Does anyone know the Brand of paint Mini uses on the exterior?

PPG,Dupont,sikkens,glasurit or something else?

 

Krylon?

 

I think it's Sherwin Williams!

 

I'll take that bet....lol.

If I had to guess, I'd say Diamont or Sikkens, glasurit or something.... considering BMW and euro paint....

 

Ralph Lauren? Martha Stewart?

 

I would be willing to bet that it's Sikkens. Likely fit for a UK car to use a European product. Just my guess

 

So far nobody really knows.Any idea on how to find out?

 

I don't know what they actually apply to the car at the factory, but it's kind of a moot point, as I don't think you can buy it anyway, and I don't think there are many paint facilities outside of the factory that are set up to apply the waterborne factory paints.

Most of the major paint manufacturers such as the ones you mentioned make paint in all of the various automobile manufacturers' factory colours. It won't be chemically-identical to the factory paint, because it's designed for manual spray-gun application in body shops rather than robotic application in a factory, but it'll be a perfect match to the factory paint.

 

To my knowledge most body shops in cali,(this is where i just moved from) are now required to spray waterborne products,no?
Yes, i know most automotive paint company's can make the paint,I'd rather try and keep it all the same.I'm sure you know what i mean.

 

 

Back in the day when BMW used paints that were solvent based, the manufacturer was Glasurit. Don't know if they still use the same company, though.

 

In both of my bodyshops, we use urethane basecoat/clearcoat. We were repairing a custom painted trike that was from the west coast...


Yup, it was waterborne... complete pia for us rt coast people.

What are you painting? A part or are you trying to touch up a chip?

It's difficult to panel shoot any panel and expect a dead match. My laser blue kicked my butt trying to panel shoot it but again, that type of blue is always a PIA.

Mark

 

California currently has to use low-VOC paint, but it can still be solvent-based. Companies like Sherwin-Williams and BASF have introduced waterborne paints suitable for body-shop use, but the big push toward using them has only happened in the past two years or so. Eventually, they'll be mandatory here in California, but it hasn't happened yet.

Still, there are probably more places than I thought that can shoot waterborne paint - I'll keep looking and see if I can find what MINI uses at the factory.

 

For one,I want to paint the trim on the door,It was suppose to be black,not gray in color.Since Its needs to be painted,I thought about doing it body color.That part ,the match isnt critical.But, I'm also thinking of painting fender flares to help rid off this cosmoline drip stain.

 

I hear most shops hate this waterborne stuff,They say the drying time is way too long.Is that true?

 

Using the same product that the factory uses is possible. Getting the same results is another issue all together. I Watched the video of how the MINI's are made and it looks to me that the factory is using electrostatic spray but again I'm guessing. This process has been around for over 20 years and I really don't think it can be beat, but I'm sure the technology made it get even better.

 

True about drying time but more importantly, it's crap. To be honest, one of my shops about 15 years ago tried waterborne. The color matching was TERRIBLE.

Having said that, I'm sure technology has come a long way.

What color are you trying to match. We have 3 mixing systems in shop and have spent DAYS tinting colors one drop at a time.

This week we shot chili red, astro black, white and I forgot what the purple color is called with no problems. They all needed to be tinted but it was minor.

I hated tinting my laser blue.

Mark

 

that's for big cars, our little cars are painted with Testors.

 

Well, as of the 2003 models, it appears that the factory paint was Glasurit (BASF). I'm still looking to see if that's changed.

 

Too bad you aren't closer I could help you out with the color matching. I had to do a schooling at Dupont to get my cert. The instructors nearly had a fit when I did a color match for them in 15 minutes.

 

I wish it were that easy.... I've been doing this for over 25 years. Last week I spent 2 entire days and half a gallon of paint trying to panel shoot a Ducati yellow single stage fairing.

Unfreakin' believeable. I finally got it close enough that I gave up and said ***** it, I'll blend the headlamp fairing for free.

What a pain.

Mark

 

When iwas in high school i worked at a body shop as a painters helper and he would scream about the waterborne primers.He told the owner to not use it or he would quit. Sure enough that stuff was disposed of.


Its the laser blue color

 

You must have loved that ford explorer teal green color.I hear it had 10 different formulas for its one paint code.

 

Yeah I know it's tough especially yellows and reds. It wouldn't be so difficult if ALL the paint mfg would use the same pigment. The hardest part of matching a color is if the mfg color you're trying to match uses "cleaner" pigments than the product you use.

 

I tinted paint for my JCW kit (like I said, after 25 years of tinting colors, people come to me to get paint tinted) I thought I had the color, I had sprayed at least a dozen spray out cards.

I gave the paint to one of my painters and had him paint the ground effects.

I pulled one of the pieces outside and it SUCKED. I spent another few hours tweaking the color and stayed that night to shoot the panels myself.

For the most part, it matches 99.9 percent. I've got a touch too much pithalo blue in it and it has a reddish cast in the blue in the right light.

Of course, I'm being picky, I tend to be **** about stuff like that.

Mark