Check paint job
 

As you might have guessed from my "Removing front fender" thread, my front left fender as been damaged. The dealer is replacing it.


My car is color code D4S (black metal) and is one year old. I've been to see the paint job, and in dim conditions (in the dealer's garage) I find the metal shines more abundant (more concentrated, more visible) on the new fender than on the rest of the body. In the sunshine it looks fine (homogeneous).


Also, around the fastening bolds (of the fender onto the frame, 3 bolts from memory), the paint is chipped, as thought the socket had "chipped" the pain off.


Overall, what should my acceptance criteria be for this paint job? What should I look for?


Thanks for input... this is urgent as I'll probably go back tomorrow to accept the car or not.

Well now, if you can't see any difference, in average light, from 10' away, I wouldn't worry about it. Same for the "chips" ...... if you can't see them from 10' away .....:popcorn:


humfrz

chipped paint would worry me, assuming its to the metal it could rust.
Otherwise its hard to comment on the paint match without pictures.

brb using imagination

Thanks for the input.


For now the fender's back to the paint shop (because of the chipping around the bolts, which the dealer thought wan't acceptable either).


As for the match, when I'll have the car back I'll check in different lighting conditions to see if I can spot differences... if yes I'll try to post pictures

The biggest challenge when paint matching is the owner's brain. You know the paint is different so will always "see" the difference even when there is none.
Whenever I had a section of a car painted I would always ask somebody that didn't know what area had been done where the new paint was. If they can't tell then I called it good enough even if it seemed to stand out like a beacon to me. I think in all the times I did that I had one person ever notice the difference.

The biggest difference in how the paint appears is one year old paint with any swirl marks in it will diffuse light and appear duller than freshly painted parts.