Paint looks lighter

Hi all,

I went to drop some stuff by the shop working on my car today. I saw it last week in the shop and today they pulled it outside. I was surprised how light the paint looked. This may be a dumb question, but do old paint jobs darken? The paint on the car before was really shoddy, lighter in some areas, darker in others. Or did they paint it too light? It still looks awesome. Honestly, I guess I'm not too worried about it. It's just going to be a fun weekend driver I want to look nice. But if I was going to show it, do they judge on things like that? It's Highland Green by the way....

Old paints usually lighten more than they darken due to the oxidation layer.

Highland green is a pretty stable color but there are some things that could have happened when it was painted.

1. The paint store mixed it wrong. Doesn't happen very often but it does happen. Some people even add more metallic than the formula calls for. Huge mistake.

2. The shop color sanded the color coat and sanded down to the metalic flake layer, making the car look lighter.

3. The painter used way too much air pressure. Using too much pressure makes the metallic particles float on top of the paint instead of sitting down in it.

4. The painter way over reduced the paint. Sometimes a painter will run low on paint and will add some reducer the last coat just to make sure he makes it all the way around.

5. The painter used a light sealer under the color coat and didn't apply enough coats of color or applied very light or reduced-down coats.

Steve, any other ideas?

Sara, do you know where there is another Highland Green car you can compare it to. It might even be worth it to buy a quart of paint from another supplier and spray a scrap board or panel.

If they color sanded the car my guess is that they sanded too much off.

Sarah, if they painted it the wrong shade of green, I would have them correct it right away. It is their problem to fix.

Oh man, now I don't know what to do! I do know of another Highland around. It's a 67 fastback with a little old lady driving it. My husband follows her everytime he sees her, but we're not sure where she lives!! I should say my husband thnks I'm crazy and says it looks fine. He says it appears lighter 'cause it's stripped down. It looked fine when I saw it inside. I guess ordering a quart of paint will be easier than tracking the old lady down. Gotta figure this out before they put her back together again...

Sarah, here is a color code page I found on the internet somewhere. I don`t know if it will help, but here it is.:smile:
You will have to click on it twice to read it. The Highland Green looks very dark on this, but it is an old faded page. I just thought the numbers would help.