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Thread: Anyone have experience with SW Automotive Paint or some other brand?

  1. #1
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    Anyone have experience with SW Automotive Paint or some other brand?

    https://industrial.sherwin-williams....utomotive.html

    As some of you may have seen, I got brand new Genuine BMW M rear bumper to replace my original bumper that was painted on budget, plus it has clear coat failing.

    I was going to have it painted at high end shop that painted my front lip some years back (they've done excellent job) but the earliest they can do it is June.

    I'm considering plan B which is finding skilled individual who does it on side and has proper equipment / space.

    Since I have zero experience, would you guys who are familiar with bodywork suggest certain brand of paint, SW or whoever is BMW genuine paint supplier?

    TIA!
    2010 BMW M6 SMG Coupe * Black Saphire Metallic * Full Leather Merino Black
    2019 BMW X3 M40i * Alpine White * Mocha Leather
    Former:
    1997 BMW 532M (528i with 3.2 S52 engine from E36 M3 / 5 speed manual)
    1998 BMW 540i 6 Speed
    2003 BMW M5





  2. #2
    JimLev's Avatar
    JimLev is offline Artifically Aspirated Moderator
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    I’m guessing Wagons would be the one that has the most knowledge on auto paints.
    Here’s my guess.
    1) Glasurit
    2) PPG
    3) BASF

    SW is probably almost as good however I always think of SW as a house paint.
    Go with your plan B.
    Last edited by JimLev; 01-31-2023 at 03:28 PM.

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    If you want it to match just wait for the shop. Off the shelf paint is for crappy knockoff bumpers.

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    With the correct paint code the paints I mentioned should not have any problem matching.
    A skilled individual wouldn’t be using crappy paint.

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    Paint codes likely won't match 20+ year old paint, paint codes rarely even match new paint perfectly. So called "skilled individuals" that do paint work on the side are often not skilled enough to properly tint the paint to match, but you might get lucky.
    Last edited by MotorMouth93; 01-31-2023 at 05:02 PM.

  6. #6
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    JimLev and MM93, thank you both and you're probably both correct in some respects as this is my limited experience:

    When the high end shop did my front lip about 6 years ago, they used some sort of device that looked paint dept meter so it seems MM93 is right because I own 3 different Alpine White vehicles (97, 06 and 19)and they all look little different. It's obvious (at least AW) that paint "ages" because of time, UV rays or whatever.

    Also, when I did use Sherwin Wiliams few years back, they actully had 3 different shades of AW and you basically pick the closest one to your current paint and the match is not so great. So it seems that SW is sort of "Budget" paint.

    There is a one guy I know who I know from experience is "skilled individual" in the sense he definitely has experience but I need to verify what kind of equipment / paint booth he has.

    It's kind a tricky what to decide but having paid premium money for best bumper possible, I really need to be careful who and how they paint.

  7. #7
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    The darker the paint the easier it is to match. Matching a black paint, even 20 years later is remarkably easy. Metallics need to be sprayed in the right direction or they'll look odd. For other than black or really dark colors you basically get close to a match and then blend so they eye never notices. A rear bumper is one of the body panels you might not need to blend for a decent job because its only directly up against another panel on the sides below the quarter.. and this is a dirty area.. Depending on the color of the car you could take the paint code to a local PPG shop and have them mix a few cans of the good stuff and some quality clear and end up with a very passable job. I've done a bunch this way. Recently I've invested in what I need to use a real spray gun.. been watching youtube vids religiously.. there's a lot to learn. We'll see this spring.
    A great ending is all you'll see..
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  8. #8
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    Only place I had experience with is Maaco but I wouldn’t trust them with an expensive car.

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    Quote Originally Posted by SW530 View Post
    The darker the paint the easier it is to match. Matching a black paint, even 20 years later is remarkably easy. Metallics need to be sprayed in the right direction or they'll look odd. For other than black or really dark colors you basically get close to a match and then blend so they eye never notices. A rear bumper is one of the body panels you might not need to blend for a decent job because its only directly up against another panel on the sides below the quarter.. and this is a dirty area.. Depending on the color of the car you could take the paint code to a local PPG shop and have them mix a few cans of the good stuff and some quality clear and end up with a very passable job. I've done a bunch this way. Recently I've invested in what I need to use a real spray gun.. been watching youtube vids religiously.. there's a lot to learn. We'll see this spring.
    You make some good points and even with my limited experience, I do remember that paint match is easier with bumper as it has separate line.
    Taking it tommorow to guy that I've seen few of his jobs and we'll see what he says.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by BMW540san View Post
    You make some good points and even with my limited experience, I do remember that paint match is easier with bumper as it has separate line.
    Taking it tommorow to guy that I've seen few of his jobs and we'll see what he says.
    I'm going to repair my rear bumper and Sterling Grey is freaking hard to match.. even so I'll probably spray a few cards to look at in the sun to be sure.. I might have to have the PPG shop use their spectrometer vs. the paint codes.. but once close I plan on spraying it off car other than the clear, putting it in place to see the match, and if I can get away without blending I'll put it back on the stand and clear it.. I'm hoping for some luck in the matching department so I can pull the hood off, prep it, and respray that to eliminate the road chips (fill them with glaze during prep) and hope it's not a freaking mess..
    A great ending is all you'll see..
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  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by kallekula View Post
    Only place I had experience with is Maaco but I wouldn’t trust them with an expensive car.
    Yeah. I know enough about Maaco to know for sure I won't go there. They have their place in the market but definitely not for what I need.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by SW530 View Post
    I'm going to repair my rear bumper and Sterling Grey is freaking hard to match.. even so I'll probably spray a few cards to look at in the sun to be sure.. I might have to have the PPG shop use their spectrometer vs. the paint codes.. but once close I plan on spraying it off car other than the clear, putting it in place to see the match, and if I can get away without blending I'll put it back on the stand and clear it.. I'm hoping for some luck in the matching department so I can pull the hood off, prep it, and respray that to eliminate the road chips (fill them with glaze during prep) and hope it's not a freaking mess..
    It seems that silver is actually harder to match that white. You have my respect for doing all of that as you don't exactly learn that overnight.
    You're doing the right thing by learning on your own as it's getting harder to find good professional these days regardles of profession.
    I will actually take the whole bumper in my E39 to a guy today.
    Rear folding seats are a great feature in E39 as I was able to squeze it the whole bumper!
    E39 turned out to be convinient storage place and more importantly the guy can match the new paint to a car if he's capable of that.

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    Quote Originally Posted by BMW540san View Post
    Yeah. I know enough about Maaco to know for sure I won't go there. They have their place in the market but definitely not for what I need.
    One thing to be said for Maaco and their ilk. They paint a lot of cars and the guys spraying can't help but to get pretty good.
    A body shop owner friend suggested that to save me money have him do the prep and pay Maaco to shoot it using the paint he spec'd. I greased the painter a bit as well and got a very nice job for not a lot of $$. This was years back but it worked for me.

    If you can leave two black stripes from the exit of one corner to the braking zone of the next, you have enough horsepower. - Mark Donohue

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    Quote Originally Posted by ross1 View Post
    One thing to be said for Maaco and their ilk. They paint a lot of cars and the guys spraying can't help but to get pretty good.
    A body shop owner friend suggested that to save me money have him do the prep and pay Maaco to shoot it using the paint he spec'd. I greased the painter a bit as well and got a very nice job for not a lot of $$. This was years back but it worked for me.
    I had 4 cars painted in the first decade of this century by them, 3 came out well, I was happy for the price, one started failing in a year. I don't think they cleaned it. I did the prep, except sanding on all taking off everything that could be taken off. Good value at the time, but their prices have gone thru the roof.

    I agree on colors, for the most part, black is black and easy to match, it's black. White, silver? Arrrg, there's a million variations of each.
    98 328is
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    Quote Originally Posted by ross1 View Post
    One thing to be said for Maaco and their ilk. They paint a lot of cars and the guys spraying can't help but to get pretty good.
    A body shop owner friend suggested that to save me money have him do the prep and pay Maaco to shoot it using the paint he spec'd. I greased the painter a bit as well and got a very nice job for not a lot of $$. This was years back but it worked for me.
    During my sons man whore days he'd park the E30 in whatever girls parking lot and they were all uni girls from the UofI.. so imagine my surprise when he comes over upset and shows me where someone keyed the car all down one side. Pissed us off.. but I suppose he brought it on himself. The insurance would only pay I think $1300 for a patch job and with that color or BMW red we didn't see it turning out well. So we stripped the car totally down except the windows, and we used a product that you put under the molding that lifts it up just enough for paint to spray under the molding so you don't get those terrible paint lines around molding. Then we spent a week prepping the car.. glazed in the scratches, 600g'd the entire car.. and towed it into a brand new MAACO..

    We were going to spray it ourselves, but BMW red PPG paint was like $2800 a gallon. I don't know what product MAACO shoots but it wouldn't be terrible if all else went right. In our case they were pushing cars through so fast they didn't give the base enough time to flash so we got the flash marks coming up in 7-8 places.. and of course they wouldn't fix it. Said it was the prep we did. Then the rear spoiler started flaking off a few months later.. and we had to go to corporate to get them to repaint it..

    Gone.jpg

    What we ended up with was a 20 foot car, people would walk up from a distance and would be like "cool car.." Then they'd get up on it and see the flash spots and the paint cracking on the edges..

    misc (9 of 20).jpg

    1999 Cobra Mustangs have some of the rarest parts of all cobra's.. the rear tail lights go for 3k a pair and the rear valance and spoiler were impossible to find. The termi's were more popular and had more power than the 1999's the 1999's were unique in several ways and they made a lot fewer of them. We resprayed the entire rear end with PPG mixed spray cans after some cretin poor loser thrashed it with his helmet.. and to this day you can't tell it was resprayed. Black is so easy..
    Last edited by SW530; 02-02-2023 at 04:14 AM.
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  16. #16
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    Nothing more to add but I paint my projects in the garage and use Matrix composites from the local auto paint supply house. So far a few years in and everything is holding up great. Lot's of good prep wiping and using adhesion promotor. My alpine white car I didn't blend the fender to the door and hood and it's OBVIOUS. To the point it doesn't even look like the same color even though the chip in the sun disappeared when put on top of a good panel. The rear bumper is the least noticable mismatch. I sprayed the fender and the two bumpers. Silver will be the same struggle.

  17. #17
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    Only point I'll add is that I've sprayed a lot of different paints from various suppliers, and I prefer to spray PPG over everything else.

    Do avoid the cheap lines, such as PPG OMNI, as it has less solids so more coats are needed. This typically causes most to have difficulty matching colors after needing extra coats to hide.

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    I haven’t used Sherwin Williams in about 10 years now (I moved away from my supplier). They have (or used to have) several lines of paint quality. I still have a car painted with their upper-line paint 26 years ago, and it still looks like the paint’s only a year old. I still have a gallon of their premium clear, 7000 series. I’ve used their low/mid-line single stage (can’t remember the name) and have been very happy with it.
    -Donny

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    The shop that painted my car got their paint from a store that does Deltron 2000 DBC basecoat. Apparently its a custom blend solution from PPG because they came over with a special camera and took pics of the existing paint first. Mine is Oxford Green (pretty dark, so not the best endorsement) but there are no noticeable variations that I could see and I have extremely good color perception. Probably would be a good way to go with light colored work as well.

  20. #20
    JimLev's Avatar
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    I also used PPG Deltron 2000 base, the corresponding temp reducer and their clear when I painted (titanium silver) my M5 bumpers. I didn’t notice any mismatch. It’s pricey great paint.
    I did the hotrod in PPG Deltron.

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    Quote Originally Posted by JimLev View Post
    1) Glasurit
    2) PPG
    3) BASF
    4) Standox or Sikkens

    Actually most of the brands are fine for undercoating but Glasurit is absolutely the best clear coat. speaking from firsthand experience.
    Last edited by TiesTorN; 02-03-2023 at 05:26 PM.

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