car paint issue

barthek

Hi all,

Ive recently bought a can of spray paint in Halfords.
The color is called 'indigo blue'. It is supposed to be
dark blue one.

I've sprayed my car's bumper with this paint and lo
and behold... It turned out violet! When sprayed it was
nice dark blue and now this looks dreadful...

Is there any chance that the color changes over some time ?
Do I have any comeback to Halfords?

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Stevie Dakota

Are you saying it was blue when you first sprayed it, and that you were happy with the colour match at first, and now it has turned violet???

peasant

What state was the bumper in that you sprayed?

Was it an old faded one with a rough surface? odid it have primer on it or a relatively shiney paint of a different colour?

barthek

to be more precise - when freshly painted last afternoon it looked dark blue all right.
today you can easily tell it is has more violet in it than dark blue and it looks awful when compared to old paint.

the bumper had 'original' dark blue metallic paint on it and i put some putty on the dents before painting but
no primer.

can anyone confirm whether vw indigo blue is supposed to be 'violetish' ?

Stevie Dakota

Sorry Barthek I don't think you going to have any joy. It simply sounds like you have painted the bumper the wrong colour. If you gave Halfords the paint code number (stamped on your car, usually in the engine bay) then maybe you have a case, but you are the one the applied the paint, so if the colour was wrong you should have noticed.

Let this be a lesson, if you need paint to match your car get it from a reputable (read between the lines here) source, and use the paint code from you car.

smash

check the plate under the bonet where your chassis number is, this should have a colour code for the car. You should have given them this code so they could mix it - anything you buy off the shelf wont be 100%

barthek

i took the color off the color charts that they had in store. as there were only 3 blue paint cans i chose one that matched closes to my existing one. none of them had any sign of violet in them though

Stevie Dakota

Hmmmmm.:rolleyes:

smash

barthek wrote: »

i took the color off the color charts that they had in store. as there were only 3 blue paint cans i chose one that matched closes to my existing one. none of them had any sign of violet in them though

you can't just pick the closest match and presume it will be ok... you should have given the colour code. It will cost you a bit now to get it sorted out in a bodyshop!

JoeA3

sounds like you've found out the hard way that you can't just take a spray can to a car and hope it'll match "close enough"! Any differences in shade no matter how slight will stand out a mile, hence this is a job best left to pro's.

MercMad

Yeah you can forget matching the car with the lid of the can, it doesn't work. You could either get them to match from the code, or give them the fuel filler flap, or a wing bolt and they can match it. Also sometimes the colour of the primer can change the effect. Some paints actually state to use various colour primers.

Churchy

Hehe........;)

Volvoboy

There's loada things to do to get the right finish on a repair

1- Strip it down to get to the damaged area
2- Spoon it up with a dolly behind the dent and hit it with a bumping file
3- Sand off the paint with 40 grit to remove all the paint (so the isopon has somthing to grip to)
4- Fill with isopon and wait to dry (3 skims of isopon usually gets you a good idea)
5- Use 40 grit at 1st then finish the repair with 80 grit
6- DA (electric orbital sander) with 180-320 grit paper to get rid of all the scratch marks left from sanding the isopn
7- mask around the repair
8- prime 5:1 mixture
9- wait for 3-4 hrs for it to dry
10- spray guide-coat over the primer (Black Spray Paint)
11- wet sand with 600- grit paper be sure to use a rubbing block (Dont Use Your Hands!!!)
12- sand the primer until you cannot see the black paint
13- scotch the panel on the repair, dry it really well
14- pre clean the panel make sure you wipe it all off to get rid of all the grease and dirt.
15- mask all the area you dont want paint,
16- tack the panels (special rag) to get rid of bits of dirt.
17- paint 0.25 of a litre should do any small repair
18-laquer
19- it takes around 2-3 hours to dry.

We need photos of you attempted repair:p

mantaraver

The paint code for most VW's should be on a sticker in the spare wheel well of the boot. If the sticker's gone, which they regularly are, you might also find it on the inside of the mirror cover.

barthek

mantaraver wrote: »

The paint code for most VW's should be on a sticker in the spare wheel well of the boot. If the sticker's gone, which they regularly are, you might also find it on the inside of the mirror cover.

its too late for that now all right

i would have not given the car to the pros as it would have costed me over 200 to fix and spray the bumper and the car is probably not worth more than 800 :P

all I lost is about 20 quid and some of my time and i DID learn a lesson ))

actually now that i look at it the color is not the worst thing - the worst is the putty!
i have dry and water sanded it and it felt really smooth under the fingers but after putting the paint on it shows all the bumps and rough edges of the underlying 'fixes'.

so i guess i am back to square one. just wondering how to do it properly (particularly the putty thing) next time round!

barthek

Volvoboy wrote: »

...
We need photos of you attempted repair:p

I would be to embarrassed to do that! it would have ended up on one of this threads showing worst DIY paint jobs