Can anyone see that my passenger front door is a different color than my ranger ??

[Gary DuBois]

If you can see the color difference why do you think the color is different and whats your thoughts.

I paid for a carfax report and it showed no accidents. One of the owners in that rangers time did not report the damage or accident, collision.

My uncle my dads brother could see the difference and said it could of been maybe someone bumped a shopping cart into the door its hard to tell exactly lol

 

[Curious Hound]

It does look different in that photo. Could be some minor damage was repaired. Not everything gets reported to insurance or car fax. Only way to really fix it right is to get the whole truck painted. Not worth the trouble in my personal life.

 

[Gary DuBois]

It does look different in that photo. Could be some minor damage was repaired. Not everything gets reported to insurance or car fax. Only way to really fix it right is to get the whole truck painted. Not worth the trouble in my personal life.

How does it look different to you in that photo. What would the minor damage been maybe ? and how do you think they repaired it ? Why does every thing not get reported to insurance or car fax. I don't want to get my whole truck painted. I will let somone else do what they want with it someday when i sell that ranger.

 

[Shran]

There is no requirement to report to insurance or Carfax for minor stuff. If your deductible is $1000 and it costs $200 to fix something why would you not pay for it out of pocket?

Secondly... in that type of case... why should one private entity (body shop) be required to report to another private entity (Carfax)? That would be preferential treatment by law of a private company, I will take a hard pass on any law like that.

Third, as you now know, Carfax is not 100% accurate nor will it ever be for this reason. My F250 was rolled onto its roof (from what I can tell) and there was substantial damage but nobody reported it and it has a clean Carfax and a clean title, for example. Buyer beware has been the name of the game for used cars since they day they were invented.

 

[Curious Hound]

How does it look different to you in that photo.

It appears to be a slightly different shade if the same color. As if it had been repaired and repainted or possibly might even be whole replacement door. As vehicles age, the UV rays of the sun slowly fade the paint. Then, if a portion is repainted, that part is usually darker. Same if a door from a garage-kept vehicle is placed on a vehicle that has spent its whole life in the sun.

Granted, this is all guesswork based on one picture taken from one angle. Another picture from a different angle or in different lighting conditions may look totally different. So, we can’t say for certain that it is or is not different. We’re just guessing based on what we see in that photo.

 

[ekrampitzjr]

My Ranger had had the right front fender replaced at some point. That fender has a Chinese name instead of the Ford logo, as the left front fender has. Nothing about any accident affecting that part of the truck appears in the Carfax report.

The repair job was done well, by the way, and the paint matches. The accident must have happened when the truck was fairly new.

About the OP, respraying a door is common after repairing minor blemishes or dents in that door. That's probably what happened.

 

[djfllmn]

Yep. For sure repainted. Not much you can do now except get the whole truck painted or live with it. Silver is one of the hardest colors to blend

 

[pentode]

We bought a brand new Corolla off the lot that had one door resprayed. When I pointed it out to the dealer, they told us it had a fairly bad scratch during delivery and that's the way they decided to deal with it. I gather this isn't an extremely rare thing to happen.

 

[djfllmn]

We bought a brand new Corolla off the lot that had one door resprayed. When I pointed it out to the dealer, they told us it had a fairly bad scratch during delivery and that's the way they decided to deal with it. I gather this isn't an extremely rare thing to happen.

You would be surprised. The amount of damaged cars I saw roll in off the transport truck was shocking. If you look hard enough you could find something wrong with every single vehicle that came in

 

[djfllmn]

Gary. I mean this in the nicest way possible

Your truck is 23 years old, it’s not going to be perfect. No vehicle is perfect.

 

[Terrys87]

I knew of a body shop that bought bad wrecked cars that had not been reported as damaged. They fixed them and sold them as undamaged cars. It hurts resale if reported any repairs done. Not everyone will report their damage.

 

[Rick W]

If the rest of the truck is the original color, you could take that color code to a good paint store and they should be able to match the paint. A lot of the better paint stores also have an instrument that they could place on the fender and it will read the paint color and tell them the code.

If there is sun fading on the truck, a good paint store should still be able to match that color almost exactly. Then paint the door, but feather it onto the fender in front and the bed behind. If you’re not familiar with feathering, you spray the door solid, but then the guy doing the spray extends the spray over to the next panel, but he goes lighter and lighter as he gets away from the repaired panel. If the paint color is pretty close, it creates a fade instead of the sharp edge of the door, and in a lot of cases, the difference will disappear. I would not recommend getting a spray gun and just trying it if you haven’t done it, but it should be pretty easy to find somebody old School who’s done that kind of repair. I’m talking about a buddy with a gun, not a body shop..

My two cents, I hope it helps come to bed

 

[sgtsandman]

Silver is a very hard color to match, especially if it is a metalic paint. There could have been a door ding or the door got replaced and when the door got repainted, they got close but not perfect.

As far as carfax not having the information, normally that only happens if an accident has been reported and repaired through insurance. If a previous owner did or had the repair done on their own dime, it is highly unlikely such work would ever get reported.

Just like when I repaired my front bumper on the 2019. It would have cost me about as much to have the insurance take care of the repair as it would for me to repair it. So, why would I go through my insurance and have my premiums go up as a result?

Plus, it enabled me to upgrade the bumper to something better for about the same amount of money.

If I had gone through my insurance, I would have gotten the same bumper as I had before, assuming the auto body shop used factory parts. That doesn't always happen.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I’ve seen totaled vehicles with a “clean Carfax, one owner” that still had hidden frame damage. IMHO, Carfax isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

Properly painting and color matching is an art form. Most bodyshops do a lousy job, including the bodyshops at Ford dealers (and other dealers). You would think some of the best would work for a new car dealer since they would have to fix transport damage but not so much.

A slight color variation between panels isn’t necessarily an indicator of major damage. And if It’s confined to one panel, it was probably very minor damage. Honestly, I wouldn’t worry much about it.

 

[djfllmn]

I’ve seen totaled vehicles with a “clean Carfax, one owner” that still had hidden frame damage. IMHO, Carfax isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

Properly painting and color matching is an art form. Most bodyshops do a lousy job, including the bodyshops at Ford dealers (and other dealers). You would think some of the best would work for a new car dealer since they would have to fix transport damage but not so much.

A slight color variation between panels isn’t necessarily an indicator of major damage. And if It’s confined to one panel, it was probably very minor damage. Honestly, I wouldn’t worry much about it.

My body shop days, 2 of the first cars i learned to blend paint on was silver metallic and then tan metallic, talk about trial by fire