Paint matching

[Stempy]

I just went to the time and trouble of spraying up my mud flaps to colour match them to the bodywork. Unfortunately I used Halfrauds paint. It says Quartz Metallic on the tin and I used grey primer and the finishing lacquer as advised, but a match it ain't. Just wanted to moan, sorry.

[XantiaMan]

I've never known a Halfords paint to match correctly.

[jmd]

The real reason for the mis-match is. The paint on the car is naturally the same age as the car itself, and with the car having been washed, polished, subjected, to rain, sunshine,( a scarce commodity) and all weather's, plus ageing, will have developed a shading difference in comparison to new paint straight from the container. As far as I am aware Halfords are not paint manufacturers. The paint is manufactured by one of the specialist paint manufacturers and packed in Halford can's. The only way to ensure a correct match would be to purchase paint at the time the car was purchased and store that paint in a clear glass container, in the outdoors. . The newly applied paint on your mudflaps will blend into the existing colour on the car after a few weeks.

[XantiaMan]

The real reason for the mis-match is. The paint on the car is naturally the same age as the car itself, and with the car having been washed, polished, subjected, to rain, sunshine,( a scarce commodity) and all weather's, plus ageing, will have developed a shading difference in comparison to new paint straight from the container. As far as I am aware Halfords are not paint manufacturers. The paint is manufactured by one of the specialist paint manufacturers and packed in Halford can's. The only way to ensure a correct match would be to purchase paint at the time the car was purchased and store that paint in a clear glass container, in the outdoors. . The newly applied paint on your mudflaps will blend into the existing colour on the car after a few weeks.

I disagree partly, whilst ageing and UV damage plays its part, the amount of basecoat/colour applied, the colour of the primer and if metallic the way its been applied all affect the colour of the final product.

However, Halfords paint is just not good enough if you want a good match, this is because shade variations exist (there are 3 variants of Dante Red for my car for example) and they cannot carry stock for all, so they do a 'standard' shade.

Your best bet for small areas is to go to a place like Brown Brothers that can mix it to the correct shade variation, new paint always appears brighter and fresher and can take up to 2 weeks to lose this, with the right colour it will then be about closer to the original!

[AndersDK]

Yeah - Halfrauds paints are sh@te

Never heard of why it can be a bothersome affair repairing paintwork on few years old cars ?
There is a good reson why whole sections of the bodywok has to be resprayed - with exact same colour mix as the original - to match the origial colour on the car.
If not done so - then there will be a very distinct visible colour difference on the re-sprayed area - from the rest.

Repair sprays are really only intended for new cars. Wihtin a year or less the colour starts to detoriate.

[CitroJim]

I've never known a Halfords paint to match correctly.

Maybe that's why the Halfrauds Ford paint nearly nmatched the Grey on the Activa!