Am at bit of a quandry!

Had 2 bumps recently in the octy (1 my fault, the other someone elses). The first bump (6 months ago) required a new tailgate and rear bumper. The first respray wasn't a good match so what they did was to blend the paint into the quarter panels on both sides. It looked ok, although I am a little colour blind. Unfortunately they did cause other damage in the course of the repair, ripped headlining, scratches and the windscreen sidings have never gone back again properly since the quarter panels were painted. They swapped the headlining, managed to make the windscreen sidings look a bit better.

Then 3 months later a car reversed into my rear offside wheel arch, another insurance job, but went with a different repair place as I was unhappy with the previous one.

The repair of the wheel arch was pretty good, but on cleaning/waxing the car they managed to put a few substancial scratches on the car (not marked on their inspection sheet), one of the scratches was on the newly fitted and painted tailgate. They agreed to fix it, not sure whether they resprayed the whole thing or just the part around the scratch. The respray look ok, not perfect, by this time I had taken quite a lot of time off work and had 'had enough'.

I know metallic paint can be far from straight forward, but of late I feel the paint matching has been looking worse (particularly between the tailgate and quarter panels) , not sure if it's the angle I look at or this much sunnier weather. But it's got to the point were it's really bugging me. It seems to look worse everytime I look at it.

Both respray jobs from both repair body garages have a 5yr guarantee. The problem is each garage will only respray the panel they originally did as I understand. I just want a good match all round, but fear a complete respray of the tailgate, rear bumper and quarter panels will be required.

Asked insurance company who said take it back to the last garage it was in!

Was wondering if anyone has been in a similar position or could offer some advice.

(Sorry bout the length of this post, a bit tipsy and kinda got carried away!)

Im not an expert on paint spraying but i had an accident a few years back, same sort of scenario rear quarter panel and boot lid (VW Polo) with metallic paint. The guy that resprayed it painted the damaged area and the full panel beside it to match it in. The car was only 6 months old so it may have been a lot easier to match as there would have been very little fade on the original paint work. I took mine to a "mate" who happens to be a bit of a paint fanatic so i was extremely happy, sounds like these supposed repair centres just seem to slap on a bit of filler and then throw some hammerite at them, sounds a bit like most women in Sheffield on a Saturday night!!

I had my car professionally repaired by a garage through my insurance company and I had one hell of a time to get the repair to a standard I was happy with.

The garage that did the initial repair didn't respray under the new bonnet, the door hinges, forgot to repair 2 scuffed alloys, forgot to replace bumper mouldings. The resprayed plastic parts didn't match the metal and they tried to fob me off with VAG cars are all like that.

The inside of the car was filthy and they hadn't cleaned the bodywork before spraying and there was traces of silicone under the paint so you could see bare metal on the bonnet, bumper and driver's door.

I gave the garage 5 chances to fix it and each time I phone to arrange inspection and uplift they said the car was perfect- it wasn't.

Make sure you inform the insurance company of anything you're not happy with and keep a list of dates and faults.

The insurance company may send an area engineer to inspect your car and discuss a course of action so you get your car the way it should be.

I ended up taking it to another garage who unded up have the car for 3 weeks fixing all the repairs from the first garage, it was perfect first time from the second garage.

Persevere if you're not happy as long as you insist that it should be repaired at at least the standard pre accident then they can't complain really.

I think that the insurance company sent a bill from the 2nd garage to cover the costs of having their work redone by someone else.

I think the insurance company were happy enough to pass it onto somewhere else because I had given the first garage more than enough chances to get it right.

A first time match on a part respray on metallic is possible; I've seen it done.

A first time match on a part respray on metallic is possible; I've seen it done.

it is, i had my hyundai coupe full resprayed with a full hit:

then when some charming sole keyed my door i had part of it sprayed,

then when a valeting place used too much pressure in a pressure wash i needed the back bumper done that was matched too,

then my best mate reversed into me, front bumper repaired and sprayed, matched

then i shaved / sanded paint off my door handles with a proffesional polisher, matched again

then i hit a fox, new bumper this time,

then last but not least i sold it cause i was fed up with keeping it in A1 conditon

worst thing you can do is have a car resprayed casue you forever notice scratches that never used to be there