[Moog]

So, today was THE DAY to go and collect the shell from the paintshop - boy was I excited. So dropped the kids off at school and shot into town to pick up the trailer. Off up the motorway in the Passat with a very rumbly wheel bearing (must fix that...) and I pulled in to the yard - there it was, resplendent in its new shiny yellow paint! Outside, inside, and underneath!
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The WRONG Yellow...
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Remember, i am the second owner, having bought it in completely unadulterated condition in 1986. I gave it a exterior respray in original colour myself in 1993 - i consider I am pretty hot on knowing L16M at a glance, and this was wrong. In the boot of the Passat I had one of the original bonnet hinges that had never been re-painted, and it's quite a different colour to what is now on the shell.
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Bugger...

I can see how it happened - since the regulations changed about paint formulation a few years ago, not all the old colours have been re-formulated into the new mixing systems, especially those that were limited usage, and a one-year-only special edition colour falls squarely in the rare camp. Plugging L16M Tunis Yellow into the paint systems draws a blank on both ICI and Sikkens. It seems the paint supplier cross-referenced it against another mix to get the fourmula, and somehow it went wrong - too Yellow, not Mustardy enough.

So that was an expensive day - trailer hire & 150 miles of fuel, and a day off work, all for nothing.

He is totally mortified and embarrassed & unhesitatingly said he will sort it out. We just need to sort the mix. I tried another paint supplier on the way home and they found it on their system but no formula listed - looks like we will end up getting it matched to the inside of the glove-box lid which is original paint and not sun-bleached. I think some places can scan the paint, while another says they have a "Resident Genius of Colour" - time to pay him a visit I think...

Oh well, these things happen...