Paint Colour Matching

[Red7 Racing]

Hi all, have been searching.. but cant find the answer I need.

I have an Impul R33r, when the original modification work was done by Impul in Japan the car was resprayed - original colour was ANO (Maroon), they painted it silver. The ID plate in the car, and Fast both still say it's ANO.

The body kit has a bit of damage, so have taken the damaged bits off and left with a painter/fibreglasser to repair, but he wants a paint code for it - which I don't have.

I called Impul this afternoon (thankfully I speak Japanese) and they tell me there is no data left now on what the paint mix was, but it was definitely an Impul original, custom colour that is no longer continued. Apparently the base colour was KYO but because it's custom no actual complete code exists.

They said even if I took it back to them now they would have to manually match the colour - they also seemed to think that this was not too hard.

Everything I have been reading this afternoon though, and the painter I have engaged to do the fibreglass repair and paint seem to be saying that it's impossible to get a perfect match and I will be lucky if it's not visibly different!

Does anyone know anything about paint matching? How it's done, what results are like, who is an expert in Sydney area??

Any help appreciated.

Thanks..

Edited July 6, 2008 by Red7 Racing

[nvsA4]

if you have the base colour its a good start, but the easiest thing for the painter is for you to leave your car with him as he'll need it to match the colour to, and then depending on the brand of paint he uses he might be able to call a paint technition in to do the color matching for him, i know Glasurit do this becuase we got them to colour match a camaro for us last week at work

[abu]

Any good paint shop should be able to mix it up for you

If you take the fuel filler cap off and take it to the paint shop, ask them to mix you up x amount of it they should be able to get an almost a perfect match

That would be the best way to do it

[nvsA4]

Any good paint shop should be able to mix it up for you

If you take the fuel filler cap off and take it to the paint shop, ask them to mix you up x amount of it they should be able to get an almost a perfect match

That would be the best way to do it

the problem with that is the bars might not match the guards if the cap is a slighly off colour. It's easy to match a colourif you have a code to start with but if you have noidea it's hard especially on 3 layer pearls because you have to match the groud coat then match the pearl coat. starting from scratch with no code to go on could take a whole day or longer and for just one colour the painter may not have the time

[Red7 Racing]

Thanks guys.. I did leave the filler cap with him for matching. He said he has gone to a technician to match it and come up with a paint to use.

Still a bit nervous as he says never perfect unless you do a full respray. Have told him I will not be happy it's visually different.

Fingers crossed. Will find out soon enough I guess.

[nvsA4]

Thanks guys.. I did leave the filler cap with him for matching. He said he has gone to a technician to match it and come up with a paint to use.

Still a bit nervous as he says never perfect unless you do a full respray. Have told him I will not be happy it's visually different.

Fingers crossed. Will find out soon enough I guess.

if it's just the bars why not get the gurads and quaters blended? you wont notice the difference that way it shouldn't cost to much more.

And the techs are awesome at colour matching they have to do a test every year so thre on top of things

Edited July 6, 2008 by nvsA4

[PSI Parts]

The main reason that paint mismatches occur is that paint degrades over time. Which is why you see a car that's only had the bodykit painted it stands out a fair bit since its nice and glossy compared to the rest of the car's paint, which is probably 10+ years old.