Finally fixed a paint match on a 2020 Tacoma after 3 tries

Had a customer come in with a scraped rear bumper on a cement gray Tacoma. First two attempts with the factory code looked close in the booth but went too light once it dried in the sun. On the third try I mixed in a touch of black and a drop of blue, about 2 percent total, and it disappeared into the panel. Customer walked out and said, "I can't even see where it was," which felt great after burning an afternoon on it. Anyone else struggle with these newer grays that shift color under different light? I'm thinking about investing in a spectrophotometer for under $800, worth it or not?

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wesley_adams20d ago

Sitting here nodding because that gray shift thing is like those color changing mugs, you think you got it then the light hits different and it's all wrong. I see the same deal with house paint all the time, my neighbor repainted his porch three times last summer because the morning sun made it look baby blue but afternoon made it look greenish. That 2 percent trick is the kind of stuff you only learn by burning afternoons, and honestly that's worth more than any machine. Spectrophotometer sounds nice but yours is already dialed in, and every paint job I've ever seen that's "perfect" still changes in a parking lot at dusk.