My sister bought a new Chevy Cobalt at the end of last year. A few weeks ago a guy hit the car from behind causing lots of damage. His insurance had her take it to a local Chevy Dealer (but not the one she bought it at, but that doesn’t really matter) and a few weeks later, they call that its ready. They called back an hour later and said they they noticed some scratches and other small paint problems, and that she can take it for now, but to bring it back and they will fix it.
So she gets it home, and really looks at it. The car was slate when she bought it, but now it is a dark blue. You can look at it and see it is not the color it was before the dealer had it. She called them back and told them about the problem, and they said they will do their best to match the color.
I thought that they have a number in the car for the exact paint, right? Even if not, is their no way to get the right color? I’m just really wondering how they messed up like this. Any ideas?
I don’t know how they messed up, but did they repaint the entire car? When I’ve had my car in a body shop, they typically only repaint only the affected body panels.
The number for the exact color is on a tag usually on the driver’s door or on the part of the body you can see with that door opened. Plug that code into Google along with Chevrolet Cobalt and see what color it tells you it is. Repainting an entire car for damage in one section would be highly unusual.
Check under the hood and the sides of the doors to see what the color is.
That was the first thing that came to my mind, too. My husband had to get a rear quarter panel painted a couple of years ago, and they matched the paint perfectly (and didn’t re-paint the whole car). Something fishy is going on here.
This is one of the reasons I have AAA insurance. They have approved shops and if the job is not satisfactory, they have to redo it until it is.
This sounds wierd, though. It’s hard to imagine something doing enough damage to the cobalt which would require a complete repaint, but not the totalling out of the car. They were pretty cheap cars, after all.
I agree with the others abut checking the VIN. Make sure the VIN on the engine block matches the one on the driver’s side dash, with no scratches or more shiny around the edges.
I had a 10-year old car that needed the entire front bumper and front up to the hood replaced. I took it to a place that was approved by the dealership and State Farm, and when they were done you would never know the difference. There’s no excuse for not being able to match paint, and the whole car never needs to be repainted.
Thanks guys. My sister and the car are back out in Westchester now. She will be back in a few days to have take it back to the dealer. I will call her in the morning to let her know to make sure it is the same car, but I am pretty sure it is. She had personal junk of no value in the car, and it all seems to be where she left it.
I just can’t figure out how they messed up this bad.
One way to determine if a car has been repainted is to look for over-spray on rubber molding that is in contact with the body e.g. windshield, rear window, rubber molding between door handles and body etc. It is nearly impossible to perfectly mask these areas off such that no paint gets onto the rubber. The only way to avoid this is to remove such items from the car before it is painted. Doing so is very expensive and normally only done for collector cars that will be displayed in car shows.
To see if the new paint matches the original color, you can usually find some original paint in the trunk. You may have to remove panels to see this. There may also be original paint in the engine compartment. But this will be greasy and dirty and may be been discolored.
No VIN number on the engine.
VIN numbers will appear in the following locations
corner of dash on driver’s side
FMVSS decal usually on driver’s B pillar (front or rear side)
Doors, fenders, hood, trunk (small decal with just VIN number, won’t be on replacement parts.)
sometimes an ID plate under hood with various things like paint and interior codes.
5 Hidden location. I could tell you where, but then I would have to kill you.
Hot tip for check original paint color. Peel back the carpet and look there.
This is very strange, please update us when you find out what is going on.
Swapping out the entire car? Drastic. And checking the VIN? What about simply opening the glovebox and seeing if that half-eaten roll of Lifesavers is still there, or checking under the seat for two seconds to find that long-lost pen?
I’ve worked at a bodyshop (lower end, production line), but we did most of the small repair work for area dealers. Keep in mind when I was doing this formulas were stored on microfiche.
Paint goes wrong for all sorts of reasons. Environmental factors can affect the way things look after drying. Environmental factors can affect the way things look before the car even arrives in the shop. Despite the formula, things could be off in the mix (e.g., inaccurate measurements). The conditions painted in the factory are different from what someone is working on in the shop–you can’t bake a car that has all its seals and accoutrement attached. Even dyes differ between manufacturers. Of course, there’s human error, such as writing down the wrong formula.
Not that we didn’t get it right for 99 percent of our customers, but it wasn’t unusual to have done everything right yet still be slightly off. There were times when it made sense to just go ahead and shoot the entire car rather than futz with getting that damned corner panel right. Win-win for us: the customer gets a whole new shiny car; we get a boost to our reputation (because we did the customer a ‘favor’).
I am not a body guy, but I have never seen a case on a car less than 1 year old where the body shop could not match the color perfectly.
Yeah on a 10 year old car with oxidized paint, you might have to either buff the entire car to match the paint or repaint it, but on a car that is less than a year old? Makes no sense.
Just out of curiosity, did the OP’s sister happen to look at the car under some type of artificial light? Some types of lighting can make colors appear way different than they look under natural light (Next time you are looking at paint samples at your local big box home improvement store, walk outside with the paint chip to see what it really looks like.)
So I am thinking if she stopped at a parking lot with sodium vapor or mercury vapor lamps, her perception of the color might be way skewed.
Other than that, I am baffled.
Or go one step further and look at them in the room you intend to paint. What looks good under the home depot lights, and looks even better when you take it out side, might look awful with the CFLs you forgot you have in bedroom.
I’ve worked in collision repair before and paint can be a pain to match, even on new vehicles. But the place I worked would never have painted the whole car. In the worse case, they may have to blend an extra panel to work out the color. Painting the whole car is a big job that would be a big money loser to do on a car with small damage.
The paint on many vehicles can look different in different light and conditions. Some grays often have a blue tint at certain angles. I’m betting this is the case here. People often dont look that closely at their cars until after someone has worked on it. I’ve seen people convinced that we did a terrible job on one side of a car when we actually fixed the other side. They just never realized the other side was bashed all to hell and assumed we did it.
She should take it to another shop and have them determine if it was painted or not before causing a stink.