# Door resprayed on Ibis White Audi A3 but not 100% colour match



## Scott2 (Jan 4, 2009)

Hi All,

Had my drivers door resprayed to repair a bad chip this week and I'm impressed yet disappointed with the respray. The effect (orange peel) on the paint is spot on, exactly the same as the paint that's on the car. But the door was resprayed and wasn't blended and the colour match isn't 100% so you can see in some light (but not all) that it's a different colour, especially where the door meets the front wing. This may be me as I'm looking out for it but other people can see it if I point it out although they don't think it's too bad...

Am I wrong to expect a 100% colour match "invisible respray" on a ~6 month old car? I am going to see them tomorrow. Should I say I'm not happy with the colour match or should I put up with it? This is an Audi approved bodyshop btw.

Answers on a post card before tomorrow morn please.

Thanks
Scott


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## cloudnine (Jun 3, 2009)

Scott2 said:


> Hi All,
> 
> The effect (orange peel) on the paint is spot on, exactly the same as the paint that's on the car. But the door was resprayed and wasn't blended and the colour match isn't 100% so you can see in some light (but not all) that it's a different colour, especially where the door meets the front wing.


Was the orange peel effect an optional extra??  Maybe you should have gone with metallic or flake

If you aren't happy it needs re-doing end of story. Don't take any crap from Audi or the bodyshop. If they can't get it right get them to get you a new door.


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## Scott2 (Jan 4, 2009)

cloudnine said:


> Was the orange peel effect an optional extra??  Maybe you should have gone with metallic or flake
> 
> If you aren't happy it needs re-doing end of story. Don't take any crap from Audi or the bodyshop. If they can't get it right get them to get you a new door.


lol sorry I dunno what it's called. I guess the resprayed door looks like any other panel, it's a solid colour but the 'bumpyness' is the same as the rest of the car. It's just the colour.... thanks


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## qwertyuiop (Jul 3, 2009)

Getting the colour to match when painting a car is'nt easy (read f**kin difficult) the only way to garauntee a colour match is to blend it in with the adjacent panels.A lot of garages wont blend it in, unless the customer asks (stupid I know) as it involves extra cost.Take it back tell them your not happy they should have explained to you that there could be a colour match issue if its not blended in. To be honest they dont sound like a decent garage.Good luck 
P.s as for the "bumpyness" in the paint its called orange peel and its a sign that the paint used was'nt thinned out (to thick)enough when being applied.... In other words crap paint job, but dont worry most "production line" work is like this.


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## Scott2 (Jan 4, 2009)

I went in today and told them I wasn't happy with the colour. He explained that the the door was resprayed around the damaged area and blended in (which you can't see) and the whole door was re-laquered (clear coated) which is the 'yellowness' I can see. He said if I drop the car down one day, he'll get some of the excessive clear coat taken off so you won't see the yellow tinge. Does this sound acceptable?


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## qwertyuiop (Jul 3, 2009)

He's tryin to baffle you.... ALL repairs are blended in to the immeadiate surroundings, i.e imagine taking the door off a car to repair a 2mm square stone chip in the centre of the door,they cant just paint a 2mm square,they paint a good 150mm-250mm either side of the stone chip, now its blended in coz you cant see a 2mm square chip.......(obviously the bigger the damage the bigger the area to be blended in)
However if the stone chip is not in the middle of the door but near the edge, E.G where the door meets a wing.Then you would have to paint part of the adjoining wing to get a good colour match.... If he says polishing away the laquer will remove some of the "yellow tinge" (wot yellow tinge?laquer is clear).... Er! 20 years ago I would have said he's takin the p*ss... see wot happens when hes finished, if your not happy tell him you've spoke to an ex-painter an it aint good enough.A good bodyshop WILL get an invisible repair. Problem is finding a good bodyshop is harder than finding an honest politician.Audi approved or not in fact tell him when you speak to him that you will contact Audi UK if your not happy!! make the ******* sweat!!!


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## Paintguy (Oct 31, 2005)

Scott2 said:


> I went in today and told them I wasn't happy with the colour. He explained that the the door was resprayed around the damaged area and blended in (which you can't see) and the whole door was re-laquered (clear coated) which is the 'yellowness' I can see. He said if I drop the car down one day, he'll get some of the excessive clear coat taken off so you won't see the yellow tinge. Does this sound acceptable?


Yes, he may well be right in what he's saying.

If it's an Audi approved bodyshop, then they'll be using products that comply with the latest EPA regulations, which includes the use of UHS (Ultra High Solids) clearcoats. If applied too thickly, these can indeed cause a darkening of the colour (seen as yellowing on solid colours like white). So much so that some of the top paint manufacturers recommend special techniques for exactly this kind of job.

In the past, one could just clear (lacquer) the whole of a panel and it be invisible, but with UHS clears it's recommended to only use one thin coat up to the edge of a blend panel like this. NEXA (formally ICI before being taken over by one of the worlds largest paint manufacturers, PPG) have a very elaborate application method. The first light coat of clear should go no nearer than 6 inches from the end of the panel, the second (full) coat no nearer than 4", then the resulting strip at the edge of the panel should be lightly coated in a 50/50 mixture of clear and blending thinner. This applies the bare minimum of extra clear at the edge of the panel, minimising the darkening/yellowing effect.

They may well not have used such methods when painting your car, so by removing some of the excess clear they may well reduce the yellowing effect, but beware that you'll then lose the original-matching orange peel, and the freshly painted panel will be smother than the surrounding ones.


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## Scott2 (Jan 4, 2009)

Paintguy said:


> Yes, he may well be right in what he's saying.
> 
> If it's an Audi approved bodyshop, then they'll be using products that comply with the latest EPA regulations, which includes the use of UHS (Ultra High Solids) clearcoats. If applied too thickly, these can indeed cause a darkening of the colour (seen as yellowing on solid colours like white). So much so that some of the top paint manufacturers recommend special techniques for exactly this kind of job.
> 
> ...


Thanks, very interesting read - will the panel be perfectly smooth or will there still be some orange peel? As long as it's not so obvious it's gotta be better than a colour mismatch like now. In your opinion, would you rather leave the door, have the excessive clear removed or request a respray using the technique above? Thanks again!


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## Paintguy (Oct 31, 2005)

The finish will depend upon how much clearcoat they need to remove, but I'd guess you'll end up with an almost perfectly smooth door as reducing the thickness will also level out the orange peel.

Only you can decide which way you want to go really. Removing some of the excess clear should make the colour appear better from a distance, but you may notice the difference in finish very close up. Which of those would you prefer in the long run? Personally I'd prefer the former, as most of the time you'll be seeing the car from at least a small distance, as will other people.


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## Scott2 (Jan 4, 2009)

Thanks.

I've been back and complained. At first the manager couldn't see anything wrong and admitted himself that he thought I was taking the ****, but now he can see it. He said it does take some looking to notice it but it is unacceptable (easier than I thought actually to convince him)

The car went in today and he tried polishing it down whilst retaining the orange peel. I had a call from the receptionist who said "your car is ready for collection but [the manager] says you're not going to be happy with it" - too right, no difference in the colour...maybe even a little worse...but they've tried. He suggested the next option to be another respray of the door but I guess this time it will be the whole door being resprayed, rather than the chip and then clear coat. He said he may have to do the entire side (which he didn't want to) to blend it all in. All this for a bloody less than 1cm stone chip!

To be fair, he's trying to help me out here and he's not being a d*ck about it - the match isn't too bad and people have said "leave it, it's fine" (obviously it's not their car though) - he said if they had another 3 door white A3 available that they could swap doors with, they would to save all this effort. Unfortunately they don't.

Any suggestions? They do seem to be trying now and he said he's a sprayer himself so will personally oversee it all "not to worry, it'll be pefect" but do I really want them respraying the whole side as they can't get a colour match on a white 2009 car??

Also, they're offering me a better courtesy car this time, a new Golf rather than a 1.2 Seat Ibiza or Polo which I've had.

Thoughts please ... good or bad....

Many thanks
Scott


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## Paintguy (Oct 31, 2005)

It does sound like he's trying his best, rather than fobbing you off, which is good.

The edge to edge paint of the full door is the next logical step, but an even more risky one, especially on such a sensitive colour as white. And then it's on to an aspect paint (spraying the full side). I wouldn't worry yourself about having such a new car painted in that way. Plenty of cars see resprayed panels before they even leave the factory, even more at import centres before they reach the dealers, so that isn't a huge issue on a car like yours (no offence intended).

The only thing I will say is that if he paints just the door, then moves on to paint the side, then that particular panel will have been painted 4 times (including the factory job) which is getting to its limits really.


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## Scott2 (Jan 4, 2009)

Paintguy said:


> It does sound like he's trying his best, rather than fobbing you off, which is good.
> 
> The edge to edge paint of the full door is the next logical step, but an even more risky one, especially on such a sensitive colour as white. And then it's on to an aspect paint (spraying the full side). I wouldn't worry yourself about having such a new car painted in that way. Plenty of cars see resprayed panels before they even leave the factory, even more at import centres before they reach the dealers, so that isn't a huge issue on a car like yours (no offence intended).
> 
> The only thing I will say is that if he paints just the door, then moves on to paint the side, then that particular panel will have been painted 4 times (including the factory job) which is getting to its limits really.


Thanks. Is it really unrealistic to expect a full colour match from just respraying the door? If it's done properly, I would think it would be ok. I actually can't see where the chip was repaired which makes me think that the entire door has been resprayed already (despite them saying it wasn't). I picked up on the manager saying "there are a few different types of white which we can try" but why would that matter if only a little bit has been sprayed and is undetectable? Surely there's too much clear coat which is making it look a slightly different colour, but there's only so much they can polish off without losing the orange peel which I said would be unacceptable.

I never thought about a limit to how many times a panel could be painted... please excuse my ignorance, but would the new paint usually be resprayed over the old (current) paint, or would the door be stripped first?

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!! :doublesho

Thanks again,
Scott


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## Alex_225 (Feb 7, 2008)

I think you're well within your rights to expect it perfect, repaired so you wouldn't even know it had been done. 

I guess the trouble with white is that the tolerances of what you can see show up more due to the purity of that colour. If that makes sense, I know what I mean haha. 

I've had numerous bits of spraying done on different cars and I've always made sure it was 100%. Only once did my local sprayed fail to match something quite right but I pointed it out and they re-did it. Didn't hesitate in blending the necessary areas as well.


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## qwertyuiop (Jul 3, 2009)

Its not un-realistic to expect a "perfect"( nothins perfect, but it should be un-detectable to the naked eye, I did a bit of paintin back in '87 when white was one of the easier colours to match) colour match,wot most people dont realise is when it comes to paintin cars you really do get wot you pay for.If this is an Audi approved garage I'm guessin your payin top dollar so I would expect a top dollar paint job I dont give a f**k wot colour it is!! I've recently had a new bonnet fitted and re-sprayed (silver) obviously the tops of the wings were blown in an now you would'nt know its had any work done.Six years ago I had a damaged front wheel arch repaired (silver again) by a BMW garage,again the repair was invisable...My opinion, make em do it again and dont recomend them to anyone the guy was bein a To**er fer tryin to fob you off the first time you got your car back!!!


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## Paintguy (Oct 31, 2005)

Scott2 said:


> Thanks. Is it really unrealistic to expect a full colour match from just respraying the door?


Not unrealistic, but extremely hard.

Just take mixing the paint for a start. Say one was mixing 250ml of it (pretty much the minimum most manufacturers will go down to). In the paint scheme I use (DeBeer) it's made up of 248.2 grammes of white, 0.6g of black, and just 0.2g of yellow. That last one is literally 2 drops of yellow in a pot of paint. One drop too much (or even a slightly bigger than normal drop) can make all the difference. When you consider most paint weighing scales are only accurate to 0.1g anyway, you can get up to 50% more 'yellowness' than you wanted without even knowing it (or 50% less for that matter). The only way around it is to mix massive quantities (the more you mix, the lower the percentage variation), but paint is an expensive item so no one ever mixes more than they need to.

As for the current repair, the skill of the painter would have been able to blend out the colour around the damaged area without you being able to detect it. I can quite easily blend out the 'wrong' colour invisibly when I need to, so even if they only started with a white that was half close, then you'd never see the blend (it's all about tricking the eyes ).

They will almost certainly spray over the top of the current paint. It would be nigh on impossible for them to strip off the paint they have just applied so that it's down to the factory paint without breaking right through to bare metal on the edges (thus compromising the corrosion inhibiting zinc and primer layers). I would expect them to reduce the film thickness as much as they can before respraying again though by giving the panel a good sand down.

I might be making all this sound worse than it really is, but if you're unhappy with the repair that they've done then it's up to them to do whatever is necessary to rectify it.

Personally, if it were in my 'shop I wouldn't dick about with it any longer and just paint the whole side


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## Scott2 (Jan 4, 2009)

Thanks all, and many thanks to Paintguy for the very detailed responses. It is very much appreciated... 

I think what I'll do when I drop the car off again for the second respray is ask to see any other white cars that have been resprayed and see if I can identify the panel(s) that have been resprayed without (and with) them pointing it out. There are plenty of white cars there with it being an Audi approved bodyshop which is used by 3 dealerships.

I'm going to ask them to make sure the door is prepared properly and as much paint is removed (as you say, the film thickness is reduced) by sanding down. I also make sure they don't wash the car whenever it's in for the work as they have a horrid automatic car wash. 

What I really don't understand is they say only a small 20-30cm area (if that) has actually received any paint and the rest of the door has had a layer of clear coat, so the discoloration must be the clear coat, hence the reason they tried to machine polish some clear off. I think it's more noticable door to wing rather than door to rear but it is noticable at both edges. I honestly cannot for the life of me see any colour difference where the chip was repaired. Does it seem like that's what they have actually done? Or does it sound as if the whole door was resprayed? 

Finally, if I ask to see the paintwork before it's cured, as I have arranged to work from home for the 2 days that the car is in the garage, would I be able to see any obvious colour differences then or does it really need to be cured overnight and polished first? Just trying to think what I can do so if I'm not happy with it they can fix it rather than have the car for another 2 days at a later stage.

Thanks once again -

Scott


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## Paintguy (Oct 31, 2005)

Scott2 said:


> Finally, if I ask to see the paintwork before it's cured, as I have arranged to work from home for the 2 days that the car is in the garage, would I be able to see any obvious colour differences then or does it really need to be cured overnight and polished first? Just trying to think what I can do so if I'm not happy with it they can fix it rather than have the car for another 2 days at a later stage.
> 
> Thanks once again -
> 
> Scott


I doubt they would let you Scott, I wouldn't. For a start it would mean you entering their spray booth, something that their public liability insurance won't cover them for. Then they would have to de-mask the car whilst the job was still wet - a very risky process that could easily lead to damage of the fresh paint (not to mention all of the dust etc that could end up in it).

You could ask to see it straight out of the oven, before polishing. You may not be overly impressed by what you see if it has dust or OP in it, but at least you could check the colour before they waste the time polishing.

It is strange that the colour difference is more noticeable at one side of the door than the other. Maybe they blended the colour a little bit too much towards the wing, or just put the clear on a little heavier that side.


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## Scott2 (Jan 4, 2009)

fwiw - I had the door resprayed again and it's still not matching. I spoke to a sprayer from Bentley who said that the front of the door hasn't had colour, only lacquer, and it hasn't been blended into the wing as it definately hasn't had any spray on it. I was told that the door was removed to spray but he checked and he's 100% that the door wasn't removed (which is good!) not sure why Audi would tell me otherwise.

The problem now is the rear "middle" (between top lip and side strip) of the door has had colour and it hasn't been blended into the rear wing so it's an obvious colour difference. Not sure why initially it looked like the front of the door and the wing was off but I am having it all checked with a paint thickness gauge so we'll soon know.

The garage in question is (let's name and shame), Swansway Accident Repair Centre in Crewe - I will be phoning Audi CS on Monday morning to make them aware of my probs. I will also be calling Swansway and asking what they can do to resolve the problem.

I paid £230 for the respray and was quoted on just the door, though I mentioned that I wanted it PERFECT and was told there wouldn't be a problem so as far as I'm concerned, if I can see the colour difference, it isn't perfect. It's a shame as it's gonna take a lot for me to start to enjoy the car again after all this...


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## DEEJAY (Sep 6, 2008)

Scott2 said:


> fwiw - I had the door resprayed again and it's still not matching. I spoke to a sprayer from Bentley who said that the front of the door hasn't had colour, only lacquer, and it hasn't been blended into the wing as it definately hasn't had any spray on it. I was told that the door was removed to spray but he checked and he's 100% that the door wasn't removed (which is good!) not sure why Audi would tell me otherwise.
> 
> The problem now is the rear "middle" (between top lip and side strip) of the door has had colour and it hasn't been blended into the rear wing so it's an obvious colour difference. Not sure why initially it looked like the front of the door and the wing was off but I am having it all checked with a paint thickness gauge so we'll soon know.
> 
> ...


as i told you on the audi forum, there is no way the door would be removed to paint the door and i recommended that you should of strived to have the adjacent panels blending for colour, white is very difficult to match edge to edge no matter what the repair size is, clearcoats are not clear, imo there is now to much of this and has now made the colour of the door different to the other panels, the only way now to rectify this problem is to take the car back and have the wing and door/quarter panel blended for colour,


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