I recently had my car painted by a body shop guy who was doing it on the side. We went round and round on color, and at the end I have no idea what color he used? Even if I can track him down, I'd be surprised if he remembers - my best hope is he still has one of the cans in his garage. If he does not have the code, what is the chance a body shop can match? The paint is bubbling adjacent to the door handle - I think it is rust coming through and should repair ASAP.

Here is the color. I think it is a VW color - but I am not sure?

It will never match perfectly. Even if you had the color code. A body shop should be able to match it since that's what they do all day, every day. The better the shop, the better the match. But there is no such thing as a perfect match, in my experience. The best you can hope for is damn close. If you do find the guy who painted it, ask him what paint line he used. You can get a better match if you use the same brand of paint and the same line from the brand.

If you can get a chip of the paint to the paint guy, they usually have a special digital analyzer that should be able to get the closest match, as said before, it won't be perfect, but it will be very close.
best of luck on that
Nick

You can take a small part like a headlight lid or the eyebrow just below it to
a automotive paint store. They should be able to match it pretty close. My
friend does this all the time when he has a panel repair. He would have
it matched even if he has the code. Most of the time it wouldn't match
because the way it was mixed or the color could have faded a little.

Yes you can match old paint perfectly.

Had a metallic burgundy car fixed in a body shop. Paint was faded and the guy matched the faded color perfectly and spraed the flake just like the faqctory job.

I accused him of having a can of "years" to add to the paint.

That being said, If you take a part off the car, you have a choice at the paint shop- go with the least faded color or match the faded color. There is your pigment match.

With metallics, getting the flake to line up and match just like the original paint is a whole different topic. Yes, the way the flake gets laid down will make a very noticeable difference and makes many people say paints can't be matched.

Ken

I did that with the V8 car.....the machine they use reads the paint....worked well except the car has a little green flake in it which wasn't picked up....I was only touching up the door jambs so it didn't matter much.

You are the exception to the rule. I would never ever ever expect a match as good as you are describing.