Resale of used taxis

What?! Where'd you find crack in this town?

What you saw was a cheap-ass paint job that only hit the exterior. Therre's no such thing as "a layer" of car paint. The car isn't covered with vinyl stickers, either.

Specifically, the paint is "Hell-Elfenbein" -- light ivory -- and the standardised colour number is RAL 1015. In RGB terms, that's FCEBCC (R-252, G-235, B-204). This page will let you see a bunch of RAL colours.

As far as dropping a hundred thou off the odometer, you gotta wonder why Europe allows electronic-only odometers when everyone knows they're much more easily tampered with than the physical, rotating wheeled type.

woof.

It's an old comment but Keydeck was right, here's a company that does just that. Zaphir Ltd.

Cheers for the link Allerhausen. I knew about this but wouldn't have had the German at the time to find a decent link.

Christ. He is now an expert on Taxi Painting. Do BD's talents know no limits? He already outed himself as a bit of a massage therapy expert yesterday. Must have got that whilst he was in the Navy or something

All cars typically have several layers of paint - many of them transparent, but they also have a base coat (which I think is usually a grey colour), and then a number of top coats in the car's actual colour, followed by a protective layer or two of transparent top-coat. Car paint shops are very expensive and complicated things indeed.

As for clocking, the rotating wheels and the digital odo's are all relatively easily tampered with - one requires knowledge of electronics, the other requires information of the mechanical system that makes the odo work.

Like Jimbo said:

Clearcoat x 2-5
------------------
Colorcoat x 3-5
------------------
Primercoat x 1-2
------------------
Metal/Plastic/CFK

The primer is application specific to ensure adhesion; etching metal, flexible for plastic, etc.

It is a complicated and expensive process. To have a car painted from metal to topcoat will cost at least US$5000 when done right (every layer has to be wet-sanded between coats). Show winning classic and exotic cars often have tens of thousands of dollars invested in the paint alone.

Of course new cars have the process done in bulk but it's the same idea and process.

Well non-metallic paints aren't covered by a clear coat, which is why they fade after a few years due to excessive exposure to sunlight (esp. red cars). If you polish them you'll see the actual color in the polishing cloth, i.e. you'll see they don't have a clear coat. Metallic paints are indeed covered by a clear coat, which is why they hardly fade over the years.

Not quite true Oli - even some solid paints have a clear coat applied over the top on modern cars - the MINI being one example.

Volkswagen do it too, 'cos on the last one I had it started to peel off and had to be resprayed!

Almost all modern cars come with a clearcoat regardless of the undercoat.

[img]http://media.popularmechanics.com/images/sb_9809AUSMD.gif[/img]

Most modern cars use a clearcoat paint system. The pigmented layer of paint, whether a solid color, metallic or pearlescent, is covered with a layer of clear paint to provide a higher gloss and a "deeper" look.