Insights
Colour Matching: Why the Paint Code Is Only the Start
Every factory colour has a code, and that code tells us the recipe the manufacturer used when your car was new. It is the starting point for a match, but on an older vehicle it is rarely the whole story. Sun, age and washing slowly shift the colour, so the panel in front of us often no longer matches the code exactly.
That is why we tint by eye. We mix to the code, spray a test card, then hold it against the actual panel in natural light and adjust until it disappears against the surrounding paint. On a repair we also blend the new colour into the adjacent panels so there is no hard edge where old meets new.
Getting this right is the difference between a repair you can always spot and one that vanishes. It takes time and a trained eye, and it is the part of the job that separates a proper refinisher from a quick spray and go.