A Little About Auto Paint

[David2011]

Bottom line, we sold a car. Getting there was a Royal pain.

Full story, we contracted with a dealer to buy a new RAV4 several weeks ago. Between the time we paid the deposit and delivery, someone got up against the front bumper of the old RAV4 and damaged the paint over the entire right side of the bumper. Fortunately, there was no sheet metal damage. The paint is a tri-color system consisting of a base coat, a mid coat that contains the metallic and pearl components and the clear top coat.

My first mistake was ordering paint from an Internet retailer. After doing the prep work and spraying the base coat it was apparent that it was not a match. Fortunately there is a professional paint dealer reasonably close. It turns out that the PPG dealer had 5 different color cards and 20 different formulae for the car’s color code. Small chance that the Internet dealer could have matched the color. Fortunately the dealer was decent and gave me a full refund.

The PPG dealer encouraged me to at a minimum, clear coat the entire bumper. The vehicle is 15 years old and had its share of rock dings so I opted for a full repaint of the bumper. Lots more masking and sanding. The finish turned out very nice. It was just a lot of work for someone that hadn’t done any auto/marine/aircraft painting for over 20 years. It was expensive, too. For 4 ounces each of base and mid coat, activator, a quart of reducer, a quart of clear coat and a half pint of hardener set me back almost $400. The body shop would have charged over $1000. At least I can use the clear coat on my RC airplanes.

One more thing. Got full asking price for the car.

[rancher1913]

due to the californication of colorado, I drive to wyoming to buy car/equipment paint, they dont have all the ridiculous environmental charges colorado has.

one new thing i found was that they can put the matched paint in an aerosol can, use it and pitch it, no clean up.

[popper]

Several years ago I watched a paint tech (contract guy) do bumpers at the dealer (toyota or nissan, forget). Small sprayer from the back of his van. One coat primer and second color. Done in 15 min. Yup, the paint isn't cheap. IIRC about 100$ plus paint per bumper.

[David2011]

The RAV4 Blizzard Pearl required primer, a base color, a mid coat and a clear coat. All but the primer required catalysts. The time between coats was 15 minutes which was nice. If it’s not all sprayed within 24 hours you get to repeat a lot of work.