Why does Ford Charge More for Red & White Paint?
01-06-2015, 10:21 PM
#21
Senior Member
Back when PPG Mystic was offered on the Mustang, I was at a Ford dealer and the paint guy was telling me that the PPG rep delivered 2 dixie cups of paint and that that cost $500. That was back around 96.
01-07-2015, 07:03 AM
#24
Ruby Red Ford paint:
I have a friend with a FT AB shop and like any shop , he has a room full of leftover paints. I was restoring an antique Suzuki MC a few years back and rather than pay for a candy color red paint per OE on that model, I sprayed it with the Ford red which is a very close color match and being a modern base/clear product, it's much better finish than a "candy type paint". I'm doing an old Honda that also gets a metallic blue from the same source & a very close match from Chrysler colors.
Pretty much standard AB knowledge that reds are expensive and like many things these days of inflated prices, all paints are expensive, esp. AB stuff. Price a color similar to "Porsche Red" and see the price, even in a non-metallic! The shipping is also high as often the materials are freight sensitive solvents, the EPA runs rampant over what/where/how the products are used and we all pay the price.
It's not a "Ford thing" that paints are expensive.
I have a friend with a FT AB shop and like any shop , he has a room full of leftover paints. I was restoring an antique Suzuki MC a few years back and rather than pay for a candy color red paint per OE on that model, I sprayed it with the Ford red which is a very close color match and being a modern base/clear product, it's much better finish than a "candy type paint". I'm doing an old Honda that also gets a metallic blue from the same source & a very close match from Chrysler colors.
Pretty much standard AB knowledge that reds are expensive and like many things these days of inflated prices, all paints are expensive, esp. AB stuff. Price a color similar to "Porsche Red" and see the price, even in a non-metallic! The shipping is also high as often the materials are freight sensitive solvents, the EPA runs rampant over what/where/how the products are used and we all pay the price.
It's not a "Ford thing" that paints are expensive.
01-07-2015, 07:04 AM
#25
Senior Member
The tri-coat paints require more labor time due to being three stage paints. They are more difficult to match as well so if you are painting a particular panel on a vehicle, a shop will normally have to "blend" more adjacent panels to get a closer match.
Some body shops do a better job with paint than the factory itself, much less orange peel. Also, paints on steel panels never match those on plastic right out of the factory. If you look carefully, you will see it on every new car out there.
Back to the OP question, I believe someone may have already answered the question but the reason is that there is an extra stage in the paint process. Instead of primer-base coat-clearcoat which is the norm, I believe a second base coat is applied to get the pearly look. That cost more in time and labor so the cost is passed onto the buyer.
Some body shops do a better job with paint than the factory itself, much less orange peel. Also, paints on steel panels never match those on plastic right out of the factory. If you look carefully, you will see it on every new car out there.
Back to the OP question, I believe someone may have already answered the question but the reason is that there is an extra stage in the paint process. Instead of primer-base coat-clearcoat which is the norm, I believe a second base coat is applied to get the pearly look. That cost more in time and labor so the cost is passed onto the buyer.
01-07-2015, 07:11 AM
#26
True to say that some colors can be very hard to match. i painted on BMW's often and as I recall there were 3 or 4 shades of one lt blue metallic color. the Ford pearl white would be somewhat hard to match but not that it wouldn't get done well by an experienced shop. I had a 2010 Caddy CTS4 pearl white thats similar and paint took a couple of trys after a hail storm had the roof needing paint as paintless guy not able to work the top around the sunroof.
I ordered Oxford White on my XLT as I think its a showier color than the pearls which can look a bit eggshell tint in certain light-just my personal taste though.
01-07-2015, 08:22 AM
#27
I went to school for autobody. I don't do it for a living but I do it as a hobby. Paint colors have what we call "variances". Some colors have more. There is a GM color called pewter. It has like 15 variances. This is because when the paint manufacturer makes it, they are allowed 5% variant. Meaning it could be 5% darker, 5% lighter, 5% more metallic, 5% less metallic. Then there is the shade of the color. Then there is flop. There are 4 main colors: blue, red yellow and green. Reds can be blue or yellow. Green colors can be yellow or blue. Blue colors can be red or green. Yellow colors can either red or green. Every color made comes from these 4 colors. It's called the color wheel. Then you have what's called value. Which is how much metallic the color has or how gray it is. More course metallic colors are darker and finer metallic colors are lighter. Which also adds variances. This is just some of the basics. Autobody painting is fun!
The following users liked this post:
Kantuckid (01-08-2015)
01-08-2015, 08:30 AM
#28
Good job above!
"Once upon a time", I was the teacher in the shop next door to the AB program as you experienced. I'm a "pretender in AB work, HA! When i didn't know something , all I had to do was walk next door and ask an expert! I hobby on old MC's now as too old(sort of) for wreck building, these days!
I'll add a few little tidbits of fact to the above color facts on auto paints and colors in general.
First! I am far from anything like an eye expert. I did run a testing center in a tech school for some years. It was actually a career center and I did some pre-employment testing for a few mfg.'s and state agencies too. FWIW, one mfg was next door to our school and makes Ford truck bumpers.
One of the tests I used towards developing an "Aptitude profile" and the larger purpose of career plans, in some cases, was a "Color Discrimination Test" called the "Ishihara Test". It involves common numbers that are shown as contrasting colors "buried" in a group of other colored little circles. The tested person states the number they "see". Many people have color discrimination "problems" (if that's the correct term, I don't know?) and more so with males than females. people that work in AB are a great e.g. of someone that can benefit from good color discrimination. In my personal ignorance(remember I'm a non-medical guy), I had always thought that you were either color blind, or you were not. Given that I had to get annual flight physicals in the military, I had that awareness and also knew color blindness is more common in males too.
My long winded point is that auto paint matching is a gamble, no matter if your a master tech or a noobie, if you have the "wrong eyes for the job". This makes the use of very expensive paints and paint matching camera systems, learned application skills, etc., far from perfect when you throw in the hum,an variable!!! I guess it is an "art", of sorts to match paint well.
"Once upon a time", I was the teacher in the shop next door to the AB program as you experienced. I'm a "pretender in AB work, HA! When i didn't know something , all I had to do was walk next door and ask an expert! I hobby on old MC's now as too old(sort of) for wreck building, these days!
I'll add a few little tidbits of fact to the above color facts on auto paints and colors in general.
First! I am far from anything like an eye expert. I did run a testing center in a tech school for some years. It was actually a career center and I did some pre-employment testing for a few mfg.'s and state agencies too. FWIW, one mfg was next door to our school and makes Ford truck bumpers.
One of the tests I used towards developing an "Aptitude profile" and the larger purpose of career plans, in some cases, was a "Color Discrimination Test" called the "Ishihara Test". It involves common numbers that are shown as contrasting colors "buried" in a group of other colored little circles. The tested person states the number they "see". Many people have color discrimination "problems" (if that's the correct term, I don't know?) and more so with males than females. people that work in AB are a great e.g. of someone that can benefit from good color discrimination. In my personal ignorance(remember I'm a non-medical guy), I had always thought that you were either color blind, or you were not. Given that I had to get annual flight physicals in the military, I had that awareness and also knew color blindness is more common in males too.
My long winded point is that auto paint matching is a gamble, no matter if your a master tech or a noobie, if you have the "wrong eyes for the job". This makes the use of very expensive paints and paint matching camera systems, learned application skills, etc., far from perfect when you throw in the hum,an variable!!! I guess it is an "art", of sorts to match paint well.
01-08-2015, 08:33 AM
#29
The tri-coat paints require more labor time due to being three stage paints. They are more difficult to match as well so if you are painting a particular panel on a vehicle, a shop will normally have to "blend" more adjacent panels to get a closer match.
Some body shops do a better job with paint than the factory itself, much less orange peel. Also, paints on steel panels never match those on plastic right out of the factory. If you look carefully, you will see it on every new car out there.
Back to the OP question, I believe someone may have already answered the question but the reason is that there is an extra stage in the paint process. Instead of primer-base coat-clearcoat which is the norm, I believe a second base coat is applied to get the pearly look. That cost more in time and labor so the cost is passed onto the buyer.
Some body shops do a better job with paint than the factory itself, much less orange peel. Also, paints on steel panels never match those on plastic right out of the factory. If you look carefully, you will see it on every new car out there.
Back to the OP question, I believe someone may have already answered the question but the reason is that there is an extra stage in the paint process. Instead of primer-base coat-clearcoat which is the norm, I believe a second base coat is applied to get the pearly look. That cost more in time and labor so the cost is passed onto the buyer.
That "extra coat" in the colors that I've used appears to my eye as a cheap nail polish that has lots of pigment left out, or another way to say it-a paint w/o much pigment added?
01-08-2015, 01:02 PM
#30
Senior Member
Thanks Kantuckid for reminding me that I fail all those Color Discrimination Tests. I'm reasonably sure I can see the same colours (that's how those who use the King's English spell it eh) everyone else does but must be colour dyslexic. I'm OK with it, hasn't been crippling to my life's work.
Sorry, off-topic - except maybe it explains why Guard looks like dull gray green to me while others say it's really colourful.
Sorry, off-topic - except maybe it explains why Guard looks like dull gray green to me while others say it's really colourful.