Sourcing Deep blue pearl ( paint suppliers )

[TheEdge]

Hi all

Ive just had a new passenger door mirror fitted painted etc after I knocked off the previous one trying to avoid a pothole. Ive noticed the paint work is excellent on the new mirror but the paint doesnt look as tinted or deep as the the rest of the car ( taking into consideration being 7 years old ) . Speaking to the bodyshop (non VW) about matching etc he said we can tint the paint before spraying but it is very difficult in case the paint goes wrong either too dark or too light!! one of his sprayers who did a spot on job on my rear bumper is no longer working there!!, he even told me he had a black R32 in recently and had difficulty matching based on 7 different shades of black magic pearl ?

Reading other posts on Google about matching deep blue pearlescent ive read that paint manufacturer "Spies Hecker" provide the closest match to deep blue pearescent, when i queried this with my bodyshop he said im welcome to get the paint from this supplier but was told the paint will be waterbased unlike what bodyshops have ? Im prepared to bite the bullet go to a "Spies Hecker" distributor get a few paint swatches comparisons make my own mind up and then order the paint in the right quantity rather than go pot luck with a bodyshop, reason being I had a quarter panel done last year and the paint was never 100% so based on a cash in hand quote I may get the whole side of the car done done and dusted !!

Any recommendataions on waterbased and non waterbased suppliers of paint or paintshop advice would be great

thanks all !!

3 door deep blue

46000 miles

standard, sunroof, K&N panel filter

[Dan32]

I had all sorts of trouble with DBP matching recently. Car got painted twice and they ended up painting the whole car minus the roof as the blending was not good on one side and so was easier to just do the whole car (I was having done the bonnet, front bumper, N/S from bumper to end of door to remove keyed area, rear bumper and boot). And this is a company who repair Porsches for a living. They used Glasurits who ended up taking a part of the car and doing analysis to update their paint code.

I'm surprised about the comment your bodyshop made about waterbased paint. I thought they all had to spray waterbased now for environmental reasons and the VW paint would have been waterbased at the factory.

The problem the paint suppliers have is that colours can be made up of many different tints, and they have many versions of each individual tint in their range which if not exactly the same as VW had used, will make the paint not match.

[TheEdge]

Hi Dan

thanks for the information, I think i was meant to say the paint has to be waterbased regardless of what I order and NOT 2 packed paint as my bodyshop mentioned. How close is the Glasruit paint to the original? maybe Glasruit have updated their formula im just keen and curious to see the Spies Hecker formula ( paint matches, swatches) my self and make my own mind up. I know paints from bodyshops wont be 100% just annoying when I like things to be as perfect as possible!!

Interesting to see you had you car painted almost twice? what kind of shade did each respray come out darker or lighter than factory? Im just really confused thats why rather than go with what what bodyshops say Id prefer to go to some of the suplliers and identify the best mach myself.

Will give the Spies Heckeer distributor a call tomorrow the one closest to me is Uxbridge and see what they say.

Edited January 31, 2010 by TheEdge

[Dan32]

The new colour Glasurits came up with is much closer to the original colour but as I say, they had trouble blending it on one side, leading us to think the paint was lighter on one side than the other from the factory. Whereabouts are you as might be worth you having a look at my car next to yours to see if there's much difference. PM me if you like. I can probably get hold of the formula Glasurits used as well.

The orginal Glasurits code seemed darker and more of a green blue than the OE colour. It was way off. Problem with pearl metallic paint is it can be affected by so many variables:

How paint gun is setup - paint to air mix ratio, nozzle orientation

How far paint gun is from panel

Speed at which gun is passed along panel

Humidity

All of these things can change the mix of metallic and pearl particles in the paint. They are also heavier in the atmosphere so things like distance to panel will mean they have longer in the air and fall quicker than the paint particles and not hitting the panel at the same time so you can end up with panels looking less metallic (like I did).

VW use several paint suppliers at all of their factories and so some cars may have been painted using different paint manufacturers to another similar car. They also use a process similar to powder coating whereby the car has a positive charge applied to it and the paint gun applies a negative charge (or vice versa, I can't remember!) to the paint which attracts the paint to the bodyshell, cutting down on waste and the amount of paint needed to cover the car. This being a different process to spraying with regular gun will also have an affect on how difficult it will be to match the OE paint.

[TheEdge]

Hi dan PM sent!

yes apparently paint manufacturers like Glasruit revise their paint formulations regulalry providing more accurate paint compositions. Makes you wonder though as my bodyshop said to me bodyshops ten to go for a lighter variant as it is easier to blend!! which I think defies the point of trying to match it in the 1st place, the mirror I had done last week is good but lacks the tint and the slight dark purpleness in the paint itself within the tint.

I have a few stone chips on my untouched side of the car but im refusing to get them sorted out as I think they are not too bad to get sorted out and the paint matching issue is of concern !!