Paint Match Issues on Your Vehicle
Matching paint can be difficult when doing auto repair or even when spraying a fresh paint job. There’s many reasons why your paint might not match between two body panels. We list our top reasons below.
- Weathered Paint- Paint and clear coat can break down over time and areas that are exposed the most to the elements (sun, rain, snow, etc.) will start to fade and discolor. Sometimes spending some time with a buffer and compound can bring back the life of older weathered paint and get it matching again. This is most common on large flat areas like hoods and roofs.
- Bad Paint Matching– If a repair was done to the vehicle and a panel or area of the car had to be repainted the paint can be hard to match (especially if the paint has faded) so having paint mixed right off of your original paint code may not match the color it has now faded to. You may want to have your paint scanned to match it exactly.
- Incorrect Spraying Technique- If a vehicle was resprayed or a panel was redone you could have had a good matching paint but the technique when sprayed was off and the paint doesn’t match now. Be sure to avoid dry spray, poor overlap, and mottling of metallic paint as it can cause uneven coats and change the shade of the paint.
- Paint Wasn’t Blended- Sometimes a color of paint can’t be matched exactly to an adjacent panel as there are too many outside factors that can cause the metallic or pigment to lay differently causing the appearance of incorrect shade of paint. If the paint looks good in the shade but when out in the sun the panels don’t match you may have a paint that has metallic in it that needs to be blended to appear all the same. We suggest spraying adjacent panels at the same time as the repair panel or at least around corners/edges to allow the paint to blend and fade between the different shades so it is pleasing to the eye. This process can take some practice but it is always a good rule of thumb to paint all large adjacent panels to avoid mismatching of paint.
Hopefully these tips help you with paint matching and correcting the issues in the future. To get all of your own DIY paint supplies from primer to clear visit our site HERE.