[adi58]

Opting for the authorized Honda Workshop, Solitaire Honda, instead of local body shops, and paying a premium due to our trust in the Honda brand, we were assured that the color difference would settle within a month. However, it's been several months now, and the issue persists. It's disappointing to discover that the quality of service at the Honda workshop has deteriorated to such an extent.

[ruskinash]

It's very hard to match colours, especially with old paint. Most A.S.S do not have their own painting booths. They outsource the job, just like air conditioning or brazing repair jobs.

Your freshly painted panel will never match. The old paint keeps getting older and changing shades.

[saket77]

Unfortunately the difference in result you see is due to oxidation of old paint.
Also, paint match - batch to batch is never 100% and it is more noticeable in some shades than others. You may try pepping up the old paint with some polish. Or if you are very particular, get the old panels painted. Otherwise I don't see an option other than living with it. The new paint will slightly get closer to the old shade for sure after it oxidizes living in the natural environment but don't expect a 100% or even 99% match.

[adi58]

Originally Posted by ruskinash

It's very hard to match colours, especially with old paint. Most A.S.S do not have their own painting booths. They outsource the job, just like air conditioning or brazing repair jobs.

Your freshly painted panel will never match. The old paint keeps getting older and changing shades.

New paint blending with old color is no more a rocket science. This requires skilled workmanship which I’ve realised that this Honda workshop does not have.

[SixPistons]

Originally Posted by adi58

New paint blending with old color is no more a rocket science. This requires skilled workmanship which I’ve realised that this Honda workshop does not have.

Agree with the OP there. Our Baleno got hit pretty bad and after standing through tough Delhi weather for 1.5 years and no special paint protection or anything else, the color has never been differentiable like OP’s car, although the shine gives it away as a repainted panel.

[poloman]

Originally Posted by saket77

Unfortunately the difference in result you see is due to oxidation of old paint.
Also, paint match - batch to batch is never 100% and it is more noticeable in some shades than others. You may try pepping up the old paint with some polish.

That is a totally shoddy job. The task of paint matching is with the paint booth not with customer. They should not blindly go by paint code. But physically match the color of adjacent panel while mixing the color. FNGs normally take out the fuel lid and take to paint mixers for paint matching. Looks like Honda dealer just sprayed some paint just matching the color code of the original paint.

[GTO]

For all the bad press that black coloured cars (or very dark blue) receive, they are the easiest to colour match, no matter what the age of the car.

I've gotten panels repainted on 4 of my very dark coloured cars (Classic 4x4, C220, 530d, Indigo) and it was impossible to tell. Of course, your existing paint has to be well kept and detailed periodically for best results.

I love black cars.

[2000rpm]

There is a simple solution to this, if this is bothering you a lot.

If you plan to keep the car for a long time, get the adjacent panels also painted. A long term plan idea will be to get a overcoat for the entire car.

Alternatively, escalate to Honda and see if they can match it as their promise didnt hold up.

Alternatively, find a better painter and get it done to better quality levels.

[Rohit_Quad]

I have seen this on many paint jobs done by A.S.S (not just Honda), here in Hyderabad as well.

The problem I feel, is the way an A.S.S paints a panel when compared to an independent body shop. AFAIK, most A.S.S's put the car's details in their system, which gives them that cars car's particular paint code. They get the paint corresponding to that paint code and paint the required area. Here lies the problem. That shade (even though the same color) is how the car came out of the factory, not the shade of the car at the time of painting. This will be even more prominent, depending on the state of the current paint on the car.

An independent body shop, 99% of the time, removes the fuel filler flap, takes it to a paint shop, who then scan and mix the exact shade of paint. There will still be a very slight shade difference after painting, but such difference will go away within a few days of exposure to the elements.

So you have 2 options. Get the door painted outside following the above process. It should not cost much as Honda already removed all defects before painting (I hope they did). Or test a 'cut and polish' on a small patch on the door beside the newly painted door. See if that might bring the old paint shade close to the newly painted door's shade. But if Honda messed up and negligently painted your door a slightly different shade (screw up in the paint code maybe), then you have to take it up with them.

[Cresterk]

Originally Posted by ruskinash

It's very hard to match colours, especially with old paint. Most A.S.S do not have their own painting booths. They outsource the job, just like air conditioning or brazing repair jobs.

Your freshly painted panel will never match. The old paint keeps getting older and changing shades.

Originally Posted by saket77

Unfortunately the difference in result you see is due to oxidation of old paint.
Also, paint match - batch to batch is never 100% and it is more noticeable in some shades than others. You may try pepping up the old paint with some polish. Or if you are very particular, get the old panels painted. Otherwise I don't see an option other than living with it. The new paint will slightly get closer to the old shade for sure after it oxidizes living in the natural environment but don't expect a 100% or even 99% match.

This is not true. This is just a poorly done job and any decent painter or garage can mix paint to match some oxidised paint way better than this. The whole "it's not possible to match paint saar" is just an excuse given by shady dealerships when they are lazy and don't want to do their work.

Similar to when they skip actually changing oil, changing filters, screw up an alignment, scratch up your rims and the myriad of other crap shady dealerships do with ill trained personnel who just don't care.

[AJ56]

Having personally experienced the imbecilic service multiple times at Soltaire Honda in Mumbai (Andheri) + at almost every other Honda dealer even here in Gurgaon and Delhi, I find it comical to expect anything more than terrible service from Honda dealers at this point.

For one, we must understand we’re not dealing with Honda India directly. We’re dealing with a third rate local company operating as a Honda franchise, providing service and repairs of cars sold by Honda. The franchise model and high quality service seldom go hand in hand.

I too have had bodywork done by them and it was worse than some roadside shops. I don’t have pictures of that work but I do have pictures of Infinity Honda’s bodywork as it was similar (read terrible) quality-

Mismatched the shade on my boot lid, made it dark brown on a black car



Note the massive pinholes



Their wash area, likely using underage labour and a floor mop to wipe cars.



As a bonus, they (Infinity) also managed to put a small dent in my front left door and put cheap plastic dressing on my dash, smearing it on the glass which took hours to clean.

Solitaire for their part I remember tried to bill me for an air filter they hadn’t changed (I pen marked my old filter so caught them) + they overfilled my engine oil by over 1L.

Then when caught kept saying its thermal expansion as the engine is hot and the oil will contract once cool to line up with the max mark on the dipstick. Engine oil doesn’t expand like that for the record.

It’s for these and countless other brilliant service experiences I had that I checked out of dealing with dealers a few years ago. Once your warranty ends, don’t go to them.

[sachin_cs]

That’s a given with an A.S.S. Job to be honest, if someone does a colour match then think of yourself to be lucky. I have an OCD with my cars and I can’t stand a scratch or dents on my car so it’s a natural for me to get my cars dented/painted once a year. In the last 20 years of my car ownership across brands like Maruti, Renault, Tata, Skoda… I say none of them were able to match the factory paint. Even my rapid has a darker shade for the front bumper, the only acceptable job was done by Renault where they did an almost 95% colour match and it’s hard to tell if the rear tailgate is re-painted or not but if you observe keenly, you may figure it out. What I can suggest you is to ask them to redo it if you are not happy, my Skoda dealer did agreed to my request once for redoing it and compounding also helps. Eg- my front fender had a horrible colour match with the rest of the car but some rubbing and polishing helped it merge with the car to an extent.

[MT_Hyderabad]

The paint job is horrendous. I recently got some panels of my 15 year old red coloured Santro repainted from an FNG. I am unable to tell which panels are repainted, even after an year of the paint job.
Color matching and new paint colour stability is a kid’s job nowadays; you just have to find the right kid. Grown ups (like Honda SVC in this case) should learn from these FNGs.

[sanjeevs]

When a repainting is done, it never really matches the shade of the original one no matter what do you. Best thing is to go for FNG who specializes in decent quality painting and denting and note that you will find plenty of them but again note that there will be minute differences.

My suggestion is that if you intend to keep the car for long time, then its better to go for complete repaint or overcoating job at a later time.

[hemant.kamat]

Before & after photos of the tailgate dent repair of my 7Y old Chill Metallic Ecosport. Paint was matched perfectly by Mr. Chari (Goans will be familiar with the name) using a blending thinner coat layer in between the base (applied to the damaged part only after the dent was pulled & surface leveled) & clear paint coats