Opinions on new paint option...

[mother_russia]

I've been working on this e30 for almost a year now. I'm finally almost done with the motor, getting ready to do some body work, and then get it painted it. The car is a 1990 zinno sedan. I love the color red, and was planning on respraying it to the same original color. But seeing this 240 with this tone of red, I fell in love with it!
Here's the thing. My zinno sedan is super faded with the clear coat coming off. All the door sills, the trunk, the engine compartment, everything that doesn't usually see sunlight, is in PERFECT paint condition. So really, all I'd need to do is get the outside resprayed, and the door sills, trunk, etc, leave those alone.
If I respray my car with the same original paint, everything is gonna match. But if I respray the car with the darker red like the 240, all the parts that haven't been resprayed, will be a different shade of red. Since they're both gonna be just different shades of red, would the car look good? What do you guys think...

Here's the color I like.

[JasonC]

No on the color change, unless all jams and under hood and truck got repainted as well.

[bmwstephen]

no matter what, there will be a different shade during the respray process. this is worse off with metallic colors.

considering yours is a solid color, the difference would be negligible. I bet you even in its stock form your, engine bay's color varied from its body panel due its lack of exposure to the elements.

either way i wouldn't worry about the color matching as much as the quality of the overall paint job. you have to make sure that whoever is painting the car will not rush the process. I have inspected various e30s (including mine), post respray and there has yet to be one that has been able to cover the e30's body shape effectively despite its simplistic design.

[mother_russia]

i wouldn't worry about the color matching as much as the quality of the overall paint job.

The guy that's spraying my car does FANTASTIC work. I have some damage he has to fix for me first, then there are about 10-15 total small rock dents all around the car. I'm gonna get the car semi-prepped for him. Pull off all the plastic pieces around the car, make sure that all he has to do is fix the dents, sand the car, and then just spray it. I'm getting all the black trim resprayed black as well. He said he would charge me about $1750 for it all. He's a friend of mine so he's giving me a good price.

His work is usually super nice. He works on all his cars as if they were his own. He's been working on cars for about 5 years or so, and is currently in the process of opening up his own shop. He said this is just a, "look at how nice I can make this car look" job, for cheap.

[ELVA164]

Do you know the name of the color? It won't be exact, but you could take a swatch and hold it up to your under hood paint and see how glaring the difference would be.

[dougie30]

I say respray it zinno

[bmwstephen]

The guy that's spraying my car does FANTASTIC work. I have some damage he has to fix for me first, then there are about 10-15 total small rock dents all around the car. I'm gonna get the car semi-prepped for him. Pull off all the plastic pieces around the car, make sure that all he has to do is fix the dents, sand the car, and then just spray it. I'm getting all the black trim resprayed black as well. He said he would charge me about $1750 for it all. He's a friend of mine so he's giving me a good price.

His work is usually super nice. He works on all his cars as if they were his own. He's been working on cars for about 5 years or so, and is currently in the process of opening up his own shop. He said this is just a, "look at how nice I can make this car look" job, for cheap.

i sure hope so. the tricky areas on an e30 are the windshield area, quarter windows, A-pillar between the fender, trunk overbite, rear valence (if you're painting the entire area), hood, gas flap, and trunk edges.

not doubting ur painter's abilities but I've seen work from my local body shop who has painted Ferrari's that still fudge these areas up.

Unlike a lot of modern cars, I noticed that these areas tend to be neglected since sharp and distinct edges like an e30 do not exist now a days like modern cars thus requiring more attention. It'll be worse should they choose to do it in waterborne base because it is likely the following clear coat will be thin or non-existent in those areas which would only have the base "wash" off over time.