Paint line
Body and paint
Matched at the color bench against your car as it looks today, sprayed and baked on in our downdraft booth by Axalta certified refinishers, backed by a lifetime warranty on the craftsmanship.
Chapter 01
A color code is a starting point, not a match
Every car leaves the factory with a paint code, but the paint on the car in front of us today is almost never the exact shade that code describes. Iowa sun and years of weather fade a finish unevenly, a hood sees more direct light than a door jamb, so by the time a panel needs repainting, the factory code alone will get you close and leave the new panel looking slightly off next to its neighbours. That mismatch is the single most common reason a repair looks like a repair from ten feet away.
We treat the code as a starting point and finish the match by eye and by instrument against the actual panels on the car in front of us, at our paint and color matching bench. Our Axalta certified refinishers mix the color to what the car looks like today, faded panels and all, using computerized paint mixing rather than pouring straight from a factory formula. That is the difference between a panel that blends in and one that always reads as new paint next to old.
Vehicle masked off for paint with a primed bumper on a rolling stand at the paint line
Prep, spray and bake, in that order
Before any paint goes on, the panel has to be straight and clean. Dents get worked out or the section gets replaced, the surface gets primed, and the car moves to our Team Blowtherm UltraPrep prep station where it gets masked off so overspray stays exactly where it belongs and nowhere else. Every panel that isn't being painted gets covered, which is the unglamorous part of the job that decides how clean the finished line looks.
From the prep station the car goes into our downdraft paint booth. Air gets pulled down and away from the wet panel while the color goes on, instead of settling and carrying dust back into the finish the way an open bay would. The booth then bakes the finish on, curing it hard rather than leaving it to air dry, which is what gives the panel its depth and its durability rather than just its color.
Chapter 03
What to look for afterward, and what the warranty covers
A proper refinish should hold up under more than one kind of light. Check it in direct sun and again in the shade, at an angle across the panel and straight on. A rushed match can look fine head on under showroom light and still show a faint edge or a slightly different depth of color once you catch it at a low angle outdoors, that's usually the tell that the match was made against the factory code and not against the car.
That's what our lifetime warranty on the craftsmanship of the bodywork covers, the work itself holding up the way it should. Andrews Collision Center has been matching paint and straightening panels at 815 3rd St SE in Cedar Rapids since 1958, family owned the whole way through. If you have a panel that needs matching or a finish you're not sure is right, call (319) 365-4627 and describe what you're seeing.
Andrews Collision is rated 4.5 out of 5 from 145 Google reviews, and every finish carries a lifetime warranty on the craftsmanship of the bodywork.