Satin finish

[Mike Sattelberg]

Has anyone painted there roadster in satin? I am considering a Lexus indigo blue in satin with dark gray stripes. Any pictures would be much appreciated!
Thanks!!

[Higgybulin]

Has anyone painted there roadster in satin? I am considering a Lexus indigo blue in satin with dark gray stripes. Any pictures would be much appreciated!
Thanks!!

This is base before clear but it gives you an idea of what it would look like. Pretty cool if your into that look.
Higgy
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[JohnK]

My personal opinion (not that you asked) is that the whole matte paint thing is pretty played out. If you wanted to hedge your bet a bit, you could have the car painted in a regular gloss finish and then (after waiting 3 months for the paint to cure) wrap the car in XPEL Stealth PPF. This will give you the satin look and if/when you get tired of it you just peel it off and you have a pristine gloss finish underneath. I've seen several cars here locally that have been wrapped in XPEL stealth and it looks really nice. The added benefit of PPF over matte or satin paint is that if you get a bird dropping or road grime spot on paint and you apply any sort of pressure at all trying to get it off, you'll accidentally rub a shiny spot into the paint and it will look terrible. I had a friend that had a matte black AMG G63 and it was always filthy because he was too afraid to wash it for fear of messing up the paint. In talking to our Mercedes/AMG dealer, they hated matte paint because of all the customer complaints, and they knew several customers that ended up having to have their cars resprayed.

Just my $0.02.

[Jeff Kleiner]

My Mk3 was satin black (with gloss black stripes added almost as an afterthought). When I initially did it way back in 2008 it was just a quickie to get on the road with the plan being to tear it down over the winter, tune up the bodywork and give it a real "adult" paint job. When I sold the car last year that had never happened---you know, the shoemaker's worn out shoes and all. I'll say this; SATIN FINISH IS A PAIN IN THE AZZ TO MAINTAIN!!!! If I lumped all the time I spent cleaning the thing up I would easily have had time to paint it. Every fingerprint, every spot of oil thrown up off of the highway, every time you lay your arm on the door top and leave sweat, every drop of water that isn't immediately wiped up...they all leave a mark. The only way to get rid of them is to wash the whole car. It's pretty much an all or nuthin' deal. You can't just hit the spot with detail spray because then you just have a larger spot. You can't wax it or buff it.



After a few years I got after it with a coarse Scotchbrite and scratched it all up into kind of a brushed finish. That was a little easier to maintain but still a pain.



I'm with John and feel like the matte/satin/flat thing is played out (I thought it was played out the year after I did mine) but if you like the look go for it! Just consider yourself forewarned

Cheers,
Jeff

[Mike Sattelberg]

Great responses and advise! I guess I will turn back to a gloss finish. Does anyone have a MK4 wrapped?

[JohnK]

I didn't have the whole thing wrapped, but I did have PPF installed on the nose, doors, spats and on the quarters behind the rear wheels. I didn't do the whole car in PPF mostly because I was too lazy to remove all the hood latches, windshield, trunk latch and light etc. I did remove the headlights, front turn signals and front quickjacks to do the nose. If I had the patience to paint the body and then let it sit for 3 months before assembling I would have considered PPF'ing the whole car.

[Jeff Kleiner]

...Does anyone have a MK4 wrapped?

I've seen a few that have been wrapped. At anything closer than 10 feet you won't mistake wrap for paint because of the seams and the material lacks the same gloss or depth as paint. If you aren't aware, if you're going to wrap it all of the same bodywork still needs to be done and the body has to have a smooth non-porous finish; i.e., not primer.

Jeff

[MVRight]

Depends on what you like. I did satin with gloss, candy stripes. Used Chemical Guys Carbon ceramic coating, satin wash, and satin detail spray. Yeah a bit extra work, but think the ceramic coating minimizes the hand and arm print issues.
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