Cactus

So I took the Cactuswagen in for some work and the shop is having trouble matching the paint. I had them remove the front bumper and fill the license plate holes and also remove the 1B side skirts, repaint them and refit them because the adhesive was separating from the body. Anyway they sprayed the parts and I stopped in to drop off some parts and they looked great until they put them on. They said it wasn't close so they tried another sample and sprayed one of the skirts and called me in to look. Way too red compared to the car. Another thing that I questioned is the fact that they are using clearcoat and my car is single stage which even though it is low miles and the paint is in great shape it will still fade over time. My question is what happens if they can't get a match? BTW they were using the gas flap as their sample.



Also they let my battery go dead by leaving the hood unlatched......totally recharged it overnight then did the same thing again...........

IamSMC

Better body shops can match/blend the paint

From the pics, seems like they are spraying the lip spoiler while attached to the front bumper cover...

I would have asked them to remove the lip spoiler and spray seperately like they did the brake ducts in the pics

Must be the lighting, but those two pics don't look like Guards Red

BigInJapan

They should be able to get a match. If your car is single stage, I would insist the bumper cover and other parts be single stage as well...the two types of paint do have a different look even when the color is the same.

Do they have the mixing system in-house, or are they taking the flap to a paint jobber?

I would be disappointed if the shop wanted me to pay for their learning curve as well...

911/Q45

Securit India Red is exactly Guards Red, no mixing needed. Remember: white primer

Cactus

They sent the gas flap to an outside source.

BigInJapan

In my experience over the years, the most common problem is the match, or lack thereof, by the paint jobber. Even if a paint shop gets the correct code (India Red from the example above) and pours off the exact proportions of base pigments (all paint needs to be mixed) it almost always still needs a little tweaking by eye and hand to get the color perfect.

Your body/paint shop should have verified the match before spraying the bumper. It's disappointing to see that they sprayed everything...mostly because the parts look great from the picture you posted...

Ian