Left (driver) front fender flare wheel arch question

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cperez

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Yesterday I got sideswiped by a large auto transport trailer that came through my neighborhood. The driver is also a car restorer and was great about taking care of the damage. Remarkably even though the impact tore off some metal and plastic/wiring pieces from his trailer, the Rover only sustained a small crack and cosmetic damage to the left front(driver’s side in the U.S.) plastic wheel arch.

The gentleman who hit me is willing to source and paint the part and then ship it to me. I trust him to do a good job because when he hit me he was about 200 yds away from his destination— a neighbor of mine who collects Shelby Mustangs that this person restores for him.

I’m pretty sure that the part will fit either an LR3 or an LR4 but is there any difference in the paintability of the LR3 part since it was not color matched to the body like the LR4 wheel arches?
 

ugmw177

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i believe the early lr3 ones were textured black and the last year model or so were smooth painted to match body color as wtih the LR4. You would need the smooth one for painting purposes
 

cperez

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Good advice, guys. The restorer has already ordered a batch of Santorini Black metallic and is aware of the surface texture difference in the parts now.
 

KKB1

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I had similar incident in a parking garage and took off my passenger side rear wheel arch moulding. The part arrived but the black isn't an exact match to the Santorini Black of my LR4. Is it fairly easy to have an autobody shop do the color match on the arch? I was going to get a full scratch and dent/ding service done as well. Would love to know how you folks handle color matching/painting for small exterior parts like this. Thanks!
 

itsaguything

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A paint shop.
UV fade is difficult to match. And when you do match it, the components will fade at different rates.
An old school professional paint shop has the experience.
 

cperez

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I was fortunate in that the person who hit me is a fellow car guy and a very experienced and meticulous restorer of Shelby GTs. This is to say that he felt badly and was motivated to do a nice job on my repair. However, he had no possible way of matching my fade since he doesn’t live locally and had no basis of comparison. In my case, my 2013 LR4 spent most of its life in a garage. It’s only the past 3+ yrs that it has been parked outside. Therefore I believe any fading is minimal. It was not something I was concerned about and to my eye the freshly painted part is a great if not perfect match with the rest of the body paint.
 

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