Panel blending/color match on a 2020 vehicle?

[cabmandone]

My wife had a little "boo boo" with our new Highlander. The driver side rear door got a little smooshed. Two shops gave a bid to replace the door, blend into the front door and rear quarter and clear the front door, back door, rear quarter and up over the doors to a break at the windshield pillar.

With the vehicle being so new, I'm concerned with the amount of spraying they want to do. I'm curious why they have to do all of that paint work on a vehicle that has 6500 miles on it and is garaged most of the time. Couldn't they take the existing rear door, match the color and then just spray the rear door leaving the rest of the factory paint alone? I get the concern that the new paint might not match the other panels but I'd think with a good door to work with they could color match from that and just spray the damaged door. What am I missing?

[962porsche]

your missing everything.

[cabmandone]

Thanks! That was really f'ing helpful and inciteful... btw "You're" not Your... genius.
Thankfully I spoke with someone who could articulate what the issue is. FWIW, I've sprayed. I know the difficulty of matching colors. But most of my spraying was done years ago and LONG before a computer could match colors or paint shops were mixing the paint themselves. I figured with the advancements in technology that certainly a shop could spray the door that is being removed until they hit the proper match. My car probably has a handful of variations from the factory. I'd think they could take the variations and hit something that is close enough that nearly the entire drivers side of the car doesn't need cleared for a door.

[962porsche]

so your looking to have a single panel on the side of a vehicle what is called panel painted to preserve the finish on a 2000 Toyota.
my guess is the color is a metallic color?
I'm going to guess this is a daily driven vehicle run of the mill vehicle?
I'm going to also guess the insurance is paying for the repairs?
I'm going to guess your bring it to a collision repair shop and not a restoration shop?

your question about a shop panel painting the single panel and matching the color spot on and can it be done?
it can be but how much time will it take will very from vehicle to vehicle. Insurance CO are not going to pay for a shop to spend the time to dial in the color to be spot on. this is why shops do blends. the reason is it's faster and your going to get it right or should the 1st time.
you talk about color cameras like they are 100% accurate and think again they are only 75% accurate.
you talk about variances on the color formulas yup many colors do.
now how about if the color falls between and no variant is a dead on match?
now this comes to the person that is going to apply the color to your door.
because of insurance CO not willing to pay for a shop to spend what ever time it will take to match a color spot on most every collision shop no longer hires real painters they don't spend the money for that quality of help so they hire sprayers.

[cabmandone]

Originally Posted by 962porsche

so your looking to have a single panel on the side of a vehicle what is called panel painted to preserve the finish on a 2000 Toyota.
my guess is the color is a metallic color?
I'm going to guess this is a daily driven vehicle run of the mill vehicle?
I'm going to also guess the insurance is paying for the repairs?
I'm going to guess your bring it to a collision repair shop and not a restoration shop?

your question about a shop panel painting the single panel and matching the color spot on and can it be done?
it can be but how much time will it take will very from vehicle to vehicle. Insurance CO are not going to pay for a shop to spend the time to dial in the color to be spot on. this is why shops do blends. the reason is it's faster and your going to get it right or should the 1st time.
you talk about color cameras like they are 100% accurate and think again they are only 75% accurate.
you talk about variances on the color formulas yup many colors do.
now how about if the color falls between and no variant is a dead on match?
now this comes to the person that is going to apply the color to your door.
because of insurance CO not willing to pay for a shop to spend what ever time it will take to match a color spot on most every collision shop no longer hires real painters they don't spend the money for that quality of help so they hire sprayers.

It's a 2020. And all I'm saying is with the paint match tech having been around for well over a decade and with AI constantly getting better, I'd think they could come very close to matching the exact color of the door. My biggest concern is clear coat delamination.

The insurance co is paying about 3500 for the full job which is primarily a door. I was just thinking that there has to be someone able to very closely match the color of a 2020 vehicle that is less than 8 months old. I would also figure it would take less time to match the paint color than to remove and replace several parts on the front door that are non reusable because they'll likely be damaged when being removed, removing the rear quarter window, removing the rear bumper, resetting the blind spot monitoring system, blending the front door, rear quarter and then clearing almost the entire passenger side of the car less the front fender.

[962porsche]

maybe you would be ok with a door that's not a dead on match ( or in your wars closely match ) to the adjacent panels but most customers aren't.
as I stated before collision shop no longer hire painters they hire sprayers one reason is they don't need to match colors they blend everything. the other is a collision shop pays a sprayer less than half of what a painter will make an hour.
with color matching who knows how long or what it will take to match the color spot on ? with a blend all parties ( the customer , the shop , the insurance and the car rental ) all know how long it will take for the repair so all parties involved can plan on the things that surround the repair.
with matching the color it's all who the hell knows how long it will take to match the color.
like I said it can be done and is done often in the restoration world. but your lot talking about a rare , exotic or collectable vehicle your talking about an every day run of the mill Toyota.
if your worried about the new clear they are putting on pealing off this makes me wonder why you would 1st think they could match the color dead on and you would trust them to do so and 2nd if your worried about that than maybe the shop your taking your Toyota to is the wrong shop.

[Cairo94507]

I think most shops are reluctant to panel paint a car. They all want to blend to make the repair as seamless as possible when it comes to paint color. That's a whole other discussion. But for me, the bigger issue is that they do any paint work correctly. For me, that means removing all of the trim, handles, weather stripping, badges, and possible glass before painting. Everything should be back-taped to prevent overspray anywhere else, The paint should be baked. If they don't have a fairly new spray booth to keep the paint clean while spraying, look elsewhere. I think black and silver are two of the hardest colors to color match. I hope you are not dealing with that. But really, any metallic color is a pain in the rear. Good luck and I hope the repair comes out perfect.

[cabmandone]

Originally Posted by Cairo94507

I think most shops are reluctant to panel paint a car. They all want to blend to make the repair as seamless as possible when it comes to paint color. That's a whole other discussion. But for me, the bigger issue is that they do any paint work correctly. For me, that means removing all of the trim, handles, weather stripping, badges, and possible glass before painting. Everything should be back-taped to prevent overspray anywhere else, The paint should be baked. If they don't have a fairly new spray booth to keep the paint clean while spraying, look elsewhere. I think black and silver are two of the hardest colors to color match. I hope you are not dealing with that. But really, any metallic color is a pain in the rear. Good luck and I hope the repair comes out perfect.

Ruby Flare Pearl. The shop I took it to has a good reputation and their equipment is modern. Their quote included removal and installation of door moldings, handles etc along with the rear taillight, 1/4 glass and bumper so they're definitely going to do it right. They have a lifetime warranty (paint and labor) on their work so I figure they wouldn't offer that if they didn't have confidence in their work. Either that or they're planning on going out of business and reopening under a different name

The R&I was a point of contention between me and my insurance company. The insurance company listed parts as R&I where the shop listed many as not reusable because they'd likely be damaged when removed.