one small area around 6" in dia that reads 8.5 just behind the passenger door quarter. I cannot say for sure if it was reworked at the factory or not and the best I know of can't say either so why should I loose sleep over it? Car still looks and drives great.
I agree that BaT is playing games and seem to be censoring some posts. Although it would appear they posted your comment. Mine are the same you hit submit and then it vanishes. Eventually they get posted unless they dislike the content.
I've run into this issue with BaT and contacted them about it. Their response was that i had a post that someone marked as "unhelpful". Their explanation was that a single occurrence flags your profile and inhibits future posting abilities until unlocked by BaT. They fixed it for me and I've had no further issues. It seems like a poorly designed system if you ask me as there is no moderator concurrence of the flagging and whether it's appropriate/justified.
I enjoy BaT but their website is total crap. It could be so much better.
I agree that BaT is playing games and seem to be censoring some posts. Although it would appear they posted your comment. Mine are the same you hit submit and then it vanishes. Eventually they get posted unless they dislike the content.
I have spent a lot of time these past 7 years at my friends shop and learned quite a bit about prepping and painting to concours levels. Although I spend more time with 90's 911's than I do other Porsche's I assist in a lot of PPI's for people locally and metered about 100 Porsche's from this period. So far I haven't missed a respray or paintwork and only found a handful of original paint cars. Sadly some owners believe their car is all original and I feel bad pointing out the obvious signs. Others are just horror shows and the meter can't even get a reading. I also want to point out I have metered panels that read 5-6 that were clearly resprayed so it works both ways.
IMO
Nothing is as good as trained eye. There are obvious signs of respray and only a handful of people I have come across are capable of pulling off a partial respray that is virtually undetectable to a trained eye. Maybe others can as well but aren't willing to put the time or energy in to remove the obvious signs. I have to disagree that the 90's Pearl Metallics are impossible to match. Incredibly difficult yes, but not impossible. Silver is one of the harder colors to match and Porsche paints vary considerably from car to car. But I know a few who can do work that even the best would be hard pressed to detect and color is usually spot on. Even years later the color and metallic flakes still match. The hardest part is getting them to color shift in the same light and angle as the other panels.
These cars were the last of Porsche's 26 stage paint process and I agree the numbers do vary. I have seen one owner cars with known original paint and numbers can vary throughout the car. Although quite rare I have seen some panels with numbers in the 6's and then I come across a single area maybe a few inches in dia that read as high as 9 or the size of a quarter that read as high as 10 but the surrounding areas are considerably lower. It is not often but I can only assume the car had an issue at the factory in that area and was sent back for rework several times. Looking at all the surrounding areas and all the work needed to repaint the panel would not be done by any shop unless someone was willing to pay stupid money. The time involved to disassemble everything needed to blend in any paint work for an area so small just isn't feasible so you have to draw a conclusion at some point. Although I have never come across an original paint car with numbers over 10 and usually anything over 7 is suspect. If the entire panel is showing signs of 8 or more odds are it has been painted. 11's are pretty much a guarantee unless it is another case of a very small area.
A well respected PCA paint expert who I have known for years told me early on that if paintwork is done to such a high level that even he can not definitively prove if it has been painted or not why should it matter. I have to agree with him on this. If you plan to drive the car original paint can be more of a curse than a blessing. I know my turbo is original paint and my biggest fear is not a rock chip or the car being totaled but a scratch or minor panel damage. It can be fixed to look right but it will always be known by me.
IMO based on the readings posted by the seller the car has had paintwork. Hard to tell from pictures but it appears to be a quality job. I know when I meter my GTS it shows around 4-5 on most all panels with one small area around 6" in dia that reads 8.5 just behind the passenger door quarter. I cannot say for sure if it was reworked at the factory or not and the best I know of can't say either so why should I loose sleep over it? Car still looks and drives great.
Nice post Anthony. Thanks for the insight. Not sure if you have seen this old email post from Dave Shaeffer on Porsche paint thicknesses, but would be interested to hear your thoughts on it.
Functionally, it seems to work better than rennlist for me.
Or, are you talking about their general policies?
I find the site entertaining, but I would never post a car for sale or by there.
Their search function is weak. Up until very recently you couldn't even auction notifications for any model broken down by by year, etc. If you wanted a Jaguar XKR alert, you would be required to get alerts for all friggin Jaguars because they didn't allow a specific one for an XKR. Luckily that's been fixed. Plus the comment blacklisting issue, not automatically providing CarFaxes and other various annoyances. Sellers could get more money if BaT set a minimum standard for car description, pictures and seller-buyer interaction, which would mean more money for BaT. And yet, they don't. It all makes me think that they don't care about their site.
Their search function is weak. Up until very recently you couldn't even auction notifications for any model broken down by by year, etc. If you wanted a Jaguar XKR alert, you would be required to get alerts for all friggin Jaguars because they didn't allow a specific one for an XKR. Luckily that's been fixed. Plus the comment blacklisting issue, not automatically providing CarFaxes and other various annoyances. Sellers could get more money if BaT set a minimum standard for car description, pictures and seller-buyer interaction, which would mean more money for BaT. And yet, they don't. It all makes me think that they don't care about their site.
Not sure what mean by getting alerts for all Jaguars. I have been set up on notifications for the 928s for over a year and that is all I get. I don't get alerts for any other Porsche model. And what do you mean by automatically providing CarFaxes? That would be up to the seller to offer not BaT. CarFaxes are not free. Sure, I guess BaT could offer that as part of their service to sellers, but IMO I'd rather not see a CarFax. I think they are generally inaccurate and create a false sense of comfort when the CarFax is "clean" and when there is an issue reported the detail is never sufficient about what specifically happened.
I do agree that some sellers fall woefully short of adequate in the presentation of their cars. BaT could require a standard there but not sure how they would enforce any sort of seller interaction standards. If there is a No Reserve car that I am interested in and knowledgeable about, then as a prospective buyer having it poorly presented and represented works in my favor.
Not sure what mean by getting alerts for all Jaguars. I have been set up on notifications for the 928s for over a year and that is all I get. I don't get alerts for any other Porsche model. And what do you mean by automatically providing CarFaxes? That would be up to the seller to offer not BaT. CarFaxes are not free. Sure, I guess BaT could offer that as part of their service to sellers, but IMO I'd rather not see a CarFax. I think they are generally inaccurate and create a false sense of comfort when the CarFax is "clean" and when there is an issue reported the detail is never sufficient about what specifically happened.
I do agree that some sellers fall woefully short of adequate in the presentation of their cars. BaT could require a standard there but not sure how they would enforce any sort of seller interaction standards.However if there is a No Reserve car that I am interested in and knowledgeable about, then as a prospective buyer, having it poorly presented and represented works in my favor.
Yeah the 928 is one of the models that has always had a specific alert function available. But not all cars had that functionality until recently. It was annoying.
Agree to to disagree on the CarFax. I think it adds value and transparency, and transparency is a big deal for a unique site like this. BaT is substantially based on the peanut gallery providing insight and sharing experiences. A CarFax isn’t the whole picture, but it’s certainly a part of it. Just my humble opinion.
Mods (Hacker/ Dr, Bob)- is there a way to yank out this paint info and put it in it's own dedicated thread, including Nate's hot link? This info is invaluable, and I have not seen anything like this consolidated in the past.
Completely agree that every car on sale on any auction site should include a minimum set of standard and pics and Carfax if available, because they will only increase confidence for the perspective buyers and increase completed auction value. However, for BaT, they have nothing to gain but plenty of sellers to lose if they make it mandatory for sellers to participate and spent time that the sellers don't feel like spending on their own cars.
Take it this way. They are a very popular "trusted to a degree" online car auction site with an enthusiastic following. With 185-220 cars/items being auctioned weekly (40 daily) that they are already making $99/each, not counting 5% completed auctions that made reserve. However, if they increase their $99/item fee to require a Carfax (I assume you meant for BaT to include), or require the sellers to "pass a test and participate" then they can loose not an insignificant # of sellers.
If the sellers themselves don't care enough to participate on their own cars to make more money ($hundreds to maybe $few ks more that would only translate to $10s-100s of dollars for BaT), why would BaT require more babysitters to enforce the seller's own auctions.
Yes, selling a car on BaT is very time consuming (ask me how I know), but I do see the importance to spend time on it, before with prep/pics/editing, BECAUSE it is mine. If I don't care to spend the time on it (before and during auction week), believe me, having BaT breath on my back would only make me not participate on their auction site and they will lose me as a repeating customer.
This is why most cars on BaT without a great seller's participation are usually run by dealers.
Originally Posted by islaTurbine
Their search function is weak. Up until very recently you couldn't even auction notifications for any model broken down by by year, etc. If you wanted a Jaguar XKR alert, you would be required to get alerts for all friggin Jaguars because they didn't allow a specific one for an XKR. Luckily that's been fixed. Plus the comment blacklisting issue, not automatically providing CarFaxes and other various annoyances. Sellers could get more money if BaT set a minimum standard for car description, pictures and seller-buyer interaction, which would mean more money for BaT. And yet, they don't. It all makes me think that they don't care about their site.
Mods (Hacker/ Dr, Bob)- is there a way to yank out this paint info and put it in it's own dedicated thread, including Nate's hot link? This info is invaluable, and I have not seen anything like this consolidated in the past.
We could just start a new thread. I'd be happy re-post my 'stuff' on that thread.
Dave,
Although it would appear they posted your comment.
They did not. The entirety of my comment was posted in this thread but only the first half 'made' it to BaT and that only in the process of me trying to black-box reverse engineer what their code was doing.
I agree that BaT is playing games and seem to be censoring some posts.
I don't have a problem with a site having some constraints on comments. But...
Mine are the same you hit submit and then it vanishes. Eventually they get posted unless they dislike the content.
... their design is implemented with no thought about human factors engineering:
1) The silent 'swallowing' of comments where the page just reverts to the previous state with a blank comment box. This implies 'bug' let's try it again. "User Mistakes" should always result in feedback to the user.
2) There is, apparently, some comment length limit or some characters-per-second limit that, if exceeded, results in a 'swallowed comment.'
3) There is, apparently, a rate of comment posting (or attempts to comment) that, if exceeded, results in the reCAPTCHA (I'm not a robot) dialog.
4) Once you get into the reCAPTCHA control flow, it appears that they have a bug in their own code such that you can never, ever, prove that you aren't a robot.
5) Last, the reCAPTCHA dialog presents "please try again later." Oh? How MUCH later? 60 seconds? Tomorrow?
The problem here is that when you post a comment in violation of the constraints you have no idea which constraint you've violated. You have no idea what you did wrong. You don't know how to fix it. There is NO feedback to the user. (Once again indicating to any reasonably savvy web user that it's a site or comms problem not a 'user error' which is in fact not true at all.)
THIS is basic first year software interface design stuff.
Originally Posted by islaTurbine
I've run into this issue with BaT and contacted them about it. Their response was that i had a post that someone marked as "unhelpful". Their explanation was that a single occurrence flags your profile and inhibits future posting abilities until unlocked by BaT. They fixed it for me and I've had no further issues. It seems like a poorly designed system if you ask me as there is no moderator concurrence of the flagging and whether it's appropriate/justified.
And if you accidentally flag a post as unhelpful there's no way to 'take it back.'
There's not even a confirmation (really mark this post as unhelpful?)
Both of these errors together, on the same control, would result in loosing a full grade for a Sophomore level design project.
Do you all remember when - on BaT - you could hit a button to sort comments in reverse time order (first to last rather than - as it is now, always - last comment at the top, first 50 pages down?
I noticed that this feature was taking longer depending upon the number of comments. I did some random sampling of various pages and determined that the sort time was non-linearly increasing with the number of comments. I deduced that this would break their site at some point. And it did, with (IIRC) the F50 (some F-Car IIRC) auction a couple of years ago. Rather than fixing the sorting code - freshman level stuff - they just removed the feature.
BaT's interface design and code would get it at best a C- as a Sophomore level end-of-term project.
Dave,
I have spent a lot of time these past 7 years at my friends shop and learned quite a bit about prepping and painting to concours levels. Although I spend more time with 90's 911's than I do other Porsche's I assist in a lot of PPI's for people locally and metered about 100 Porsche's from this period. So far I haven't missed a respray or paintwork and only found a handful of original paint cars. Sadly some owners believe their car is all original and I feel bad pointing out the obvious signs. Others are just horror shows and the meter can't even get a reading. I also want to point out I have metered panels that read 5-6 that were clearly resprayed so it works both ways.
So, confirmation that a well-calibrated experienced Mark One Eyeball is better than the best paint meter. (Note, that this does not mean that I think my Eyeball is better than a paint meter right now.)
I wish I knew of a concours-level body shop 'round here in schlepping distance. All the previous 'usual suspects' have changed hands in the last decade and I'm living that Hell right now.
So, what constitutes 'original paint?' I think the problem here is one of basic logic: we can't for practical purposes prove beyond a reasonable doubt that any car hasn't been repainted. If you take it to a shell, acid dip it, and then redo it from the ground up using expert labor only a chemical analysis of paint chips could prove that it was a repaint. Does it matter in that case?
I guess I'm pondering this and other 'existential' questions.
If a Porsche was reworked at the factory does it still have 'original paint?'
If a Porsche was reworked at the port of entry does it still have 'original paint?'
Neither of these occurrences are ever documented. Ever. Only good fortune (e.g. you know a guy at the port) would result in knowledge of pre-delivery rework unless it was done poorly.
So, for an old Porsche, if we look at it with Good Eyes and meter the paint and the meter gives us small variances within a range of Xmin and Ymax we bet a ******** that it's 'original paint' and unreworked at the factory or port?
What's Xmin? Ymax? And the maximum variance? How do we know this? Because we have sample measurements from N old Porsches?
Why is the paint on every 928 sunroof in my shop ~twice as thick (IIRC) as the trailing roof surface?
Arg. Maybe I'll throw my new meter away and just never think about paint again unless it's peeling...
Nothing is as good as trained eye. There are obvious signs of respray and only a handful of people I have come across are capable of pulling off a partial respray that is virtually undetectable to a trained eye.
I would bet my other ******** (one's already gone 'cause of that '95 ) that given my tool chests and sufficient time and motivation, enough disassembly would find any evidence of a repaint short of a dipped shell. At this point I've seen enough body shop work that, while I will never say I've 'seen it all', I think I've seen enough.
I have to disagree that the 90's Pearl Metallics are impossible to match. Incredibly difficult yes, but not impossible.
I'm fine with "Incredibly difficult." My understanding of that difficulty is that:
- the chemical composition of the paint is now, totally different than it was in the 70s, 80s, 90s.
- therefore how the flakes 'lay up' (or 'lay down', I forget the term of art) will differ from how original flakes 'laid up.'
- flakes 'lay up' differently based upon temperature, humidity, and bake time/rate.
Thus, without knowing the ambient conditions extant at the time of "original paint" and without a stash of original paint, 99.99+% of body shops are just fooked. And even then, the average body shop couldn't do a great job of it.
The hardest part is getting them to color shift in the same light and angle as the other panels.
Right. And that's where all that flake 'lay up' stuff matters.
Although quite rare I have seen some panels with numbers in the 6's and then I come across a single area maybe a few inches in dia that read as high as 9 or the size of a quarter that read as high as 10 but the surrounding areas are considerably lower.
Yup. Found one of those last night where known repaint has occurred. Very weird in how it was 'the size of a quarter.'
It is not often but I can only assume the car had an issue at the factory in that area and was sent back for rework several times. Looking at all the surrounding areas and all the work needed to repaint the panel would not be done by any shop unless someone was willing to pay stupid money. The time involved to disassemble everything needed to blend in any paint work for an area so small just isn't feasible so you have to draw a conclusion at some point. Although I have never come across an original paint car with numbers over 10 and usually anything over 7 is suspect. If the entire panel is showing signs of 8 or more odds are it has been painted. 11's are pretty much a guarantee unless it is another case of a very small area.
So, here we get into sampling theory. With these 'quarter sized' thick areas, if you only take - say - one measurement on the hood, how do you know you didn't hit 'the quarter.' Obviously you measure multiple spots. If we find one or two 'quarters' because we're taking 100 measurement do we care? Is this why my paint meter has an "averaging" mode
A well respected PCA paint expert who I have known for years told me early on that if paintwork is done to such a high level that even he can not definitively prove if it has been painted or not why should it matter.
And thus my existential conundrum viz-a-viz the cache of "original paint."
I have to agree with him on this. If you plan to drive the car original paint can be more of a curse than a blessing. I know my turbo is original paint and my biggest fear is not a rock chip or the car being totaled but a scratch or minor panel damage.
And its a Pearl Metallic right?
It can be fixed to look right but it will always be known by me.
I may need the name of that body shop if I ever do a repaint on my '91. ('tis a LOT of work to do right where 'right' means that I'd have a tough time finding repaint evidence. It's a circular Hell.)
IMO based on the readings posted by the seller the car has had paintwork.
I certainly hope that readers of my post to BaT left with my conclusion of 'maybe it has, maybe it hasn't.'
I know when I meter my GTS it shows around 4-5 on most all panels with one small area around 6" in dia that reads 8.5 just behind the passenger door quarter.
My '91 - same paint code as your '93 - was mid-threes to high-fours except for the sunroof panel which was ~8 or 9 (IIRC; I didn't write this stuff down.) But, it's at 115k-miles and the clear coat is 'wafer thin' and one or two polishes from done.
It was interesting to me that Iris was uniformly thicker 5 - 7, sunroof 11 (all IIRC.)
The other '91 was non-trivially thicker than mine. (Lot's lower miles and single-stage though.)
The '89 was mid-threes all over (except sunroof) despite known repaint on front. Single-stage on that one too.
Is this 'cause the latter cars were thicker? Iris Blue is thicker than Amazon? The other 928s have been 'well-polished?' And why do all the damn sunroof panels have thick paint? LOL.
04-17-2019, 12:29 AM
Maybe I'll throw my new meter away and just never think about paint again unless it's peeling...
) that given my tool chests and sufficient time and motivation, enough disassembly would find any evidence of a repaint short of a dipped shell. At this point I've seen enough body shop work that, while I will never say I've 'seen it all', I think I've seen enough.