Touch Up Paint Mis-Match

Hi everyone, new to the board here. I just picked up a used 2018 Tacoma in Silver Sky Metallic.

There were a few scratches near the front driving light from a shopping cart bump in the parking lot. I went to the dealer and bought the 1D6 touch up paint, which is the paint code based on the VIN for the truck.

The touch up paint does not match the truck, it is lighter by a few shades and very obvious with the repair.

Has anyone else had this problem and found a way to get matching touch up paint without going to a body shop?

Maybe there are different years of the 1D6 shade and I have an older version?

Not sure, this is the first time this has happened to me. With my prior cars the OEM touch up paint was always spot on.

 

Double check the paint code. IIRC it's included in the door jamb sticker.

Just in case the VIN lookup was incorrect.

 

Looks like it would have been better off leaving it alone than touching it up. How do you plan on correcting this.

 

Hey Bill, yeah it has the paint name on the window sticker plus I got the touch up paint at the dealer so they looked it up by VIN. You made me curious though, I looked at the VIN label in the door and the code is there 1D6, however, there is also a Lexus code for the same color, LC21. I may go back to the dealer and see if I can try the Lexus paint maybe it will match better.

Only thing I can think of is this particular truck has a paint that is off or the touch up I got is from an old batch that wasn't the same blend. Not sure.

 

It was scratched all the way down to the black plastic, this looks bad but still a little less obvious than what it was before. My plan is to find a touch up paint that matches and over-paint the lighter color. It's not worth paying a body shop for a 3 inch scratch, for me it only needs to pass the "10 foot test". I need a touch up paint that matches anyway as I foresee new scratches in the future as life goes on...

 

Subbed for the outcome. please update on correct code. Thanks. Might need it in the future

 

That is really odd, my experience with touch-up paint from dealerships has been problem-free as yours was prior to this. Please update if you find a fix!

 

My bad on the 1D6/LC21 thing. After a little research it appears that's not a Lexus paint color, but the color for my trim/interior which is black. Not used to decoding these things. So back to square one I guess...

 

I have to agree. I was waiting for it to dry and darken or something but that never came...

 

looks like 1D6 is the right color, not sure what happened

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/2016-paint-and-interior-color-codes.388055/#post-10659062

good luck. Let us know how you fix it

 

The main problem with silver touch-up paint is it's being brushed on, vs factory paint being sprayed on. The metallics/flakes/micas are laying flat (brushed), vs being suspended in all different directions (sprayed). Light reflection is completely different. Silver's are the toughest to touch-up. Hope that made sense.

 

Not to be critical, but it does look like you put it on thick and overlapped onto where it wasn't scratched. Also, did you shake the bottle really well before applying?

 

What brand is this? I use a Duplicolor "Scratch Fix All in 1" pen for little chips, and a rattle can (also Duplicolor, "Perfect Match" brand, in a 6 inch tall can) for anything larger. The pen fills low spots fairly good, but for larger areas that get the can, I use some spot putty. In your case I'd say you have the low spots filled. After it dries I smooth it out with some 1500 and 2000 grit wet sand paper, then the clear from the pen (haven't used clear from the can yet). When that dries, some 2000 grit wet, and if it's good, leave it for a day then wax it.

For the big area with the can, I haven't had a chance to put clear over it yet. It's a really low part beneath fog light that rubbed a cinder block wall in November. It passes the 10 foot test now, but I'm expect it to be a bit more obvious come spring time with more sun. Always remember that you know exactly how to find the scratch, others don't. It's easy to be really critical on your own touch ups.

EDIT: Don't interpret this as to meaning one brand is better than another. The brands I mentioned are important to me as they are available within a 15 minute drive 7 days a week. I've run into serious ass pains finding a good match in the past. While the paint on 3rd Gens may be soft / thin / weak / whatever, it's possible to get better than a 10 foot fix.

 

It makes perfect sense, thanks! Yeah I read about the silver and metallic having a hard time matching perfectly for what you said.

 

Thanks Charles, that may be something I will look in to later. I used the EOM Toyota 1D6 paint from the dealership. The truck is only four months old and the touch up paint was from a fresh, new bottle. I know a guy who does good body work, I may check with him later. I guess these silvers and metallics can be hard to match.

 

Well, I went to the dealership and went over the issue with the parts manager. They were very nice about it. He even gave me a 2nd bottle of touch up to try and I tested a small section, the color was just like the previous bottle (crap!) They gave me a refund, but really what I wanted was a solution.

He pointed out that the touch up is lacquer and different from the base paint at the factory, etc. I get it.

He also said that they have had several vehicles this color 1D6, that have been different shades from the factory, even without considering the touch up paint differences.

I have had paint work done on my Avalon in the past and the entire front bumper had to be painted, and all the body shops say when a bumper is painted it may not match 100%.

One day if I find a solution I will come and post here, but for now I'm leaving it like it is. Not worth it for a few scratches down low, and with my luck I would have the entire bumper done and get in an accident on the way home...

 

why put makeup on your battle scars?

 

Thats about as good as its going to get without having a bodyshop professional custom match it. Paint matching is more of an art than it is a science, I mean it is science in the sense that you have to account for measurable variables like temperature, humidity, application style and age... but its not a perfect science so the only people REALLY good at it are good at it from experience and "feel" which to me is more of an art.

Unfortunately metallic paints are by far the hardest to color match and a few things render it so it'll NEVER be perfect doing it yourself. One you're not using a spray gun like the factory, you're using a brush. Two the type of paint itself is actually different. Third the ambient environment isn't going to match the controlled environment your truck was originally painted in. Temperature and humidity play a role in curing and the final color. Sometimes you get lucky and it comes out acceptably close, I'm sure you could even experiment enough to get it closer like if you touched it up in really hot and humid weather try to doing it in cold dry weather or vice-versa.

A really good bodyshop guy will account for these variables when making their own touch up paint so that it'll be closer but still never perfect, OEM touch up paint will not account for those variables at all so its always less of a match than a custom batch. When I wanted to touch up my old Silver 2nd gen I had the same results as you, I worked at a dealership at the time and had our most experienced bodyshop guy help me out and he immediately threw away my OEM paint and went to make his own batch, I forget what color he added to it but he knew exactly what to do from experience painting thousands of toyotas over the years that he needed to add a little shade of ____ to the silver to make it match better. I honestly think he added like a splash of dark blue or something super random, but whatever it was it came out much closer than the oem stuff.

 

I saw this when I got to work this AM, but I wasn't able to reply until now. It's interesting that you have a lighter shade of touch-up and a darker truck. My experience was the opposite. My truck is a lighter shade and the touch-up is darker, for at least the first bottle I got.

Untitled by Mike M, on Flickr

This is my truck, with a cap I ran briefly this past summer. As you can see, my truck is lighter than the cap, and lighter than the truck in the background as well. I put a small scratch in the bumper and when I touched it up, it was very clearly the color of my cap / the truck in the background.

I had my bedside blended when I got a deep scratch moving some furniture (driver side) and the body shop nailed the color dead on, even with my lighter shade.

 

The biggest problem: You really messed up on the application of the paint. https://guidetodetailing.com/damage-repair/how-to-repair-paint-chips-deep-scratches/