Small color change? - repaint the whole car - advise opinion
 

Repainting the whole car – options and advice needed

Same colour or a slight change?

Paint on my car is neglected. A few dings here and there (no big deal), but a big scratch on the front fender (driver) and burn marks on the rear (very poor paint correction job burned through the clear and damaged the base coat) on the trunk and roof lids. Plus rear bumper problems.

Options I did not choose:
I looked at vinyl wrap, but at 2-4k USD and it will show all imperfection of the body anyway.
I considered plasti dip. I personally hate it and I know that would be the final destination of the car. Reverting it is impossible. Plus it still shows body damage.

I ended up with getting the whole car repainted and fixing all the body issues.


Now, the BIG question.
It is 2003 with body color 747 (regular flat black). It is non-metalic.
I was planning on sticking to OEM, black.
No, I am not changing into yellow… but I was wondering – maybe some metallic black, or dark blue metallic. Something what will not really show difference between door sills, but may look better.

What do you think guys?

Staying with plain black or some small change?
The body shop guy was suggesting some metallic – maybe like new Corollas have, black metallic with small hint of blue. I did not see it, so hard to say.

What I need to add here is that the car will receive a ceramic coating on the top of that so that we can retain the nice gloss.
That is also a factor in the future – which colour will show off better. I personally still think plain black has the highest gloss.

Resale? Not sure I car much about it…

I was going to mention resale but you addressed it lol!

My opinion is go with what makes YOU happy.

I may be headed down the route of a respray as well and not looking forward to it. So damn many rock chips it's driving me nuts. I just don't want to spend the $ on the respray as only other enthusiasts are likely to notice the difference.

I personally never want to own a black automotive finished car.... TOO much maintenance in my opinion, and really hard to spray (thats probably the reason your body guy suggested some color).

Just do a dark grey metallic. Super easy maintenance and close enough to the oem black that you won't even notice the door jams. My wife's last 986 was a black car resprayed to dark grey metallic and the door jams were black; I almost never noticed.

Hi,
I think it is better to take a mechanic that is better than yourself color it with spray,
let the mechanic handle it.

If you do a color change, are you going to do the door jams and trunks? Doing a true color change requires disassembly in order to get all the nooks and crannies. However, if you stick with black or dark grey with metallic, you can probably get away with not doing the jams and trunks because it would be "close enough" that it wouldn't stand out. And since you don't care about resale value then that may be the way to go.

ANY repaint that moves away from the factory color is going to require taking entire sections of the car apart to cover normally concealed areas, otherwise the car will scream "RESPRAY" and raise more questions at sale time than it answers. Buyers and those that conduct PPI's on these cars tend to be suspicious of why the car was repainted, and either shy away or lower their offering price.

No, it would be a small change, if at all.
Now it is plain black.
As for the change - say going from black to metallic black or maybe very dark gray metallic or such. No drastic change that would require disassembly of all panels.

I will document everything for the resale.
Respray is done to fix overburn marks due to improper care and trying to fix it...

Going from flat to metallic or black to dark grey would be fine as long as the painter carefully masks off the lines around the jambs and deck lids. We have to be happy with our cars so do whatever would make you happy with it.