The Nissan Path

Anyone with the Silverton Blue ever have a panel painted and matched correctly?

I had my right side and front bumper replaced and repainted. After two tries, the body shop still can't get the color right. The first time they used the paint code and it was way off. The second time they used a matching camera and it's still not right. They had the regional paint rep look at my car and he said the paint of an eight year-old car is too faded to match (which I'm not buying).

So I ordered some touch up paint from the factory as an experiment. It's closer but still not exact––even inside the door sills where the sun doesn't shine.

Certain colours can be stupidly hard to match. Fade and age make a big difference, and camera has a tough time with metallic colours as this is an additive that is hard to determine using a square inch of reference.

Some colours have to age a bit to look decent too. Certain reds are like this as well.

DanJetta wrote:Anyone with the Silverton Blue ever have a panel painted and matched correctly?

Yes. I had the driver's front wheel well painted as the paint had blistered in a few spots. Also had them paint the hood while they were at it. Rear driver's door was painted after someone put a hole in it with something like a rock pick. And a few months ago, I was rear-ended which meant fresh paint on the bumper. From 2' or more away, everything looks exactly the same. If I stick my nose right up to the repainted areas and do the same with the original areas, there is an ever so slight difference.

Not sure about the theory of fading and whatnot. I wash my car maybe twice a year tops, expose it to intense heat and sunlight, etc. I have about 3 bottles of the Silverton Blue touchup paint from Nissan because I was told a few years ago that they were no longer going to produce that color for their touch up kits. I've used them a few times-they are really only good for tiny little spots, like the size of the tip of a ball point pen.

Thanks for the replies, guys. I annoyed the insurance company enough that they agreed to repaint the whole side at a different shop. This shop is actually going to paint sample cards of the variants to make sure the real color matches.

Just for fun, here's what the first shop considered a "near perfect" match.



It's amazing to me how getting work done on your car properly is always such a fight.

Doesn't even look like they added the metallic to the paint. Looks like a flat dark blue.

Part of the problem is they just painted the part separately from the rest of the vehicle rather than part on the vehicle and blend it into the other part, which is a little more work but the right way to do it and looks a whole lot better.

I asked about the blending and they said the insurance company (Nationwide) doesn’t pay them to blend. They wouldn’t budge on the one thing, which was weird to me.

Sounds like you need a better insurance company!