The side of my bed was scratched while in for service... They painted the entire side of the bed, and they got far too much metal flake in it... How can it be corrected?

 

According to my body shop man, it isn't an easy color to match at all. They did an awesome job though. How noticeable is it? I don't know how they could have gotten too much metal flake in it. I thought the metal flake was pre-mixed in the paint?

-Mike

 

True blue is not any harder or easier to match than any other paint. When fixing any metallic paint you have to blend to adjacent panels to minimize any color or flake mismatch. That way the eye won't catch it. If the scratch was in the middle of the box side, the painter should have put the most color there to cover the primer and gradually stepped out the paint to only a light dusting on the edges insteading of applying color to the whole panel. That way the original color will still show through. Then clear is applied over the whole panel. The only way to fix it now is to blend the tailgate and the cab corner with whatever color mix they used. Pretty standard repair I do every week. On the flake issue, paint is mixed with different tints any metallic blue with have a blue base tint to which silver is added for the metallic effect. There are about 7 or so different silvers, Med. Satin Alum, Coarse Satin Alum, Fine Satin Alum, Med. Alum, Bright Alum, etc so they might have used the wrong one. If the paint is sprayed too dry, that also causes the metallic to stand up on end instead of laying flat so that will also accentuate the effect.

 

That's exactly what happened. The truck looked beautiful before all of this, and I want it to look that good again. Right now I am ashamed of it because it looks so poor... even tempted to sell it since I will never get over the fact that it just isn't right. The paint shop will look at it again today. More people noticed it, so I know that I am not just being picky........ but wait, I should be since I paid so much for this stinking truck!
If I would have known it would have been this poorly matched, I would have left it alone. DAMN FORD SERVICE DEPARTMENTS AND THEIR UNCARING EMPLOYEES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!