Ford Black UA Paint Matching

**MatthewR87** · 10-08-2011, 03:10 PM

Greetings,

I`ve been trying to get a Roush front fascia painted for my Mustang, and so far my body shop has had NO luck matching the paint. They have painted it twice, and the second time around they assured me that they had been in contact with Ford AND Dupont. They also do a lot of body work for several local Ford dealerships. Any ideas how to improve the paint matching?

The first picture is from the first attempt. The second and third are from the second attempt. The mismatch is really only visible in direct light. Any tips would be appreciated. I just wonder if they are going to agree to repaint it a third time. They were already grumbling that my car was probably repainted and that`s why it doesn`t match...it doesn`t match my black UA Ford escape either lol

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**Nth Degree** · 10-08-2011, 03:27 PM

WOW! The first attempt was way off. Second one is much better. Can`t see much difference in the photo. Not sure how old the car is, but paint can fade a little over time, no matter how well you protect or polish it. That may be the best you`re gonna get and I`m not sure the body shop is gonna be willing to do another repaint. It may not be possible to get a perfect match, no matter how hard they try.

**MatthewR87** · 10-08-2011, 03:40 PM

The car is a year old. The problem is that the newly painted bumper is much lighter than the year old paint on the car. I am just wondering what they could be doing wrong since it`s just Black UA...the same paint Ford has been using for the past 30 years. And its weird that both attempts were made with the same paint. They apparently just put on more base coat the second time.

**MatthewR87** · 10-08-2011, 03:53 PM

Is there perhaps a different basecoat or clearcoat they should be putting on? I really don`t think the customer should be advising the bodyshop how to paint the bumper, but they just don`t seem to know what they are doing.

**C. Charles Hahn** · 10-08-2011, 05:14 PM

Did they not do any sprayout cards or panels? That`s just plain shoddy workmanship.

**autoaesthetica** · 10-08-2011, 05:44 PM

LOl seriously Charlie. Swatches FTW(well partial non-loss anyway)

**MatthewR87** · 10-08-2011, 10:54 PM

Originally Posted by Shiny Lil Detlr

Did they not do any sprayout cards or panels? That`s just plain shoddy workmanship.

Well the first time they painted it I just told them black UA and they set about working on it. I have absolutely no idea about anything when it comes to automotive paint, so I assumed black UA is black UA. When it turned out the paint didn`t match, the guy brought out a bunch of black UA paint cards...all of them looked the same and all of them matched my paint. For whatever reason when they put the paint on the bumper it does not match anymore.

Any suggestions as to what they could be doing wrong? Like I said, it does not match my car, my black UA Ford Escape, nor my neighbour`s black UA Ford focus. Could it be that the Dupont black UA paint is simply not a good match? This body shop does a lot of work for the local Ford dealerships, so I assumed they would know Ford paint.

**Ron Ketcham** · 10-09-2011, 10:18 AM

What color of primer are they using?

Ford uses various tinted primers for various colors. Most manufacturers use a white primer for black, did these folks do that?

Grumpy

**MatthewR87** · 10-09-2011, 10:39 AM

Originally Posted by Ron Ketcham

What color of primer are they using?

Ford uses various tinted primers for various colors. Most manufacturers use a white primer for black, did these folks do that?

Grumpy

I asked them about this as well and they said they did not use any primer. The bumper came pre-painted Kona Blue from Roush and they are just scuffing that up and painting over it. This strikes me as a pretty half-assed way of doing things, but like I said I don`t know much about automotive paint.

What they did between the first picture and the second+third picture is that they added more basecoat.

Should they be putting fresh primer down on the bumper?

**Ron Ketcham** · 10-09-2011, 11:26 AM

Two things, from a distance, I would personally attempt in order to get a match.

One, a white primer, two, the correct amount of flex agent in the base and clearcoat.

Blacks are tricky, for example one paint supplier`s black will appear to have a brownish cast to it when put up next to another suppliers black.

Ford used to use 12 different tinted primers in order to get the right final color of the base coat.

For example their dark blue used a lighter blue tinted primer.

If this bodyshop is shooting over the dark blue that came on the part, that may be the color shift you are seeing.

Not sure, not there, just an educated guess from afar.

Grumpy

**MatthewR87** · 10-09-2011, 11:50 AM

Originally Posted by Ron Ketcham

Two things, from a distance, I would personally attempt in order to get a match.

One, a white primer, two, the correct amount of flex agent in the base and clearcoat.

Blacks are tricky, for example one paint supplier`s black will appear to have a brownish cast to it when put up next to another suppliers black.

Ford used to use 12 different tinted primers in order to get the right final color of the base coat.

For example their dark blue used a lighter blue tinted primer.

If this bodyshop is shooting over the dark blue that came on the part, that may be the color shift you are seeing.

Not sure, not there, just an educated guess from afar.

Grumpy

Okay thanks! I will talk to them after the weekend. It just seems silly that I should be advising them what to do. I did some research about this body shop before taking the bumper to them because I was afraid of something like this happening. They are BBB accredited and have good reviews. Funny thing is they do all of the body work for three Ford dealerships in the area...and black UA is one of the most popular colours. Maybe they can contact Roush and ask them specifically what primer + paint + clearcoat combos they use

**Ron Ketcham** · 10-09-2011, 12:22 PM

Are they an I-CAR silver or gold shop?

If they are not, surprising.

The Ford dealership can call Gerry Bonnani at Ford Body-Paint Tech Center and get an answer.

As I always advise, if a shop is doing new vehicle work, not custom, but for dealerships, insurance work, and not an up to date I-CAR shop, I don`t recommend using them.

Not that such shops will always follow the processes, etc, but one has a better opportunity to receive quality work.

Grumpy

**MatthewR87** · 10-09-2011, 02:48 PM

The shop (Meadowvale Collision) falls under an umbrella company called Atlantic Collision Group. Atlantic Collision group itself is I-CAR gold certified.

This is just really frustrating. I didn`t think it would be so hard to get a bumper painted. If I knew this would happen I would have just bought a pre-painted one from Roush...it would have cost me $500 more, but I would have had it on my car a month ago.

Hopefully they can get it right the third time around. Right now though the paint looks several shades too light and I have no idea how they can go about fixing it.

**groundupautospo** · 10-09-2011, 05:22 PM

First off Ford Black UA is not the same for all vehicles types...matter of fact the Mustang that was painted in the same factory maybe on a different day could be a different black than your car. There are so many factors such as temperature, humidity, air pressure or volume that can change the color to some extent. The factory have most of these variables fairly stable from day to day but when a run of lets say yellow mustangs are painted just before spraying a run of black cars then initial black cars will actually have some yellow in the black. Maybe not that visible to the untrained eye but there will be a difference. If I am not mistaken I believe UA black has 6 or 7 variances of the same color. These variances are discovered by the manufacturer as well as the body shops and reported to the paint manufacturers.

When matching paint the color should be sprayed out on a card and compared in sunlight to the adjacent panel such as your fender. That is the bodyshops duty to get the closest match possible. If they had the car when spraying the bumper then they should have caught that the first time around before even spraying the bumper. But we also got to remember it is almost impossible to block paint and get away with it..only if you are really lucky will you get an exact match. Therefore that is why most bodyshops will only paint if they are allowed to blend onto the adjacent panels such as your fenders. However, most body shops will not blend if it is the front or back bumper...why?...because we all know that urethane bumpers and even fiberglass bumpers take paint differently than metal so even from the factory, urethane bumpers do not match fenders or qtrs exactly. Just go to a local new car dealership and take a look around. Insurance companies know this and that is why many of them will not pay for blending adjacent panels to a urethane panel such as a bumper.

As regards to the primer or previous paint under the black...it makes no difference because if the shop applied enough base coat then no matter what color it is underneath the solid black color would cover anything underneath. You only have to worry about that with transparent colors.

So my take on your situation would be that the shop should have seen the drastic color difference before painting it the first time if they had done a spray out card. However, even if they had a perfect match with the card it may still be slightly off from the fenders and that is just the way things are and not much you can do about it unless you go to greater more costly extents in seek of a perfect match.

This is just my opinion and from my experiences over the last 15 years in the business. Paint matching can be easy but at times can be a royal pain in the you know what at times. Especially if limited to block painting. My suggestion is to get it close as possible and then let it go. Hope this helps. Charlie @ groundupautosports.com

**MatthewR87** · 10-09-2011, 06:58 PM

Originally Posted by groundupautospo

First off Ford Black UA is not the same for all vehicles types...matter of fact the Mustang that was painted in the same factory maybe on a different day could be a different black than your car. There are so many factors such as temperature, humidity, air pressure or volume that can change the color to some extent. The factory have most of these variables fairly stable from day to day but when a run of lets say yellow mustangs are painted just before spraying a run of black cars then initial black cars will actually have some yellow in the black. Maybe not that visible to the untrained eye but there will be a difference. If I am not mistaken I believe UA black has 6 or 7 variances of the same color. These variances are discovered by the manufacturer as well as the body shops and reported to the paint manufacturers.

When matching paint the color should be sprayed out on a card and compared in sunlight to the adjacent panel such as your fender. That is the bodyshops duty to get the closest match possible. If they had the car when spraying the bumper then they should have caught that the first time around before even spraying the bumper. But we also got to remember it is almost impossible to block paint and get away with it..only if you are really lucky will you get an exact match. Therefore that is why most bodyshops will only paint if they are allowed to blend onto the adjacent panels such as your fenders. However, most body shops will not blend if it is the front or back bumper...why?...because we all know that urethane bumpers and even fiberglass bumpers take paint differently than metal so even from the factory, urethane bumpers do not match fenders or qtrs exactly. Just go to a local new car dealership and take a look around. Insurance companies know this and that is why many of them will not pay for blending adjacent panels to a urethane panel such as a bumper.

As regards to the primer or previous paint under the black...it makes no difference because if the shop applied enough base coat then no matter what color it is underneath the solid black color would cover anything underneath. You only have to worry about that with transparent colors.

So my take on your situation would be that the shop should have seen the drastic color difference before painting it the first time if they had done a spray out card. However, even if they had a perfect match with the card it may still be slightly off from the fenders and that is just the way things are and not much you can do about it unless you go to greater more costly extents in seek of a perfect match.

This is just my opinion and from my experiences over the last 15 years in the business. Paint matching can be easy but at times can be a royal pain in the you know what at times. Especially if limited to block painting. My suggestion is to get it close as possible and then let it go. Hope this helps. Charlie @ groundupautosports.com

I appreciate the input. It doesn`t have to be a perfect match, but both times now there has been a pretty glaring difference. I have little experience with automotive painting, so the first time it was painted I assumed it would match and installed it during overcast skies. I saw the mismatch the second day. The body shop did not even ask about matching the paint to my car the first time. The second time around they tried to use a scanner but couldn`t find the calibration slips, so they took out some paint cards (you are right there are 5 or 6 different UAs from Dupont) and all of them matched my fender. The change from the first paint job (which looked really brownish) to the second (which now looks more gray than black in the sun) is that they added more base coat. I guess I will see what they say when I call them. My main issue is the drastic paint difference, and the fact that it does not seem to match any black UA cars: a 2003 escape and a 2009 focus, in addition to my 2011 mustang.