PPG clear coat changed color/reflectance of silver met. paint

Still waiting to see close-up photos from 1" away.
Sh*t happens. Chill & all will work out in the end.
But keep in mind, the Fact door didn't get same effect with same clear means only 1 thing.
First coat on quarters wasn't used on door. I wish you'd take close up so we see flake to prove my idea.
The fix without total redo- get good at perfection sanding & remove quarter paint till down to original.
Blend it at sail, re clear if needed. You can do it.

Tell him switch to clears used here. He'll thank you.
 
Thanks. Won't be able to get pics until this week. But no color was done on the 1/4's and color/flake does not look too different at all in my eyes. But will post pics when I can get them.

I realize PPG makes like 10 or more different clears... always a thought another one could show differently and be causing this (but then why not on the door?!).

Has any of the experts here commenting tried all the different clears out there from PPG? Again, I don't paint. But there must be a reason there are so many options.

The shop is going to sand the 1/4's this week as perhaps too much clear is causing this. But they swear the same amount was done on the door and you can see it did not change things there.
 
madgoat said:
Thanks for the comments. I am not the shop.

It is a 3 person shop in business for 30 years. I posted this because even they have never seen this happen with clear; and it is my car and I care. I want to hear opinions and appreciate all the thoughts on this so I can make sense for my own sanity (and perhaps give them some ideas) why the car got ruined with what is an everyday procedure in the collision repair world. Like I said even PPG and local paint store reps are at a loss as to why. Figured why not ask the smartest paint guys on the internet in this forum and bounce ideas around.


Shop is standing behind their work and are going to work to correct this short of having to repaint the whole car - which is not desired since the car was painted all apart like a proper restoration 4 years ago. Bummed that this back half (and now door) had to be done, but such was the case.

Yes, the car is ruined right now. Trying to save the front end from being touched as just too much is involved to repaint that all properly.
Click to expand...

You stated above the car was painted apart like a propper restoration 4 years ago.

I would suspect this is where your problem lies. I personally would never think of painting a silver car apart. There are to many reasons the metalic orientation could be different between panels and if I am right I suspect the only perfect correction will involve repainting the car.....both base and clear. I know that is not what you want to hear and I would love to be wrong but I doubt I am.

John
 
I didn't mean apart as in parts or doors off the car sprayed.

I meant apart as in windows out, trim off, etc. All stripped.

It was sprayed as one body with hood, doors and trunk on.

And it looked perfect until this re-clear caused the reaction it did.
 
I wonder Barry, If after they spotted in the scratch, they filled the gun with clear without cleaning the gun. Maybe thinking just a little silver left in the gun would not hurt anything. Just that little metalic in the clear could effect the reflective characteristics.

I suspect we will never really know.

John
 
John exactly my thought & possibly on purpose to try blending scratch. Photo i requested should show it.
Btw when i said i added some black sapphire to clear trunk lid to blend, i had done entire car that way.
The flake spreads out way more (glitter) so don't try it if ya ever need to :)
 
First I did not read every single post thoroughly. I read the beginning thoroughly and a few comments and this last page. I can say in 30 plus years of doing this I have seen it a couple of times. From my experience it has been very, very over applied clear. If you take a mill gauge and check the thickness you will likely see a large millage difference between the panels. Many years ago before gaining a lot of experience ( and a lot of it the hard way), I sprayed a silver roof damage and blended the qtrs. Clear only on the qtrs. I scratched the roof terribly when a tool slipped putting the windshield molding on and I blended the roof and re-cleared including the qtrs. The qtrs looked just like this photo. I think it is just too much clear versus the next panel. I don't know if it is darker or simply changes the light. Remember the light travels through the clear, reflects off the pigment and back out. If you change that depth A LOT, 7-8 maybe 10 mills, it changes the depth and reflection and thus the "look" whether it looks darker or dirtier or whatever you want to call it.
 
John Long said:
I wonder Barry, If after they spotted in the scratch, they filled the gun with clear without cleaning the gun. Maybe thinking just a little silver left in the gun would not hurt anything. Just that little metalic in the clear could effect the reflective characteristics.

I suspect we will never really know.

John
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I said, to many times I sprayed clear only to see a base problem after the first coat so
I let the clear dry a little and base right over it and then after flashing start clearing again.
That silver base will look different over fresh clear than existing clear.
It's flop at its finest, the metallics lay different.
 
It could be so many different things that caused this and we are going by a phone picture that can totally change things.
We have a bunch of good suggestions but fact of matter is like said "We will never know".
 
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Guess who's back....


Well, pretty much the whole car was sanded/scuffed and 3 PPG color coats were done on it as you will see in the photos -- the 2 tone effect however is still there at the 1/4 to the door on both sides. The car was not primed - just color coats applied over scuffed 5 year old paint.

So it is what it is. I can only assume sanding, -re-priming or sealing- and then doing color would perhaps been ideal to make it one color, but paint reps and the painters themselves said doing what they did should have been sufficient to get the color to appear the same shade throughout as that is protocol in 95% of jobs. It obviously has not changed the 2 tone effect. The paint rep says go look at a new camaro and notice how the bulging 1/4 panels are lighter or darker to the doors and that is the effect you are seeing/having.

o_O
 

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Honestly I do see what looks like color differences in parts on a lot of new cars mostly in silvers & other light metallic colors.
To me, just something else to consider when picking colors.
 
There is an angle change between the quarter and the door at the gap. That is what is causing it to look different imho. To prevent that the door and quarter need to be coplanar across the door gap. They are not on this car.

Don
 
Chevy had to issue a customer information bulletin for the Camaro because of this. It basically stated that the color difference is due to the body angle.
 

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