Like Massey said, it's metallic Medium Patriot Red... Ugh so either way it's easier to just buy a door that matches... And if it's either more or less faded, I'll be using a crap ton of rubbing compound on either the door or fender and quarter panel. That's nifty news.

 

If you repair the door, you only need to repaint the lower portion. The side moulding will make a solid break and you won't notice a slight difference in shade between top and bottom, if there is one. Buying a same color door may match, it may not. If the other car was stored outside, with the drivers side facing the southern sun a lot of the time, the paint will be more faded than yours. No amount of rubbing compound or elbow grease is going to bring the color back. Paint fade is in the pigment of the paint, and once it's gone it's not coming back.

 

Well fudge. So you agree than I can get away with painting the bottom half of the car and not the entire door? I'm sure Massey will jump on here and contradict it lol

 

With the side moulding you have, yes. If it was an open area, no.
And.....if you repaint the whole door and blend the paint into the front and rear panels, you WILL have to clear coat the entire side of the car if you want it to turn out looking right. If you try to blend clear into the existing panels, you will see a slight haze line where it ends, I don't care how good a painter and color sander you are. So then...if you're going to hit the whole side with clear, you might as well hit it all with color too. Your little gouge just turned into a big mountain going this way. But hey, it's your car and money, I'm not trying to tell you what to do.

 

Well the body moulding was removed from my car. You can see that in the video I posted. It's just the natural body line where the moulding used to be. So I'm not sure what I wanna do. I mean honestly, the paint on the rest of the car is pretty trashed. If I paint it from the body line and go down I think it will be fine. And I'll re clear that area too.

 

Like 69 said if you have the moulding it will work only doing the bottom half, but I know you removed your mouldings so you are stuck. Sorry

Massey

 

It still has that body line though. And I didn't remove them. Mine never had it lol. Someone else ripped it off before I bought it I guess. So can I just go by the body line that is there? Will it work that way. Because I mean honestly, it's a pretty hard line

 

Since it's a hard line, yes you can. Look at your car right now, I see different hues of the same color. The curves and angles play tricks on the way it looks. And that indentation creates a nice shadowy transition spot.

 

That's what I thought too. I think I will be fine. I mean, look at the video I posted. It already looks a different color on either side of that body line.

 

One of the main reason I never like body work is because if you ask three bodymen the same question you will most likely get three different answers. It is critical you get the right process that works for you because if the customer does not like the work its back on you.

Since you most likely are going to have to buy quarts anyway you could just paint the areas that need paint and see how it comes out. You can always go back and blend and or repaint. Getting the repair and the prep work right is the important thing. No amount of painting will fix bad prep work. Talk to your grandfather if you are going to be learning from him it would best to get his input and follow that.

Check with your paint supply place they may have a hand help scanner that will get the color a lot closer then was possible back when I used to do this. Heck the new programs remove the metalic inorder to get an almost perfect color match.