Doing an all over paint w/ some new panels

Arrowhead

Arrowhead

Oldtimer
I'm going to paint my son's WRX. He hit a deer and is replacing both fenders, hood and both bumper covers. The car is silver and he wants to paint the same color. I figure since there are some other spots that need to be repaired anyway it's easier to paint the whole car. Just wondering, should I primer the whole car or just the new/used replacement panels or just use a sealer so the color goes on a consistant foundation? I told him I'd clear and then sand and buff for a show car finish.
 
The main reason to prime on a newer vehicle is to take care of dings, chips and scratches. If there is no damage to the panel, there is no real reason to prime OE finished areas unless you think the finish is degraded somehow.
 
You can gain some durability by sealing the whole car with epoxy-increased adhesion for more chip resistance.
 
well one fender is white, one is blue, the hood is a black coated replacement and bumper covers are black plastic and rest is silver. so I would assume I need to seal everything so I have a good color match. correct?
 
No, although e-coat and bare plastic must of course be primed or sealed at the very minimum. Sealing is for adhesion, and should not technically be utilized for achieving color match. Full coverage of the base is what achieves color match, which can be determined by spraying a black and white test panel from your paint jobber.
 
ok, so I have adhesion promoter, I should spray that on the plastic parts before priming them, correct? Then just hit bare metal and bodyworked areas, hood and bumpers w/ primer, scuff the good painted parts and go to town with base.

I see what your saying about color build will hide the checkerboard colors. cool
 
As Bob pointed out, it never hurts to consider a coat of sealer, though I have done many repaints where a portion of the base was shot over OE clear with no issue.

I'm not sure how you define scuffing, any OE finish (or any finish except fresh epoxy) should be well abraded, there should be NO gloss or texture left anywhere before spraying for best results.
 
The only thing I'll add is that some base-coats like "Dupont Chromabase" may require the undercoat match a certain value (ie Valushade System) to achieve good match.
 
It just means that they cover poorly, nothing more. Valushade is a crutch that can help fool the eye, and is not actually required, just recommended to lower cost, save time, and prevent excessive film build.

Now that you bring that up, I like to mix a small amount of the chosen color in the chosen brand and spray a panel to see how t looks and covers. No sense buying a gallon of paint that takes eight coats to get true coverage. I'd rather use a system that gets it done in three coats.
 
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