Pearlescent paint repair

[kaku]

Unfortunately some sad and bitter individual has taken it upon themselves to walk all the way to the far corner of the car park just to key my car. Funnily enough I've parked here without incident at the weekends for a long period of time, yet I park here on a weekday once and this happens. Extremely frustrating, but what can you do.

I took it to a local place on a friends recommendation, but they declined saying they weren't confident in getting the paint to match since it's a three stage pearl. I'm a bit concerned about being able to get those tiny dents out since they're small, deep, and the door is made of aluminium. Part of me wants to take it to a main dealer and let them sort it, but from what I've read they'll just put it to a random local bodyshop anyway.

Random opinions on the internet range from "it's easy any idiot could fix it" to "it'll never look the same again". What's motors' opinion?

More pics here: https://imgur.com/a/jpyOxBk

 

[naefeart]

Aholes! Feel sorry for you, this is why I never park anywhere, ever.

In the past I've had DentDevils fix dents I didn't think could be done without a repaint, but that was steel panels and the paint wasnt broken. Not sure how different the repair is for alu panels, someone will be along to fill us in no doubt. Hope you get it sorted either way.

 

[iamdjdz]

I hate when people do that it's horrible feel sorry for you.

In terms of the repair I'd try and use an approved bodyshop for pearlescent paint, go direct to them for a better quote than a dealership. Wouldn't go somewhere that can't match the exact paint code and would do a best effort match. Also bodyshop will be able to sort the dents out.

 

[kindai]

Where are you based and do you have a wider angle to show the lines of the car.

3 stage pearl needs easy lines to blend it out otherwise you end up chasing the color match across multiple panels.

 

[Diagro]

I made the mistake of using a local body shop for my three stage pearl.

My car has 4 shades of white on the front end now. And they failed to fix it after two trips back.

Had rear end done by a well regarded smart repair guy and it's actually spot on... So yea... Pays to use someone who knows what they are actually doing.

 

[kaku]

I'm East Anglia/Cambridge area so if anyone has any recommendations I'm all ears. There's a smart repair guy nearby but difficult to find any decent feedback on him - will give him a call and see what he thinks.

Will try and get a couple of wider shots tomorrow when it's light.

 

[Nasher]

You'll need a proper bodyshop to do a good job of it, it's not the sort of paint you can just touch up on the driveway. Probably find a good PDR guy to get the dents out first as it will be much cheaper than the bodyshop doing it.

I also have a car with pearlescent white paint. But was very lucky to find an experienced dent guy at the end of my road and an ex-McLaren painter about 8 miles away, who has a booth in his garage lol. Cost me about £260 all and the dent was about that size (though in a more difficult spot).

 

[jpaul]

can't find the business card now but try http://www.barr-tech.com/ N Cambridge
colleagues sister worked therer and was planning to get a bonnet resprayed

edit : must have the wrong place ... can't see a ref to paintwork on their site

 

[paintguy]

As someone that paints for a living there's no denying that 3 stage colours add extra complexity, so ideally you want to find a place that does them regularly. They are getting much more common though so it's not unusual for me to do 2 or 3 in a day, and finding somewhere that does them with that sort of regularity would be perfect as practice and familiarity definitely help.

I'm not trying to advertise by the way, we don't do any external work currently so can't help you out here.

Also expect to pay more than you would for a "regular" paint finish. Not just because of the extra materials and booth time involved, but because ideally they will be doing test sprays of the colour first before using your car as a guinea pig, which also takes time and materials.

Standard practice would be to spray 3 test cards with the base white colour, then add the pearlescent top coat, 1 coat on the first, 2 on the 2nd, 3 on the 3rd, and see which matches best. This can then be refined further by doing a second round of test cards with half a coat either side of the best match ( say 1.5, 2, and 2.5 coats of pearl). As you can imagine this all cost time and therefore money, which is why many places will skip this step, go straight on to painting the car, and end up having to do it again and again until they get it right. Not the most professional approach.

And that's before we start talking about adjusting the base colour if it isn't quite right!

Long story short, if you can find a dealer or bodyshop that has painted your particular model and colour before that would be my first choice as they have probably already tested what works and what doesn't, but failing that find the best place you can and be prepared to pay extra.

EDIT: I'm guessing the colour is QAB? With our old Debeer scheme I'd nailed that down by using a little less green in the base white mix and 2.5 coats of pearl, but clearly different paint schemes may need a different approach.

 

[kaku]

Cheers @paintguy, really appreciate the insider perspective.

Yes the colour code is QAB.