Vehicle paint is different from the paint you might use in your living room or on a canvas. However, just as when you’re touching up a scratch on your wall, it’s crucial to match the paint that’s on your vehicle. And “match” doesn’t mean “close enough”. You could put red paint on a red car, and it still might look obviously mismatched. When you paint your home, you might use different paints for drywall, plaster walls, wood doors, and exterior siding. An automotive paint repair shop has to consider vehicle types when touching up a scratch or finishing up a collision repair. Let’s look at the specifics of vehicle painting.

What Does A Good Automotive Paint Repair Shop Do?

When it comes to paintings hanging in a gallery, taste is subjective. What makes a painting “good” is merely a factor of how many people, and art critics, like it. The color you choose for your home is also a matter of personal taste. But there are some aspects that denote whether it’s a well-painted wall or not. If you can see brush strokes, if the paint isn’t thick enough to cover the previous paint, or if the painter just missed a spot, then it’s probably not a great painting job. Some of these apply to vehicle painting, too. But there are many things an automotive vehicle paint shop must consider. Here are some hallmarks of a good vehicle paint job:

• Smoothness: A good car paint job is smooth, with no visible drips or uneven textures. A professional paint repair shop should be able to produce a flawless finish that’s consistent with the rest of the vehicle.
• Consistency: After an auto body repair, the panel in question should have the same level of gloss and shine as the rest of the vehicle. A consistent gloss looks good and suggests the paint repair shop did its job properly, using durable, high-quality paint.
• No over-spray: Paint repair shop technicians must be careful and use the right tools to avoid over-spraying. This is when paint gets on to adjacent panels, trim, or glass. This is a sign of careless workmanship; a competent collision repair shop would never leave blotches or sprays of unsightly paint.
• Color matching: When doing touch-ups, the new paint must match the existing colorexactly. A successful paint repair shop will not let the slightest difference in color or shade stand out.

How Do Different Vehicle Types Affect Paint Matching?

When matching colors and finish, a vehicle paint shop must consider the following factors as it pertains to various vehicle models:

Manufacturing Differences

Different vehicle types—hatchbacks, sedans, SUVs, trucks, minivans, etc.—often come from different factories or production lines, even if they’re from the same brand. Paint application methods, curing times, and equipment can vary slightly, leading to subtle color differences in the same paint code across models or production years.

Body Shape and Panel size

Larger vehicles, such as pickup trucks and SUVs, have bigger, flatter panels that reflect light differently than the curved or compact surfaces of smaller cars. This can make color mismatches more visible, especially with metallic or pearlescent paints. Painters often must blend paint across panels to achieve a seamless look.

Paint Code Availability

Some paint codes are unique to certain vehicle types or trims. For example, a luxury SUV might have exclusive multi-stage paints or matte finishes not available on base sedans. These specialty paints require specific techniques and products to match correctly.

Usage and Wear

Larger or utility-focused vehicles often endure more wear, fading, and exposure to the elements. This alters the paint over time. Matching freshly mixed paint to a weathered finish takes extra effort, including custom tinting and visual comparisons under different lighting.

Aftermarket Modifications

Trucks and off-road vehicles are more likely to have aftermarket parts, such as fibreglass fenders or custom bumpers, which may absorb paint differently. This makes it harder to match the original finish unless extra prep and priming are done.

How Does An Auto Body Repair Shop Ensure It Uses The Right Paint?

A paint repair shop might use several techniques to ensure the paint it applies after a collision repair is precisely the same as what’s already on the vehicle. These methods include:

• A visual evaluation: Often, the naked yet trained-eye of an experienced auto body repair technician can assess the qualities of a vehicle’s existing paint and figure out how to replicate it seamlessly.
• Color chips and fan decks: Thankfully, paint repair technicians don’t have to rely solely on their skilled eyes. They have valuable tools at their disposal, including collections of standardized paint samples. Collision repair technicians can consult these color chips and fan decks to find the closest match possible.
• Tinting: Paint repair shop staff also know different tinting and blending techniques they can use to refine the paint color and create a closer match. Tinting involves adding specific pigment tints to a base paint, adjusting the shade and creating a closer match to the vehicle’s original color.
• Blending: When painting, to transition the new color to the adjacent panels, technicians will carefully feather the new paint into the existing paint. A skilled paint repair shop tech can use this technique to create a seamless transition, reducing the visible boundary between the old and new paint, making the finished scratch or collision repair virtually invisible.
• Spectrophotometers: Spectrophotometers are sophisticated devices auto body repair techs can use to measure the color of paint with a high level of accuracy. Spectroscopy involves analyzing the light spectrum that an object’s surface reflects.

If you’re concerned about the ultimate look of your vehicle after a dent, scratch, or collision repair, then ask the shop technicians if they have the above vehicle painting tools and methods available to them.