I picked up some damage in the area of the right rear marker light. Scraped the side of the rear cap and put about a 1.5" crack in it, and crunched an area about 4" across on the quarter panel.

Went yesterday and got estimates from two first-class shops, Superior Auto Body in Pinellas Park and Burke Corvettes in Maitland. Both said basically the same thing, that to do it right would mean replacing the quarter panel and rear cap with new parts. Doing that would mean "blending" the paint on the right door, deck lid, and left quarter, In other words, repainting almost half the car.

So now I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I can't stand mis-matched paint, and from the sounds of this "blending" they know they can't match it, exactly. The car is otherwise in excellent condition and I'm not wild about having half of it repainted.

It seems like I have three choices:

1) Replace the panels and blend 1/3-1/2 of the car's paint.

2) Replace the panels and have the whole car repainted. Hopefully this would turn out better than the factory paint, which has some mottle. Lotta money, probably an extra $3k.

3) Have a "spot" repair done on the original panels. This would likely "leave a mark", but it would confine the blending to that immediate area. Wait a year or two for the paint to pick up more road rash and then do Option 2.

If it were a garage queen I'd save up and go for Option 2. But it's not, it's a daily driver. I could have the whole car repainted and pick up another hit the next day.

It would be easier to decide if I could see what "blended" paint looks like. I know some of you have gotten paint work done on Quicksilver and similar colors, either because of damage or because you did a custom hood or Tigershark front end.

How did that turn out? Could you tell that the paint was blended?

If you had it to do over would you do the blend or go for the full repaint?

Thanks for any thoughts or advice.

 

You are too far away for me to send you to my guy but---if they are the best in the area then they should be able to accomidate you. I did painting a LONG time agao and I must admit it is difficult but if they are REALLY good...

I had a deer jump into my 98 white Sebring a couple of years ago--took out almost my hole passenger side. They were able to work with the door I had but they needed to replace the front fender, mirror and wiper crap---so of course they had to paint the fender and part of the door as it was really smashed right at the fender/door section. You could NOT believe how good it looked. You could NEVER tell he had to blend it. I sold it to a local lady some time ago as well---she is still driving it and again---you still can't tell--so it's not even fading at a different rate. They also replaced the entire tailgate on my 4-runner when my ex-son-in-law blew it up with a quarter stick---same result--gorgeous work and couldn't tell anything was wrong or replaced..

It all depends on your preferencae of your car. If it were my husband---he would have the entire thing done over---if it were me---fix it properly and just paint what needed painting---but I trust my guy implicitly..

my .02 and good luck
Lori

 

Quick silver paint....... blending will help, but even the factory doesn't match perfectly on all of them.
I was hit in the rear, repaint & blend. The cover is still darker than the car when seen in certain lights. I'm not sure it would match even if you painted the whole car. (some people have). the paint is mostly clear with silver in it and as you build up the color get darker. One of the things that Martin Senor says is that you can only put down three coats before you have to strip and reprimer. I'm not real happey with mine, but i do not think that it will get any better. My advise is to check out a few (Quick silver cars) closely then decide if you can live with it (slight mismatch) as when I did I found that even new untoched ones often did not match perfectly.

 

I hate blending, if it were me I would paint the panels first and see how it looked. You might get lucky.

 

My car has picked up minor scrapes twice....Both times my car was painted by HIGH END shops...most recently the shop that painted it does customs and exotics. The last time I was in their shop they had a Lamboghini Gallarado, Aston Martin Vantage, 2 Lotus Elises, and a Ferrari 328 GTB that had all just arrived.

Both of these shops that painted my car ...had to paint it again because when I came in to get the vehicle I wasnt happy and could see the difference in certain conditions.......

QS is my love/hate relationship I contemplated painting my Z06 MSG this last time.

 

My QuickSilver coupe was tapped on the passenger door a few years ago. I sent it to a highly recommended exotic car repair shop. Turns out the owner is one of us, a real Vette guy. There was an immaculate ZR1 in his showroom, it was his. He did a fantastic job, nobody can tell the car was touched. Since you went to Burke, have him do the work. Burke does fabulous work, and has done so for many members of this forum. You can ask in the South East section, i'm sure folks will chime in.

 

I had the rear of my pewter vert blended a couple months ago to correct a color mismatch on the rear bumper. They tried to panel shoot it twice with less than acceptable results -- even with the paint manufacturer rep on site to assist with the color match. After having the paint blended from the rear edge of the doors back, you cannot tell the car was ever painted -- it looks perfect it any light.

I still think if you can get a true expert to panel shoot it you may get lucky and only have to paint one panel, but blending worked for me. In retrospect, I wish they had just done it from the beginning -- it would have saved a lot of aggravation.

 

Try Mid County Collision on Ulmerton Road in Largo. They did the aftermarket hood for the T/A a few years ago and the paint matched exactly (black).

 

Hey Gannet,
A few hours ago I got a quote from Superior Auto Body and the estimator, Kazz, gave me a tour of the facility. I had someone turn into my dd, '01 Dark Blue Metallic 'vert at the nose, right at the license plate cover, and rub/scrape/scratch an area about the size of a dinner plate. Total cost about $900 and 4 days. I'm having a couple other areas damaged by the previous owner t/u'd, too. The nose and C5 logo will be removed and the license plate cover will be replaced. My repair will be physically lower than your repair so I will probably see lilttle evidence of a repaint. I got a couple of other lower quotes to satisfy Liberty Mutual but I don't have the confidence that they will do as good of a job as Superior.

I was very impressed w/the cars he had in the shop: a Mayback, Porches, a '62 Vette, an Austin Healey, Saabs, a late 60's 442, late 60's GTO, and an early 60's Chevelle 'vert supposidly owned by Shelton Quarrells of the Bucs. Quite an impressive operation.

I understand your reluctance because Superior told me that they match paint as best as they can. Batch differences, sun fading and other factors contribute to the guesstimating even the best body shops wrestle with.

Hope all works out for you.

Best to you,

Bill

 

Bill, thanks much for the good wishes.

Turns out that I made my appointment today, with Tim Burke. Car goes in next Thursday and I should have it back in time for the big weekend of the TBV show and the Mod Party at EG's. I can't wait to get it done, it's been making me crazy.

I was very impressed with Superior and wouldn't hesitate to go back there. In this case I chose Tim because I'm going to go for fixing the damaged panels rather than replacing them, and the patch on the quarter panel could be a little tricky. I want a FRP master to work on that, to give it the best odds of coming out looking ok.

The reasoning behind going for repair rather than replace was this: the car is a daily driver, only has 18k miles, and is piling up miles at a pretty fast clip. Replacing the rear fascia and quarter means painting those parts and blending the passenger door, deck lid, and driver's quarter. Add in the fact that I was going to have a couple little scrapes underneath the front fascia fixed, as well as a small area inside the RF fenderwell, and you're looking at painting half the car. This way we only have to blend the quarter and the side of the rear fascia, so there's less chance of it coming out looking like a Dalmation.

Tim and I decided that it might make more sense to do a "close enough" repair now, let it accumulate a couple more years of DD damage, and then come back and do a full repaint. We would replace the panels at that time should they need it. I've also been looking at those Tiger Shark front fascias and extractor hoods, but those have to wait on engine and chassis mods (first things first), so that might work out about right.

It's going to be HELL being without it for a week, but I sure will be glad to get it back sans scar. At least I won't have to hang my head in shame at the Vette gatherings.

Best of luck with yours!

 

Here's the deal. My 04 Silver/ red vert got backed in to at my sons HS, the week I took it out of storage in April.

Cracked front bumper. Only one guy in town who knows what he is doing so I took it there. The bumper itself was cheap, like 600 bucks, and total with labor about $1200.

He calls me one morning all frantic and said get down here. He hung the bumper and it looked like crap. That was after 4 repaints with different blends, and paints.( Manufacturers).

He told me that GM buys their paint in large quantities and accept a 10% variance from the supplier. ( according to a factory rep). Since the bumpers are painted at different times than the cars, and are a different material, they never match.

He told me he needed to put in a "supp" to the Ins company, and since he knew the guy, most of it was approved. he ended up blending the front bumper 1/2 way up the hood and fenders. It was a total pain in the *** for him, but he is older, and a perfectionist. He claims he sanded the hood alone for 4 hours.

Anyway, when it was done and I went to pick it up, it looked BETTER than new. He said he felt bad with my car leaving his shop with the rear bumper so off from the factory but there was nothing he could do.

Anyway, the car looks better than factory and no way anyone would ever notice the blend. Don't be scared of that word, as it is the only way to really match a silver or any metallic or earth tone car.


How many silver cars do you see go down the street and the door or fender doesn't match? A lot, and thats because they just paint the panel instead of blending.

Goo dluck.