serega

I've had my car for about 6 years now. Then due to installing a front mount decided to go for the standard bonnet and the idiot paintshop (even though i provided a proper colorcode) managed to screw it up and repaint it in a different shade of silver , its only noticeable in direct sunlight but its still pissing me off.

Then some guy reversed into my driver's side wing , even though the damage wasnt too bad i had to get a new wing painted, done by another garage they managed to get the wrong color as well!!!

And over the years the car had collected numerous dings with small scratches here and there and you cant just paint over them, so that means repainting the whole panel just for a few small scratches.

So i was wondering does it ever add up to doing a full body respray or is it just going to mess the car up completely?

-ant-

All depends how deep your pockets are, i paid £1500 on mine to have the outside done and it was and almost perfect job same reason as you to its near impossible to match the colours i found, but if your going to do it get it all done door shuts aswell i regreted not paying the 200 quid more .

serega

I suppose its best to respray in the same color ?

David_Dickson

Silver is one of the hardest colours to get a good match from, so differences between panels painted at different times are very common. Some sprayers will attempt to fade the new paint part-way into the paint on the surrounding panels to minimise the visual difference at the panel edges.

There is absolutely no reason not to get a car repainted, if you so wish. A decent bodyshop should be able to turn out work that is hard to tell from an original finish. You get what you pay for though - anyone advertising a full respray for a few hundred quid should be avoided, as its likely to be a very rushed job. Assuming no real repairs need done before hand, you should expect to pay a minimm of £1000 or so for a good job, potentially many times more for a great job. Decent paint and consumables alone will cost a couple of hundred pounds on their own.
Respraying the same colour is the best ideregarding future resale value. If you change the colour, there will always be parts that are not painted, where the respray will be obvious - engine bay, behind internal trim etc etc unless you go for a full bare-shell respray, which would be proibitively expensive.

JamJay

Did you not take it back to the bodyshops if you weren't happy? That's assuming they used the wrong silver in the 1st place. You have to remember that 1. Silver is quite a hard colour to match anyway & 2. silver does fade over time & if badly cared for, becomes a frosty colour.

If the bodyshops did use the correct paint, due to weathering of the paint over the years, the newly sprayed parts ideally need to be blended into the rest of the car. As an example, I had a dark blue car once and when I had the bumper and bonnet resprayed, I got both wings done with the wings being faded into the front doors. You couldn't tell the difference at all to be honest.

So your options seem to be, either have done what I did, or get a full outer respray. Expect to pay £1000+, probs £1500 or more at todays prices.

I hope that helps.

serega

alright, thanks folks.
I did take it back to them, but their reasoning was that its impossible to match silver and even if they repaint it again, there's little chance it will match. They offered to fade it in, but that meant i had to leave the car with them for at least a day and i really don't like leaving my car with strangers : )

Leslie

If they had it for the respray it must have taken more than a day and it was left with them as strangers for all that to be done. How can another day be so bad to get a proper fading in job done?

Les

StickyMicky

A mate has just paid 600quid to have his classic painted down both sides and the front bumper, he has carbon bonnet/bootlid and an anthracite painted roof so he did not need these bits done.

He had it done for the NBO


His rusty back arches were tidied up and looked mint for 48 HOURS!!!!!

He brought it over on the monday following the NBO to show me the paintwork, asking me to check it over and see if i could spot any flaws, he had no idea the rust bubbles has came back so fast and was genuinly suprised when i was not joking

Moral of the story?

Pay cheap, pay twice

Leslie

Very true!

Les

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

My Golf has been completely re-laquered. Its a three year old car. In the end of the day it was done due to it having too many polishing/washing scratches by its prior owner cleaning it with too much disregard that could not be rectified by polishing. The end result is now a car with nice thick clear coat and machine polished so no horrible factory orange peal i.e a finish better than new.

Unfortunately, in the process it had to have a few deep marks on the door rectified. Its Silver, and it has obvious colour match issues, which as mentioned above is an issue with some silver paints.

I will add this was done by a VW bodyshop, not ours; We use Spies Hecker who have additives that more or less cure the issue of inconsistant pigment dispersal during application. I'll get it sorted properly one day, as I'm split between having VW fix it for free (and potentially f*****g it up by rushing it, or me pay and know it'll be done right).

The Jag has had a full bare metal respray. The original British Leyland polyester paint is long gone; when new in 1982 it was that bad it had to be recified several times by Jaguar under warranty this is one reason why Metallic Black on a XJ-S was only offered for a short period. And then it proceeded to detriorate as time progressed (crows feet on the bonnet and boot lids etc), which required rectification in addition to minor bodywork (being keyed by scourned women and attempted thefts), so by 2002 left it like a patchwork quilt (new paint ages, fades and wears differently to old paint, so the older it gets the worse it becomes), plus the inevitable rust.

Thus it went in for bare metal respray; No deadline was given, the only request is it done be properly. This includes removal of all glass and replacement and repair of any rust and thorough waxoyling afterwards. Today; its condition is no different to the day it was finished barring five defects; two dents on top of each wing caused by a cowboy Jaguar "specialist", a tiny microblister by the rear window (probably due to damage caused by refitment of the glass/chrome, another by the rear bumper bracket, again caused by fitment or movement of the bumper, and a door ding also done by same said Jaguar "specialist"

Thankfully we opted for a harder clearcoat than what is used normally which has made it more durable and resistant to washing and polishing scratches and minimised the damage when it was in the custody of the cowboy specialist - something anyone who cares for a black car will all be appreciative of. Although it was a bitch to machine polish when it was first done as it was left to harden for a bit too long.

Biggest criticsim of the paint is the colour now has a slightly different metallic pigment to the original; It used to have more of bronze sparkle to it, whereas now its more silver.


So the moral; Its about who does it and how much time you pay them to spend on it, their attention to detail, knowledge and willingness to do it "right". Poor workmanship, rushing a professional (by either hammering him on price, annoying him, or pressing on deadlines), poor materials, poor preperation, cutting corners and inadequate facilities will easily ruin the end result or its durability. It can be done right, but there is alot of scope for it to go wrong.