Touch up paint for F6 ceramic white pearl tri coat LS

[BDog21]

Anybody know much about paint? I have a few spots I'd like to touch up,and possibly even a fender I'd like to paint. I hit a guard rail on the interstate,and had to completely replace the front passenger side fender,didn't realize the junk yard fender I got was from like an 01 I believe and mine is an 05. The listing said it was "F6" paint code just like mine, but it's not,it's more like a flat white, and doesn't have all the shine and sparkle the F6 tri coat has.

Anyway so I'm looking at place that sell paint code matched paints, and I know obviously my best option would be to buy the full kit, primer,base coat,and clear coat.but for this F6 is PRICEY. So my question is, would I be ok buying and using my own primer, and clear coat, and just using their base coat? In guessing maybe not on the clear coat as I assume a lot of the "sparkle" is in the clear coat? But what about as far as the primer? Is that super special too?

 

[SultanGris]

I wouldn't waste your time or money, unless maybe you park it indoors all the time because any paint that's not applied the same way as factory will be a different color in a few years anyways. They fade at different rates, but parking indoors the majority of the time will lengthen the amount of time before you notice this if you really wanna do it.

 

[BDog21]

Well, I don't really see myself keeping this car more than a couple more years, I tend to want something new every couple years and trade in lol.and even if I don't,I'd rather have a couple years of matching paint that eventually fades to slightly mismatched, than have the currently mismatched paint for years..

 

[SultanGris]

Places in Vegas will repaint the whole car for around $800 bucks but it only last few years, it's like five or six grand or more to repaint a whole car correctly. I'm originally from North Dakota and never heard anybody painting the car that cheap before so maybe it's just a Vegas thing, lol!

If nobody here knows id go talk to the dealer or a place that professionally paints cars and they'll be able to steer you in the right direction.

 

[BDog21]

there's cheap places here that will paint a whole car for $300 lmao...I remember seeing an ad for $299..that was prob. 15 years ago but still...imagine the high quality paint job you'd get for that premium price haha

 

[SultanGris]

Yeah exactly, I'm think about painting this one I have cuz there's a few little dents and defects on it but I was trying to get them to do a better job but they kind of don't want to, they stick to their cheap crap price jobs but I noticed their shops don't even have sterile rooms to paint in, they just have open bays the doors opened to the outside so it can't be good. I'll have to go find a better more professional place I guess but on the other hand I don't really want to spend quite 6 grand either. I figure it might be good enough for a couple years, then for that cheap just do it again a different color or sell the car by then, ha!

 

[BDog21]

Well also, think this F6 tri coat pearl white would be even more expensive cuz is a "premium" paint job

 

[SultanGris]

For sure!

 

[BDog21]

I was just curious if I could use my own, cheaper primer, and possibly my own cheaper clear coat with the color code matched base coat.

On a side note . I bout 3 different factory color code mstched touch up pens, manufactured by Ford supposedly, from 3 different online retailers, and none of them matched my color. Not even close. The ones they sent me are like sparkly silver, not at all "pearl white" so now there's a few spots that look real shitty cuz u can tell I tried to fix it and it's horribly mismatched.

And yes I'm sure I have the right paint code. The sticker In the door says "paint code: F6" and when I search online for F6 paint code it looks exactly like my car lol

 

[SHORod]

If it's a 2k primer of a compatible chemistry, you could use it. Similar for the clear coat. But considering how expensive the paint is, do you really want to take the chance of it looking worse than you have now and having to start over?

I had the ceramic tri-coat pearl white on a former 2004 Mercury Mountaineer and bought the pearl and base coat from the local Sherwin-Williams automotive paint store. I used my own 2K primer and clear coat. The pearl gets added to the clear coat, and you want to do a spray out card to figure out how many coats of the pearlized clear will match best the existing pearl on the car. What the paint shop recommended to me, and worked well, was to put several rows of masking tape on the base coated card, then spray a layer of pearlized clear, remove a piece of tape, spray another coat, and so on. Then clear coat them all with regular clear (no added pearl) to mimic what you'll do on the car. Once you have figured out how many coats of pearlized you need, you paint the car with the same technique and number of coats as your spray out card.

When I bought my paint, probably 10 - 15 years ago, the pearl additive was $185 for half a pint. The guy working there said Ford uses actual pearl in their tri-coat. The popular GM pearl from that era used fish scales for the pearl effect which is much less expensive. I never researched that to see if there's any truth to it.

-Rod