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Paint Fading

Joined
14 December 2022
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The hood on my 05 New Formula Red is slightly lighter than the fenders and bumper cover. I jokingly say i am not an art collector I am a car enthusiast so my car has just over 63k on the clock. Obviously with this many miles it has seen some sun and has some rock chips. I have been told that a detail shop can fix the chips or repaint the hood. Not sure if repainting the hood would be a good idea since it has a different paint process than done by local paint shops. any opinions?
 
The hood on my 05 New Formula Red is slightly lighter than the fenders and bumper cover. I jokingly say i am not an art collector I am a car enthusiast so my car has just over 63k on the clock. Obviously with this many miles it has seen some sun and has some rock chips. I have been told that a detail shop can fix the chips or repaint the hood. Not sure if repainting the hood would be a good idea since it has a different paint process than done by local paint shops. any opinions?
It will be tricky, but possible. The R-510 color was originally painted with a red/orange base color and a magenta-tinted clear coat. Quality body shops replicate this process using a tri-coat: red/orange base color, magenta-tinted midcoat and a final clear coat. However, many of the paint companies (PPG, BASF, etc.) have deleted the tri-coat specs from their systems and now offer a single-color base coat that approximates the NSX red. Problem is that it loses the magenta color tone. The magenta gives the red a subtle, iridescent violet depth of color that is just lost when you use a single base color. It likely won't perfectly match your other panels. You'd have to reach out to a NSX-specific paint shop like Vince's Autobody in Poughkeepsie if you wanted to match the paint.

Thus, I'd probably try a paint correction on the hood first. Many times, the color change from the sun is due to oxidation of the clear coat. If the detailer can remove this oxidized layer, you'll be back to that beautiful original red color by preserving the factory tinted clear coat. If it still doesn't match, then it's probably time to find a good painter.
 
As a counterpoint to Honcho’s great detailed layout of how the repaint would go, how about just letting it “age gracefully” and just trying to keep up appearances with a correction only? I’m thinking about future value (getting to call it a survivor) and I am starting to see more of see more cars go through auctions with that aged look (patina?) - not that you are anywhere near that right now; just a thought.

I’ve got all kinds of stone chips and blemishes on the lower front bumper at only 40,000 miles because of driving but it helps me relax and take life in stride knowing that my car doesn’t need to be perfect and it’s not a “1” because it’s not just garage art.

A repaint is going to also likely remove one or more VIN stickers - for me, I wanted all VIN stickers and I put up with the imperfections.

Just my thoughts. If you repaint, I’d like to hear about how it goes -it’s got to be an involved process seeing how rich the paint looks on the rest of my car.
 
…and right after I post, I see someone actually has a red hood for sale on here.

 
My B-pillar has the clear coat fading. I just ordered Mita CF replacements. They arrived 4 months later. For me, I’m just hesitant to do a paint job as there’s nothing like OEM stock. Similar theory when I hear people who don’t want to go under the knife for ortho work if possible.


This King of The Hill episode is a reminder that these classics we own may be on borrowed time….
 
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Not a red car here, but the prior owner repainted a few of the panels during his ownership. I absolutely cannot tell the difference. The VIN numbers are intact after painting (they just have to tape them off prior to painting).

There are also YouTube videos of people professionally painting NSXs. The channel "AHC" comes to mind. I think one of them is on a red car if I recall correctly. Good luck.
 
I am curious. If the hood has faded, presumably due to exposure to the sun, I would expect that the top of the fenders, the cowl and the front bumper have also faded? If that is the case and you get a perfect paint match on the hood to the original color you will have created a new problem. Or do you believe that the paint has faded on the hood; but, not the adjoining panels? That would be odd. Perhaps the car had a previous repaint on the hood and what you are seeing is the color mismatch.

Have you done a top of hood to bottom of hood paint comparison or close examination to see if there is a paint line along the panel edge?

I have never seen New Formula Red. My 2000 is Monaco Blue Pearl and I had the front painted because of sand blasting / stone chips. I think the repaint is probably a close to perfect match. However, the pearl effect sometimes causes the car to look like it has 2 or 3 different paint shades on it. Even the tops of the rear fenders look different from the sides under some lighting conditions and that is all original paint.
 
I am curious. If the hood has faded, presumably due to exposure to the sun, I would expect that the top of the fenders, the cowl and the front bumper have also faded? If that is the case and you get a perfect paint match on the hood to the original color you will have created a new problem. Or do you believe that the paint has faded on the hood; but, not the adjoining panels? That would be odd. Perhaps the car had a previous repaint on the hood and what you are seeing is the color mismatch.

Have you done a top of hood to bottom of hood paint comparison or close examination to see if there is a paint line along the panel edge?

I have never seen New Formula Red. My 2000 is Monaco Blue Pearl and I had the front painted because of sand blasting / stone chips. I think the repaint is probably a close to perfect match. However, the pearl effect sometimes causes the car to look like it has 2 or 3 different paint shades on it. Even the tops of the rear fenders look different from the sides under some lighting conditions and that is all original paint.
Good point here.

Another thing to consider is the bumper. The NSX bumper is made out of a urethane plastic and requires a flex additive to the paint to ensure no cracking. The additive changes the chemistry of the paint, which changes how it weathers and, in some cases, the shading of the color. The result is that most older NSXs with original paint have a mismatch in shade between the bumper and hood. You might be noticing this effect. Most of the time, the hood color is closer to the original shade and owners will re-spray the bumper to match.

Here's my 92 post-wash but pre-restoration. The hood and right side is original R-77 Formula Red paint. The bumper had been re-sprayed with R-77 plus the flex additive. Look at the shading difference. Now, some of that is the crappy paint job and a poor color match. But, this effect is fairly common on red NSXs, just not as drastic.

20180818_144729.jpg
 
Honcho, here is my .02.

I have heard people discuss that their bumpers don't match and call it fading but I am skeptical on that sort of explanation. Understand, however, that I am not near as knowledgeable as you about these cars and while I have owned an NSX since 2007 my 2005 has always lived in a garage. My 2004, which I just acquired a few weeks ago, seems to have also lived a pretty nice life despite 40,000 miles. I looked at 11 separate Formula Red NSX's in my year long search and I only saw one car with a distinct bumper mismatch. Of course, two of them admittedly had the front cover painted and one of those was detectible, but acceptable, to me. I only passed on that car only because we could not get together on price -- I could have lived with the paint on that one.

Before my purchase I looked very seriously at a 2005 New Formula Red car (still on Ebay) and both bumpers clearly did not match and it was far enough off that you could easily see the difference in the photos. Your car is much closer than the Ebay car. That Ebay car was on BAT prior to that and there were a lot of paint comments. It's worth studying the pictures if you are curious and, if so, you can find them easily because the car was sold by "The Dude Abides." I passed on the car because I knew that I would never be happy with the mismatch. The Seller, who had only owned the car for a few months after buying it on BAT, insisted that the bumpers simply aged differently than the rest of the car but it was too far off for me. No doubt in my mind that the Seller believes his bumpers were never painted and he is a super nice guy -- I wanted to buy his car.

In my search for Formula Red cars over the last year there was one very interesting discovery which also merits this discussion. That is, I saw a real pig which was a non-running 2003 model with 130,000 miles on it that appeared to have lived outside most of its life and the interior reflected that sort of abuse but, oddly enough, the bumpers did match the body and the car was original -- albeit faded, paint. I toyed with the idea of bidding on the project NSX for a few minutes but decided it was too far gone. I will bet that if you see any red body panels on Ebay that it came from this car because it was straight as an arrow and was purchased by that well known salvage yard in Rancho Cordova, CA that you often see on Ebay.

Finally, I can say that my 2001 Z8 and my 2005 Ford GT both have painted red bumpers and match exactly.
 
NFR just looks like a hard color to maintain no matter the mismatch or not. Even a high quality repaint using the highest materials and labor/effort of certain areas may make the rest of the car look problematic by comparison. Still love that color and the one that sold at Mecum for $170+ last year with 8,000 or so miles was a beauty.
 
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