Touching up?

[Devon Z]

The wife's just come back from a 500 mile road trip visiting friends so the Zed has a fresh batch of stone chips to sort out.
Now I've always been able to get the colour coat and clear coat into the chips but are there any better ways of smoothing down the colour/clear coat.

Also my OE Topaz Blue touch up dos'nt seem to be a very good match, anybody else found this?

Let me know your touch up regime.

[Mad Max]

I had a touch up pen from BM when I had my Topaz Z3, the match was awful. Speaking to the guys in BM apparently there were many, many shades of Topaz, they weren't all the same. I gave up in the end...!

If what they told me was correct you'd probably be best asking a local body shop if they could colour match it and make you a touch up stick or something. Sorry I can't be more use!

[TR4man]

I gave the paint code to my local Halfords for them to mix me up a touch-up bottle - but the match was very poor.

I understand that professional motor paint factors should be able to get a closer match, but to be honest, my car now has so many chips that I'm probably going to get a paint shop to do a bumper and bonnet respray.

A question though - does anyone know if the Zed bodyshell is galvanised (or rust protected in some other way)? If so I can leave it a bit longer without the fear of rust taking hold.

Regards

Peter

[pingu]

There are many problems matching paint.

1) the paint on the car has aged
2) the paint mix codes are based on a new car's colour
3) the paints the mixes are made from will not be exactly the same as expected (everything has a tolerance)
4) the source paints can change shade with age
5) 0.1g on an analog scale can be anywhere between 0.051g and 0.149g
6) 0.1g on a digital scale can be anywhere between 0.1g and 0.1999...g
7) the Halfords scales are digital and have 0.2g increments, so a 0.2g measurement could be anywhere between 0.2g and 0.3999...g depending on the skill of the paint mix technician.
8) the scales may not have been calibrated

Most of these things are very slight, but errors compound exponentially.

Things you can do to help...

Mix the largest batch you can.
Use a light probe to get the correct colour for your car.
Use a painter with a high turn-over of paint so there is no old paint in the mix.

[Devon Z]

I've had two spray cans mixed by Halfords and the match was very good.

But what do people do to smooth out their paint chips?

[John Wilson]

I've used Halfords for touching up stone chips on my Titan Silver Z3, and found it a good match compared to
a few others Ive tried. I also like the 'pen' applicator which is really good at getting the paint into the chip.

[Del]

Funny variety of views - I've found Halfords paint a terrible (nowhere near) match on my Arctic Silver (code 309) Z3 and other cars.