Had something dropped on my car the other day, just cracked the headlight door cover. I got a new one and had it painted with the paint codes i got from the dealer off my Vin. Also replaced the intermediate bracket that the headlight cover bolts to.

Spent 3 hours adjusting the stupid thing

So my question is, when i got it on i realized that the new one is a little brighter white than the rest of the car. My car is a 1998 arctic white 10U paint code. Is this because i have 6 month old wax on the rest of the car? Or is this because the old paint is faded. The old paint is just a little more yellowish tint. Any fixes that any of you paint guys know about? Maybe mixing in a little yellow or cream in the paint to match the rest of the car? Thanks!

 

Since you only had the headlight door painted, you will notice the color difference. A paint code in every vehicle tells the paint manufacturer how to mix different colors of paint to form a match to the one you have. There are many contributing factors as to why they don't match.

It could be one of the things you mentioned; old wax on your car, a minute amount of fading in the original paint, a slight shade difference between the two paints, etc. This is especially a big deal with a metallic color, because the metal flake could have been applied in a different manner or more or less of it in an area. If your headlight cover would have been a metallic color, the difference would be worse than it is now for sure. To properly fix that where you would never be able to tell you would have had to go pretty in depth.

I would have painted the repaired headlight housing, blended over into the fender, hood, and nose, and then recleared the entire hood, fender, and nose. This is the proper way to fix it where you cannot tell the difference. Unfortunately you cannot blend clear coat. Well, you can, but it takes a whole lot of cutting and buffing to mix it into the exisiting clear. More econimical to just clear the entire panel.

Think of it like this. If you draw a line down a sheet of paper and paint it with two colors of paint that are supposed to be the same, it is going to be very easy to tell where the seperation line is. If you blend one of the paint colors over to the other, it would be almost impossible to tell there were even two colors there. Your eyes would register it as being one color only

Any time a customer picks up a repaired car, they are looking at the crack or space between two panels. little do they know that the color matching paint was carried way past where they are looking.

Unfortunately, many insurance companies will not pay to do this in depth work to fix something when they can "get by" with the kind of job like you had done - only painting the cover itself. The customer will just have to suffice. And then again, many people do not even notice, but people like us who are corvette owners are so picky it's hard to make us happy The difference will probably be most noticable in direct sunlight when it is clean and uner flourescent lights.

 

Here are a couple of illustrations I drew up in MS Paint. Say your car was red. The difference would not be this drastic, but you get the point. Here it is fixed the way you are describing-headlight cover painted only:

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And here it is fixed correctly - blended:

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Hope this enlightens you a little bit

 

how the existing paint was mixed and applied is just a important as the paint you just purchased when it comes to getting a good match. this is amplified if the vehicle has any repaint. today paint mixing is very precise, but only as good as the person mixing. environmental exposure, surface contaminants, method of application affect the appearance. give the new paint ample time to cure and the apply a mild cleaner wax to the surrounding area and see how it looks.

I had a pint of 10U mixed when I painted my spoiler. the match was perfect, couldn't be happier.

 

Before repainting I would recomend buffing the existing old paint that is around the area of the headlamp cover. Buffing will remove oxidation and other contaminants on the paint and it might bring the paint closer in color to the new piece.

That is step one. If that doesn't work to your satisfaction try bringing the whole car to the body shop and instead of going off the paint code, they can match it to the existing paint itself. Paint codes are are a good starting point but even within one code there are many variants that exist. Lighter, darker, yellower, dirtier, brighter, etc. Even matallics have a range for what the actual metal flake can be, finer, coarser, etc. This unlikely, but in cases where a paint code isn't there (custom paint job, older cars) they can actually use a machine that takes a picture of the existing finish, analyzes it, and tells the painter how to mix it.

Like the first guy said though, it is hard to panel paint something without blending. They should be able to get fairly close by matching the existing finish on the fender/hood though.

Good luck, Mark

 

Thanks you guys, sounds like I'm in for some more money. But you guys are great.

 

Hard to believe there are different shades of white huh

Try buffing with a good cleaner wax first like MarkyMark said. I forgot to mention that