Having read an issue about the colour red on the 500, I thought I would raise an issue I have.

I have a 2013 268/A Sport. Its been in an accident so I am replacing panels. It needs a new door which I purchased. I purchased a 268/A white door salvaged from a 2015 model. Never had an issue with other 500 for white panel matches.

The door has been put on, but its not an exact match. The door appears more white, when compared with other panels. Now, the car and the door have not been repaired at any point so thats not the issue. The car had gardx applied it would seem when first registered.

So my question:
Does the two years (between 2013 & 2015) cause a colour fade to the white?
Has gardx caused a colour fade to the paint work?
Would you expect panels with the same colour to be noticeably different? Because from experience I've had no issues with 268 before.

Thanks,
Alex

A couple of years can affect the colour not by a massive amount. More likely is that there are natural colour differences in any paint colour as cars pass down the production line and a couple of years between one car being painted and another can mean a big difference in White number 268/A which is why paint books used in the trade usually have a different recipe for the paint for any given year, sometimes even month.

White can also be a massive pain to match even then. Realistically you might need to pay a professional to paint the door and blend the colour with the surrounding panels, or hope to find a different door with a closer match.

White is the only colour in my 60 odd 500s that I’ve not had a problem with. Panels always match. I always try to get panels from roughly the same age car but although I’ve had issues with almost every other colour including red, but never white. The only difference in yours is the treatment you mention.

typecastboy said:

White is the only colour in my 60 odd 500s that I’ve not had a problem with. Panels always match. I always try to get panels from roughly the same age car but although I’ve had issues with almost every other colour including red, but never white. The only difference in yours is the treatment you mention.

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This is what I thought. I can only assume the gardx has a small reaction to the white. When it's abit warmer I'm going to get the buffer out to see if I can try and blend it.

The Younger Mrs S.' "Rasputin" is Bossa Nova White.. and on close inspection it's obviously had an interesting history.

The o/s rear three-quarter panel, the n/s door, the bumper, bonnet and front wing (at least!) have all had their share of excitement in the past.

The bumper is some kind of a legend. It started life as Volare blue.. must have survived being a write-off, since it was later painted B/N White and then been written off again before being transplanted onto Rasputin. Its re-sprayed BNW matches the rest of the white paint.. but the paint just looks older than the other paint.

The bonnet was dark blue once.. and appears to have been re-sprayed BNW when it was fitted to the car and it looks fine, apart from a couple of chips that expose the blue previous life.

The rear panel and the door.. similarly have been resprayed BNW but are presumably the original items, just repaired for some reason.

The wing is an odd one though. It was once red.. and must have been painted BNW at the same time as the formerly Volare Blue/White bumper was fitted... but it is more white than the other panels.

I'm guessing that the painter who sprayed it (don't imagine this was a quality repair.. I need to redo it properly) just took a tin of BNW and sprayed it, without any attempt to age or match the colour. The paint looks good (under the wing looks less good) but it is a shade "whiter".

So, I suspect that there *was* an old BNW and a newer, whiter variant. I can't see that the "white" white on the wing is any older than the roof say (I really hope the roof hasn't been resprayed too! ) so the white white must be the newer variety.

The "old" white (including the rear panel and door which were both re-sprayed BNW) are all the same, identical shade of slightly creamier ("yellow") white, so I don't think it's a case of the paint fading, or some treatment affecting them.. since there are only two shades of white on Rasputin, despite several paint-jobs.

The only other possibility is that the BNW used for the wing is not actually BNW or just wasn't blended very well, given the other bodgery around that particular repair.


Ralf S.

forzaf1 said:

I can only assume the gardx has a small reaction to the white

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The paint is overfinished with a clearcoat lacquer; I don't see how Gard-x or similar could react with the paint itself, so I doubt buffing will help. I'd say it's more likely the replacement panel is just a different shade of the factory finish.

forzaf1 said:

I'm going to get the buffer out to see if I can try and blend it.

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Be careful; if you buff through the clearcoat, only a respray will sort things out. Buffing is good for removing minor scratches in the clearcoat, but it won't help with fading paint - you can't t-cut modern finishes the way we used to back in the day.

Thanks for the replies.

I think once all the panels are on, we shall see how it all looks. Then abit of buffing just to get out the minor paint defects and take it from there.

Can only guess that 2015 was a good year for white

If anyone is reading this and gets the same issue, or notice their white car is starting to look abit yellow, I'm hoping to sort it out tomorrow. Apparently it could be something to do with the wax and contamination in the layer. I'm going to try out some methods tomorrow to get it back to its original white.

forzaf1 said:

If anyone is reading this and gets the same issue, or notice their white car is starting to look abit yellow, I'm hoping to sort it out tomorrow. Apparently it could be something to do with the wax and contamination in the layer. I'm going to try out some methods tomorrow to get it back to its original white.

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A good quality cutting compound and a DA polisher will probably sort it.

I've got that on standby aswell as iron x and a clay bar.

So after various cleaning methods, it's not made a difference. I suspect the car could well have had a respray at some point, hence the colour mis match with original 268/A coloured parts.

Saw a 69 plate 500 in grey, the bumpers were already clearly a different colour.

I have attached a picture of my 13 plate, hopefully if the monitor is of good quality, you can see a different in colour.

forzaf1 said:

I have attached a picture of my 13 plate, hopefully if the monitor is of good quality, you can see a different in colour.

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Yes, the colour difference is very obvious on my monitor.

The only way you are going to fix that is to respray the door. The paint will need to be professionally matched to the actual colour of the rest of the car; just making it up to a paint code probably will not suffice.

If you look under the carpet (perhaps the boot floor), you should be able to see what shade the paint was when it left the factory.

That's a similar difference to the rogue front wing vs the rest of the car on the Younger Mrs S' Rasputin. The wing is also more "white" than the rest of the car, as yours looks to be.. so there may be some slightly not the right colour white paint in the bodyshops.. (or maybe they just don't mix it very well..?)


Ralf S.

Ralf S. said:

or maybe they just don't mix it very well..

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That.

Many bodyshops mix their own paint; those that don't will likely have it mixed by a local paint supplier. The better ones will fine tune the colour to match the existing panels; obviously to do this you need the physical car at paint mixing time.

Even if you get it spot on at the time, no one can guarantee that the new paint will weather in precisely the same way as the old, so refinished panels which look perfect on collection can sometimes stand out a mile a few years later.