I just painted the door and trunk jams on my 71 cutlass conv. The original color is viking blue. The original paint is still visible on the windshield pillars. I bought a gallon of sherwin williams basecoat with clear. The autobody store had a book that went back to 71 and he showed me the chip and I said alright. After painting the jams I notice the blues don't exactly match. Is it because it is a basecoat clearcoat compared to the original enamel that the colors may differ or do you think it is the quality of the paint? Would I have been better off to try and have a paint shop custom match a sample of the original paint rather than look up a paint code and mix? I thought with today's technology a paint code would be pretty exact.

 

Wouldn't the original paint being 26 years old be a bit faded by now? My guess would be to either get another shade or paint the whole thing. I am having the same problem with my 84 Delta 88.

 

As a body shop owner/operator, it can be very frustrating to have people expecting to be able to match a 20-something year old paint job. It is faded, even if it doesn't appear to be. Paint technology is pretty amazing, but color matching is often one of the biggest headaches for an automotive painter. If it looks like a different shade of the same color, live with the difference or paint it all. There is however, the possibilty of human error on the part of the person who mixed it, so if it is way off base, you might want to take your paint & compare it to the chip you used to identify the color in the first place. We use only Sherwin-Williams products in our store, and we have been very happy with the color matching capabilities they provide. Good luck.