Lunar Rock paint question

I'm looking at doing a hood swap between two '22s in Lunar Rock. The guy from my shop that works almost exclusively on Toyotas is telling me not to swap because "All lunar rocks have different mixes and shades." He says it'd be especially bad and noticeable on the hood.

Has anyone here seen 2 Lunar Rocks side by side and if so do they match color?

 

Side by side it may be hard to tell. Only way to know for sure would be a test fit and compare the hood from to the rest of the truck. Different batches can produce different variations. Paint today is mixed by a computer so should be close but can be off. It is why most toppers you see are slightly different than the truck itself. Mine is very close but off. I saw a Taco the other day and they did a very poor job matching it.

 

Ask him if there are multiple paint codes unique to each vehicle too.

These aren't hand applied custom mixed paints. They are mass produced robot applied so I'd be surprised if you could discern much, if any, variation.

The real way to know is just to park next to the truck you are considering swapping with. Or test swap the hood. If it's bad for you it's bad for the other person too, so they should not object.

 

Side by side with the doors open almost touching may be as close as u can get without actually installing the hood

 

Yeah I understand that but sometimes robotic paint booth the next production can be screwed up such as 1 shade color dark or light than last production.. Know what I mean?

I thought about getting 2018 but I noticed 2018 black has metallic in it. I am glad I got my '17 since it has solid black.

 

Toyota uses a cartridge system in their painter robots. So switching from one color to another happens very quickly (seconds). The paint is applied electrostatically with heavy down draft. There is zero overspray from body to body. Though 2 bodies of the same color could certainly be painted back to back....and often do...colors are not "batched" together. They are painted based on the color mix assembly is asking for.

Flat colors are the most difficult to match from panel to panel. Collision/body shops struggle with them.

 

The Pro is a 21, the other a 22. They both look the same to me in person.

 

Isn't all paint like this? Won't the same factory color possibly look different?

 

Too a certain degree.....though it's worlds better than the days of yore

 

I tried to do this with a magnetic gray sport and off road and the hoods were hilariously mismatched. Both had factory paint. The metal flake seemed to be bigger on one hood and seemed to have been sprayed in a different pattern as well as being slightly darker.

 

Depending on how far apart the builds are could certainly effect that. Possibly not even the same plant

 

lol chances are high that it will not be the exact same color. Even though the paint itself is exactly the same, many variations, including weather, barometric pressure when sprayed, where it was painted, etc are all variables that will cause your vehicle to be slightly different color. Even the direction of the aluminum oxide in the paint itself, depending on how it lined up when drying, can change the tint slightly.
Even better, it might match perfectly if you look at it from the right front and not match if you look at it from the left front.
My point... it's why they paint most of it at one time.