Pearlescent Paint

I have had a very minor scrape on the nearside rear door where I didn't see a concrete planter tub at a crematorium. I have visited three local repair franchises and the reaction was surprising.

One said "sorry MG pearlescent paint (white or tri coat) I won't touch as its a nightmare to match" One said "We can try but its a nightmare and last time I did it I ended up re painting the while of that side of the car" last one said "its difficult but we can do it for £600" see picture.

Love the paint (was no cost option on my HS PHEV), but solid white is nearly as nice and so much easier to repair. Anyone else had similar experience ?

I think you just found three repairers with an equally low level of competence.

Most metallics will need some blending into adjacent panels in order to ensure there is a good colour match - depending on where the damage is. Pearlescent is a metallic with mica particles. Where your damage is situated presents a relatively straightforward repair. Any professional body shop will take that on without an issue - at a cost.
This could possibly also be achieved without blending the paint because the damage is adjacent to a black trim and there is a panel line where the base coat could be lost into. But it may also involve painting the other door - it’s hard to see. Some whites can be horrible to get right unless blended and can show up badly when not done properly.
I can‘t see fully from the pic, but I would probably just touch this in and live with it for now. The crease in the panel could be removed by a good dent technician and then touched up as an alternative to painting the panel and blending.
As a very rough cost estimate repair and full blending could be in the region of £500…

Very helpful thank you

I have a red tri-coat and managed quite a large area of minor damage on the n/s rear corner which required repainting. The repair did go up £50 (to £650) when he noticed the tri-coat but certainly to my untrained eye you can't tell the difference.

smokie said:

I have a red tri-coat and managed quite a large area of minor damage on the n/s rear corner which required repainting. The repair did go up £50 (to £650) when he noticed the tri-coat but certainly to my untrained eye you can't tell the difference.

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I had similar damage to mine, in the red paint and had the repair done on my drive for around £300, I think. If you are going to use a mobile repairer, communicating the paint code from the driver's door sticker will save delay as it's a special order for most...

but they had no problems colour matching and you can't see any evidence of the damage...

jackois said:

I had similar damage to mine, in the red paint and had the repair done on my drive for around £300, I think. If you are going to use a mobile repairer, communicating the paint code from the driver's door sticker will save delay as it's a special order for most...

but they had no problems colour matching and you can't see any evidence of the damage...

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Again very useful Jackois, can you share who you used?

It was Revive... I beleive it's a franchise operation, but the guy that did the work was local to Southampton. Very high tech with shade matching tech in the van... happy to recommend them...

Thank you