Which AlpineWhite #146 Variant do you have ?

[jeffnhiscars]

ok. So I'm driving down the road Sunday and get side swiped by a teen in mom's Kia. Fortunately, I remembered to turn on my voice recorder in time for her to say "I wanted to go straight but was in the turn lane.."...so Mommy is writing the check.

My body guy who is somewhat of an artiste calls PPG then tells me there are 3 color variants for that year of Alpine White #146 and of course, he doesnt have the variant chips in his collection, although he did have flat rate repair books from 84 :-)

Apparently, the only way to tell which formula you have without the variant chips is either trial and error (didnt ask whose dime that would be on) or to have spray samples from a known formula.

The alternative was the ubermodern shop who color matches paint just like Home Depot and mixes it by the barrel. After seeing the Mini they just did..well..you get the idea.

Soooo...does anyone have said variant chips, spray samples with formulae or "2c FWIW" to add ?

Thanks

[bernzpeed]

ok. So I'm driving down the road Sunday and get side swiped by a teen in mom's Kia. Fortunately, I remembered to turn on my voice recorder in time for her to say "I wanted to go straight but was in the turn lane.."...so Mommy is writing the check.

My body guy who is somewhat of an artiste calls PPG then tells me there are 3 color variants for that year of Alpine White #146 and of course, he doesnt have the variant chips in his collection, although he did have flat rate repair books from 84 :-)

Apparently, the only way to tell which formula you have without the variant chips is either trial and error (didnt ask whose dime that would be on) or to have spray samples from a known formula.

The alternative was the ubermodern shop who color matches paint just like Home Depot and mixes it by the barrel. After seeing the Mini they just did..well..you get the idea.

Soooo...does anyone have said variant chips, spray samples with formulae or "2c FWIW" to add ?

Thanks

doesn't it say on your car's engine bay what the paint code is?

alpine white, then there's alpine white II, and III

just had my paint mixed into a spray can. Alpine white II.

[jeffnhiscars]

the paint code is there...#146...but there are 3 variants of 146. I looked at PPG chips for alpine white 300 and there are 3 different formulae and shades for it. My sticker is actually 146/0 and that may be the variant code but thats not been verified.

The discovery seems to be that BMW has subgroups for their paint codes..perhaps when the EPA tells them to reduce their VOC's and they have to switch from industrial pigment to vanilla beans to make white.

[jeffnhiscars]

If the number after the slash turns out to be the paint variant code, then maybe its tied to the production date since my 146/0 was built in 9\83. If a few of you would post their full 4 digit Alpine White paint codes & production dates, maybe we'd see a pattern that could help narrow down my options.

Thanks in advance