INOPLOVR

Hey guys,

I kinda have another stupid quesiton, I have a Pearl White RL and have some stone chips and abrasions on my front bumper and hood, I took my car to a body shop today to see how much it would cost to get the bumper and hood resprayed the gave me a price but told me he suggested jsut using touch up paint for now and when I was ready to respray the whole car to come back. I thought he was trying to stab me for more money but he told me its really had to match Pearl paints, is this true?
I think i have heard of this before. My other question is if I took the car to a Acura body shop wouldn't they have the exact colour pre-made? hence the colour that matches my car's colour or do they also have to try and match the pearl to the best of their abilities?

Thanks for any answers.

lland

I believe most body shops mix colors for each paint job these days and usually get it right.

LL

kirbyflorida

Find a new and better paint shop.
Call the high end cars dealers in your area and see who they use.

VOdoc

Pearl paints are hard to match. Your body shop guy seems to be trying to save you some dough. The paint on the RL is extremely delicate and prone to chipping (I have lots in just 1 year). So if you re-spray the hood and bumper, it will happen again, plus a future trade-in may be jeopardized because dealers now use a little device to measure paint thickness in order to tell if a car has been wrecked. Use the touch-up, that's what I'm doing.

GoHawks

True that pearl paints are difficult to match, what any good body shop will do is "blend" into the adjacent body panels. I was told that this involves repraying the clear coat.

So let's say you get a fender repainted. They will usually also respray with clear, the adjacent front door, mirror and hood. It's supposed minimize, if not eliminate any subtle difference between the newly sprayed panel and the adjacent ones.

kirbyflorida

This high end matching has been going on for years, do you think they paint the whole RR or Bentley when they have to do a door? Same goes for special colors on MB and others. This is not 1960.
If you paint the whole car you will kill the value.

neuronbob

When I read a thread like this, I am imediately glad I put on a clear bra when the car was new. Presto-bango, no dings in the paint. In almost 14 months with the clear bra on, I have one tear in the clear bra from a rock. It could have been my paint instead.

My recommendation is to find another paint shop, or convince this guy to do what you want with the front. Then, once the new paint is to your satisfaction, and has cured for a few weeks, get a clear bra so you won't have to go through this again.

$600 spent when the car is new beats paying to have the front repainted.

Jackzilla

"Color" matching with pearl paints is not the problem. It is how the pearlescent particles in the paint lie when (as) the paint is applied that's the problem. If the particles don't lie at exactly the same angle as those on adjacent panels, the cast of the light on the paint, from certain angles, will cause the new paint to appear different in color than the original paint -- even though the colors are identical.

As regards RR's and Bentley's, I believe, unless they're painted a custom pearl color, these companies tend to stick with solid colors, which are relatively easy to color match.

Pearlescent paints are notoriously difficult to do right first off, thus fixing damage involves much more than just "color" matching.

Chas2

+1 on the clear bra when you get it fixed, however you decide to get it fixed!

I have a Nighthawk Black Pearl, and the only damage is a nick from a rock that hit above the clear bra on the hood

INOPLOVR

Ok well I took everyones advice and decided to forget about painting the car where it had stupid stone chips.
As fate would have it today I was driving on a highway when a GOD DAMN dump truck flies by and what do you think he decides to leave me as a present? A flipping rock the about 1 and a half times the size of a golf ball. Needless to say it hit my driver side front fenger left a dent about 2 inches in lenth and rippef the clear coat off and along with the paint underneath and hit the piece that holds the windshield so that too has pieces chipped off of it.
Now I have to get it painted, so I might as well get the hood and the bumper painted but I'm afraid after all the comments it wont match.
So drepressed right now!!