406oc.co.uk

My current colour is taxi white, gets incredibly dirty, and I want to go black. Any black. But I don't want to pay £700! I'd rather do it myself, then pay £700 when it looks like crap.

I know I'll need about 3 litres of black paint and the hardener and thinners to go with it and possibly primer, but how do I apply any of these four things?!

Any hints and tips?

Thanks for any help in advance!!

just_gotwicked wrote:Any hints and tips?

Don't.

It is well known in the motoring industry that white cars look cleaner than any other colour for longer.

Why do you think Vans are white.

Black is an absolute pig to keep clean, it has to be sparkling clean to look good, the first time you go on the road with it it will look crap again especially this time of year, and in the summer it will look 'dusty' the very next day after you washed it.

If you polish white up really well it looks fantastic, but the secret is to get a really good shine by 'mopping' the tired paint and the using quality polish and waxes with a buffer machine, if it's sparkling white it look great I would have a white car no bother, in fact I did once, it was an XR2

Look, a nice white Volvo

weltons right black is a pig of a colour to keep clean
i had a black granada estate and no matter how hard i tried i always missed a bit when washing, it was never too apparent when wet but omg when it dried
then there was the dusty bit like welly said wash it on sunday on monday morning its got a definate brown tinge to it
i vowed never to have a black car ever again


by the way welly i know what you mean about the volvo v70 i was looking for 1 before but they are soooooooooo expensive and high on the old insuranse

......and my other car is metallic black and an absolute pig to keep clean for any longer than a day, especially if left out overnight. It looks the nuts when just cleaned but it really was a mistake to have gone for black instead of red or silver, both of which I've had in the past and both of which looked cleaner for a whole lot longer. Black is like trying to keep glass clean!

Also, if you're doing a colour change, make sure your car aint worth much in the first place as you could devalue it a lot - would you buy a black car that had a white engine bay, white boot floor, etc etc. In my view it just makes a car look messed with. Why not sell the white one (a colour that suits the 406 pretty well) and buy another colour ? You may well save some of that £700 quid simply by changing your car.

Lastly - if you don't know how to do a respray then don't even start it! It aint that easy to get a really good finish and black is pretty unforgiving! You will end up paying more than the your budget as they'd have to get your work and mistakes erased before they begin their own work!