Agreed, but if you were the manager of a body shop and painter Bob Dumbfuck paints a white fender red. Do you:
A) repaint the fender the correct color?
or
B) Go to the trouble to mask and repaint the entire car?
You are going to use a ton more labor and material for option B.
But again I am not a body guy and paint fumes do strange things to people’s brains. It might even make a body shop manager approve a complete color change on a car despite the extra expense.
Last year I had major damage to the side of my 12 year old Jeep Cherokee. I hit some ice and slid sidways into a brick mailbox, taking out my front passenger side door, the rocker panel, and the door column. The body shop had to replace those parts and take some dents out of the fenders, and repainted that side. And even with a 12 year old moss green car, I can’t tell where the new paint ends and the old paint begins. It was a perfect match (or blend, maybe).
Unfortunately it was a lot harder to match the plastic molding, which comes in black but mine had been fading in the sun for a decade. They did a pretty good job of artificially fading the new pieces too, though.
Any other logic-minded folks find it unusual that the Cobalt would come in something other than a dark blue? 
Earlier this year someone hit my 11-year-old Jeep Cherokee while it was parked. The shop had to replace the left rear door and do some minor bodywork. Someone had also egged the Jeep at some point and I didn’t get it off until it was too late and the paint was etched. So two doors and part of the rear door frame were painted. You’d never know. Perfect match. (They re-used the old moulding, which has faded to grey. I’ve been thinking about taking some black shoe polish to all of the plastic.)
Jeep Cherokees must just be easy to match!
Just open the hood and compare the engine bay color to the rest of the body. If they shot the whole car with a different color, I can 99.99% guarantee they did not do the engine bay. If it matches, then…well, they either swapped the car or your sister is misremembering the color or seeing it in a literal different light.
Exact thought in my head.
The Jeep question made me wonder - if she gets it repainted again, she could get in done in a Jurassic Park color scheme and really score with the babes!
Actually, the engine bay is a different color on a lot of cars. It is often a duller version of the exterior paint.
When i got my car fixted they match the paint perfectly, it was not black but a midnight blue so dark i didnt even know what color it was when i bought the car I thought it was black someone had to point it out. They can get the paint. My body shop ordered the paint they needed. It is coded into the VIN
How could they swap the car and how would they? They would have to move all your personal effects, change everything how it was. And even if they do no two cars handle and drive the same even ones of the same model.
I asked my dad, and he said in the trunk you can still see the factory paint, and that it was a big difference between the old paint and the new paint job.
If it is a different car, they went through great trouble to hide it, so assume it is the same car.
PS. She hates the new paint job.
Nope the VIN does not contain the color code. That is a different number located somwhere else. Now it may be possible to get the paint color by accessing the car maker’s database with the VIN, but that is not coded into the VIN.
while I agree about moving stuff I can tell you indentical do drive identically. More often than not.
Wow. So how much of the car was damaged and needed painted? I’m not surprised at color problems, although they should have fixed that long before she picked it up, but I’m amazed that they would paint the whole car and do it wrong to boot.
Huh. So they just arbitrarily changed the colour of her car, eh? Is she going to fight with them to get them to re-paint it the original colour?
I’m honestly wondering if someone there didn’t screw something up really badly–sideswiped it or something, and panicked, hoping you wouldn’t notice.
I’m so glad I’m not the only person who thinks a Cobalt in any other color than blue is just weird.
Isn’t it always solid, for spray painting? No solvent, the problematic fumes are from organic solvents.
(Yes, I know it was a joke. But I’ve met people who were genuinely worried about the fumes from water-based paint, so for the sake of fighting ignorance and all that I figured I’d point it out)
Do they really use water based paints for cars?
There’s a body shop next to my work and you can always tell when they’re painting. Sure smells solvent-y to me.
The new paints are better, and the personal protection is much better now than it used to be. However back in the day we used to say that if you ever met an old car painter*, he would be crazier than a shit house rat.
*very rare occurrence back then, most of them were dead before they got old. That stuff really killed brain cells.
While I do not know what his insurance company mandates, the dealer might not have been the only option. Someone hit my car and their insurance company mandated where I had to go for an estimate, but I was still free to take the car anywhere I liked to get the work done - but they would only pay the approved estimate. I had the car done elsewhere (and the paint matched perfectly on a 10 year old car). The other guy hit me - I didn’t want to be forced to have the work done at a place I was not comfortable with. I looked up reviews of local body shops and went to one that was rated much higher than the one the insurance company nominated.