Need your opinion please, does the paint match to you?

I just got my Tundra back from the paint shop. Someone ran into my bumper. Bumper needed to be replace and needed the passenger side sprayed. They said that they would feather the paint so I won’t notice any difference. To me it seems that the rear bed doesn’t match up with the cab. Thinking about going to talk to the shop about it and see what they can do. Need your opinion or am I being to picky. Seems they could do a better job matching the paint. What are your thoughts and what would you do? Thanks.

 

To my eye, both doors, from the bottom of the glass downward, look to be a darker shade of white than the bed and fenders. My doors look the same way, about an 1/2 shade off from the bed and fenders. I just figured they’d been resprayed or go thru a different treatment at the factory for some reason. What does the other side look like?

 

I read your title and then went straight to pictures and immediately saw the bed and cap looked lighter than the cab.

 

In my opinion it's very difficult to do this by looking at pictures over the internet. I would suspect though the body shop probably just used the paint code they have on file for your truck. Over time paint fades and does not match the original code.

My suggestion would be to bring it back to the body shop and ask them if they have the tools to scan the original and newly painted areas for color matching. If you don't trust them, bring it to another shop to see what they say or have them scan it.

 

IMHO…this right here^^

There is only so much a auto body shop at insurance rates or what someone is willing to pay out of pocket can do.

 

Even Stevie Wonder could see the paint is off

 

It's off .

 

The bed is way more "brilliant" of a white.

 

Super white is more super on the bed.

 

I'd agree, that the new paint looks 'brighter'. Maybe do clay bar and paint correction on the old paint to wake it back up?

 

What year is the truck? As mentioned, older paint will degrade some. You need to look at it in direct sunlight to see what it looks like. There are too many lighting variances when you look from different angles, especially in pictures.

 

Had you not pointed it out, I probably wouldn't have noticed.. For what it's worth.

 

My wife can see a million different shades of white paint, but I must be colorblind on that side of the spectrum. It kind of looks brighter to me, but doesn’t look bad at all.

Trying to match new paint to old paint that’s been weathered is very difficult.

 

Once you get some dirt on it, you won't notice the difference.

 

Yes, definitely different. Paint codes won’t be the same because of fading. But that’s the job of the shop. It’s just lazy to use the factory paint code and not use swatches to get the current paint of the vehicle.

 

It’s a 2020.

 

Depending on the age of a car sometimes they can just paint a panel and get a match but if it's older they may quote re clearing or re coloring at least one adjacent panel over to get a good blend. This fools the eyes by creating a smoother transition to the rest of the car.

When I paid cash to get my year old f150's bed side straightened and painted they said they'd normally quote re spraying just the cab corner to blend but because it was so new and I was paying cash they felt confident they could make it work leaving that out, and it indeed came out perfect. But they did make me aware of the risk of an imperfect match.

If they'd wanted to blend the specifics of the exact procedure would have been laid out in the estimate and invoice, to include what panels and how many coats would be re done. If someone's insurance was paying they'd advocate on my behalf that the blend was needed to get the car to pre accident condition.

I an not sure what "feather the paint" means here though. If you got the front fender and doors resprayed they should have outlined in writing exactly what labor they would do to the cap and bed to blend it if that was presented to you as part of the job. That takes extra hours and materials someone would need to be billed for. They plug it into their estimate software with everything else to get you your price. If it's not there there was really no agreement to do it.

 

Feather in meaning same as blend in.

 

Cant tell the difference. No one will notice, but its your truck and your choice.

 

should say "replace clear" or "replace clear and base," charge for extra paint and prep and list panels. If you or someone else paid cash and they just said something vague about the blend that's different but normally this gets clearly laid out.

 

My 2 cents is it looks like a brighter white.

If it were me I would get a second opinion from another body shop and of course vent your concern with the body shop that painted the truck. The whole idea about a body shop is that your car is supposed to look like it was before the accident. This means color match paint with existing and body stickers and emblems put back exactly like it was from the manufacturer.
Bottom line it Does NOT match to the front cab. Body shop needs to make it right.

 

So went talked to the body shop this morning. They were saying that they didn’t spray anymore than they had to. They did say that they had to shoot clear coat on the entire bed. What’s your thoughts? Does make sense why the paint doesn’t match the cab. The red circle was where the they repainted it.

 

So just a part of the bed was refinished? It sounds clearer now, It sounds like they feathered the repair into the panel which most body shops will decline to do if the paint is broken on a panel. They usually want to resurface a whole panel in that scenario. It does not sound like they actually did anything to blend with the adjacent area or even proposed to do this. The promise was just to make the repaired panel one uniform color?

Cash job I'm guessing?

This partial panel repair is something a lot of shops won't even do anymore and your result is one reason. My bed side was repainted for one huge chip, they wouldn't do it any other way

 

It was an insurance job.

 

Then I am lost as to why it wouldn't be done as a complete bed side repair, prep and respray with a plan to blend to adjacent panels.

 

Blending paint depends on the area of the damage. If the damage point is at/near the halfway point then you would blend the adjacent panel which would be the cab corner and rear door. (3 stage pearl is a bit earlier than halfway). Considering the damage is to the rear end of the side panel then they would have only blended within the panel and wouldn't have touched the cab corner and door.

Another thing to consider is that paint is mixed on site. There is no such thing as "Toyota" paint. Each shop orders paint from a vendor either Axalta, Finishmaster and so forth. The paint code is used as a guide and then the paint is mixed on site with a camera/computer system. Not all shops get the paint right and use spray out cards to help match the paint.

 

Nobody around here will do this type of repair, they always want to respray an entire panel because they claim they're unable to get consistent blend and match with modern paints doing it that way.

 

Sounds like they just don't have good painters or a good color match set up. We have no problem matching paint the way I described.

 

Who knows, may be. This sounds like one of those things that is part art and part science and maybe becoming a scarce skill because you used to be able to find more shops willing to do it. My neighborhood shop that I use services luxury import dealers, Porsches, Audis, etc, and will not do this. Tons of high end business. If the paint is broken and a touch up isn't enough for you they want to re spray the panel. They generally don't blend like this. I've taken stuff to several different reputable shops around here over the years and always gotten that answer.

 

Wash the two doors. Clay bar the paint on the doors below the windows. Get Meguiar's compound and a dual action polisher and hit the doors below the windows. Finish with Meguiar's polish. That should help even it out. Might not be 100% match but should be much closer and will even out with a little wear and tear.

Compound - https://www.meguiars.com/automotive/products/meguiarsr-ultimate-compound-g17216-152-oz-liquid
Polish - https://www.meguiars.com/automotive/products/meguiarsr-ultimate-polish-g19216-16-oz-liquid