Paint match difficulty

[ThosL]

I was doing some body work on my 1997 Subaru Outback Limited.  Though it has 280K+ miles on it, I want to keep it and not turn it in for a newer Subaru with the usual challenges entailed in getting a new used vehicle.

 

Yesterday I was trying to get a match on the two main colors, one is a black slate color, the other is a slightly metallic grey.  

So I went to an auto paint store that whips up $20 cans of custom paints.  I gave them the two colors under hood on a side plaque.  An half hour later, the young guys who were recent hires come back with two cans of the same color, the slate black.  I found that out when I got to my brother's place who was doing the work.  I called them somewhat upset and then went back to the auto paint place, diverting on the way to the local Subaru dealer.  Fortunately someone in parts at the Subaru dealer knew how to find the grey color as they did not come up in his database.  He went on the internet and found the right code.  

I'm a little shocked that it has gotten so difficult to get the right colors on the older cars.  You used to be able to go to a local auto parts shop with a paint section and look at their chart and pick out your colors.

[heartless]

https://www.automotivetouchup.com/

have had good luck with those guys.. and they have chips & codes to look at to make sure you are getting the right color

they even had the right color for my old 1967 F-250 pickup

can get it in touch up size, rattle can, or larger sizes for painting an entire vehicle

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by heartless

[Numbchux]

Yea, it was weird on those older cars. The paint code listed was unique to the 2 tone cars. At the dealership where I worked, we had an old touch-up paint book that broke that into 2 separate paint codes.

[ThosL]

The cans of mixed paint did not go too far.  My brother is a house painter so used some of his gloss black.

97 Subaru looks a lot better now, Bondo work then sanding, a lot of rust in the usual places, finally hit those with a rust counteracting agent before the painting.

Trim paint was hard to find on the silver metallic.