Dr. G

I usually order spray cans of touch up paint to see how a color looks in real life under different lighting conditions. I decided to spec my car in CWM after seeing a car in person. I went to order the can of paint to spray a speed form to make sure I liked it and noticed that was a dual coat color (tri coat with clear). Has anyone had to repair/repaint a section of their car with CWM and how did it look when it was completed?

991.1 Guy

Any metallic paint will be harder to repair as the metal flakes need to match the original metal density. Good repair shops all have agitators in the paint guns to continuously stir the metal flakes during application. Even then, the density of flakes can be noticeably different but such is the beauty and difficulty of metal flake. Most "race cars" use solid paint for the reason that they are easier to repair.

aggie57

We have a ‘14 VW Beetle in pearl white, it’s a tricolor finish like you describe. Only one repair in the 7 years we’ve owned it, to the left rear fender which got a nasty ding and chip. I looked into doing it myself, and I’ve done a far bit of paint work over the years including complete metallic resprays, but a local paint less dent remover guy said he could fix it which he did and you can’t see it at all. Took him a couple of hours including pulling the ding out.

Of course if you got down at the right angle and with good light I’m sure it’s possible to see where the repair is but you’d have to go looking for it.

22992

Reporting my experience with CWM touch up: Hard. Got a chip on my front splitter. Since it's cheap to have repainted, I decided to experiment with touching up. I tried 3 different paints. Scratches happen 2 step base/clear, Factory 3 step touch up base, pearl, clear then finally Dr Colorchip.

The best matching paint was the Dr. Colorchip single stage. The other two didn't match at all.
The downside of the Dr. Colorchip paint is that you really can't use the methods they describe because the paint settles in layers, with the white floating to the top and a silver color underneath. Any sanding or rubbing with the blending solution took away the white and left a silver finish.
In the end, what I had to do to get it to look good is use an airbrush (probably not needed on metal parts, but the paint on plastic is so damn thin it was the only way I could get the base coat thin enough to be able to add clear over), had to add clearcoat on top of the Dr. Colorchip so I can sand it and polish due to the settling/layering issue. Repair looks good though.

Staffie Guy

If you are concerned with repainting in the future, I would avoid metallic flakes. In addition to what a previous poster said about density, the angle the flakes are applied during a repaint will not replicate the factory angle and light will reflect a little differently. Ge the regular white instead of the metallic.