A kerb scrape down the wing, a car park dent, a panel that has drifted out of step with the rest of the colour, or metal that needs straightening before anything gets sprayed. We read your factory paint code, take a second reading off your own faded panel, and show you the test card before the gun comes out.
If there is an insurance claim attached to the damage, start on accident claims. That page walks through the report, the assessor and the paperwork, and it gets you moving faster than this one will.
The two meet in our bay anyway. Once the claim side is settled, the car still has to be measured, straightened, matched and sprayed, and that half of the work is what this page is about.
Paint damage turns up in three shapes. From two metres away they can look similar, but what has to happen under the surface is not the same job. Pick the one that matches your car.
Clearcoat scraped off a bumper corner, a ding from the lot next door, a line down the wing that catches your eye every time you walk up to the car. Once the paint cracks at the edge of a dent, water gets in behind the panel and starts working on it from the side you cannot see.
Send us a photo of it → 02Somebody matched it by eye, or sprayed the factory code straight without allowing for what the sun here has already done to the rest of your paint. Under workshop lighting it passes. Park outside next to the untouched panels and it announces itself.
Get the colour read again → 03Creased metal, a bumper sitting off its clips, a wing pushed back into the door gap. Paint is the last question here. The chassis gets measured first, because a panel pulled until it looks straight over a frame that is still out of true chews tyres and tugs the steering under braking.
Book a damage assessment →The panel is glossy, the colour reads close enough under the shop lights, and you drive off pleased. A season later the clearcoat gives up at a door edge, filler starts telegraphing through in afternoon sun, or rust that got sanded over quietly comes back through from behind. By then the shop has been paid and the argument is yours.
What decides all of that is work you never get to see. Old paint stripped instead of sprayed over. Bare metal sealed with anti-corrosion primer before any filler goes near it. Filler built up thin and in stages rather than trowelled on to save a day in the booth. And at the end, the booth time nobody enjoys paying for, which is the only thing standing between a bright new panel and one that dulls off inside a year.
So we photograph it as we go. Bare metal, primer, the test card held against your panel, the masking, the finished coat. You keep the log. If you want a second opinion later, or a claim comes back around, you are holding evidence rather than trying to remember what you were told. Our guide on how to read a workshop quote covers what a bodywork line should actually spell out.
A panel-by-panel walk-around with you at the car. Dent depth, how far a crease runs, whether the paint has cracked. On accident work the chassis gets measured for length, square and ride height before anything else is discussed.
Factory code read off your car’s identification plate in the door jamb, boot or under the bonnet, then a spectrophotometer reading taken on your existing panel so the mix accounts for real fade. The tinter blend is made up in-house to that reading and sprayed onto a test card. The card gets held against the panel beside the repair, outside in daylight, and only once it stops standing out does colour go on the car. Solid and metallic finishes are matched straight off that reading. Two-stage and three-stage pearls also get a let-down panel, because on a pearl the colour depends on how many midcoat passes go on, and that has to be proved on a card first.
Hammer-and-dolly where the metal can be saved, a replacement panel where beating is the wrong call. Sanded back to bare metal anywhere rust shows, then anti-corrosion primer before filler.
A downdraft booth with filtered air rather than an open bay, so dust stays out of wet paint. Edges and shutlines masked. Booth and gun cleaned between every car, which is what keeps one colour out of the next one.
Trim, badges and clips back on with new fasteners where the old ones will not hold. Panel gaps measured against the untouched side, doors, bonnet and boot opened and closed for the shutline check, lights realigned after a panel swap.
Machine compound and polish to bring the surface up, a wash and decontamination, then an inspection outside in daylight. You get before and after photos and a summary written in plain English.
Most respray quotes talk about the colour and stop there, because colour is the part a customer can check on the day. The other three are where jobs are won or quietly lost.
The factory code is a starting point rather than an answer. Two years of sun here and your car has already moved away from the code it was born with, so what gets mixed is built around what your bodywork reads today. Get this one wrong and the other three stop mattering, because it is the only failure a customer can spot from the kerb.
Old paint sanded back where it has to come off, bare metal sealed before anything else, filler applied thin and in stages so it cures properly instead of sinking later. None of this is visible once the colour goes on, which is exactly why it is the first thing a rushed job skips. It is also the half that decides whether you still like the panel next year.
Metal that is not stretched or torn usually comes back with hammer-and-dolly work. Metal that is creased through, or that has rust already working behind the damage, wants a panel instead. That call gets made with you looking at the same photographs we are, and we say which way we would go and why rather than presenting one option.
Basecoat, then two proper coats of clearcoat, heat-cured in the booth so the clearcoat hardens right through before it gets polished. Too thin and the panel has nothing standing between it and UV or stone chips. Too thick and it dries orange-peeled, uneven and prone to runs. Nobody here drops a coat to claw back twenty minutes.
Almost any shop will say yes to whatever you walk in asking for. The useful answer turns on how many panels carry damage and how hard your particular colour is to hold across a panel edge.
We tell you which one gives the cleaner result before you commit, and that includes the times the honest answer is that your panel does not need painting at all. If you are weighing us up against the agent, independent workshop versus authorised service centre lays out what actually changes between the two.
Cars reach us from Bedok, Ubi, Eunos and Paya Lebar without anyone having to cross the island for it. Send us a photo of the damage on WhatsApp and we will tell you whether it is a panel job or something wider before you bring the car down.
Not by eye, and not off the paint code on its own. The code puts us in the right family, an instrument reading off your own bodywork tells us how far the sun here has already dragged it from there, and the mix is built to that second number. On anything past a couple of years old, the code by itself is rarely close enough. The six stages further up this page set out the order it happens in.
That is what blending is for. Rather than stopping the new paint dead at the panel edge, we feather it a few inches into the neighbouring panel so the transition happens gradually and your eye never finds a line. On a car with some years on it, blending is the difference between a repair you forget about and a panel that looks suspiciously newer than everything around it. We blend as standard on any single-panel respray where the colour is not a straight factory-fresh match.
Beating a panel that should have been replaced is the cheap answer today and somebody’s complaint six months from now. Replacing a panel that could have been saved is just waste. So we look at whether the metal is stretched or torn, how deep the crease runs, and whether rust has already started behind the damage, and then we tell you which way we would go and what it means for the finish. The decision stays yours, with the photographs in front of you.
It depends how far in it has gone. Surface rust that has not eaten through gets sanded back to clean bare metal and sealed with anti-corrosion primer before any filler or colour, and that panel is fine afterwards. Rust that has gone through from the inside is a different conversation, because filler over holes is a cosmetic fix with a short life. That is usually where a panel replacement earns its keep.
Yes, and it goes on the invoice rather than being left as something we said. If the panel we sprayed reads as separate from the rest of the car in daylight, we rework it. In practice this comes up rarely, because the card is matched before we spray and the panel is checked outside before it gets polished and handed back.
Both, and which one suits depends on the car. OEM is the manufacturer’s own part, with the fit and finish that comes with it. OE-equivalent and good aftermarket panels sit well on most mainstream models and take a clean respray without complaint. Where the job is going through an insurance claim, the insurer often specifies the panel grade anyway. We tell you what is going on your car and why before we order it.
Body and paint work runs the same way across the makes we service. The panel gets assessed, the metal is either saved or swapped, the colour is read off your own car, and it all goes through the same booth. If you are not sure whether yours is one we take on, WhatsApp us the make and model before you drive down and we will say up front what we will and will not touch. That includes EVs. A BYD or a Tesla goes through the same booth as anything else.
No. Singapore’s competition regulator, the CCCS, has told authorised dealers to drop warranty terms that force you to repair only at their own workshops, so you can have your car repaired or repainted at any qualified independent workshop without giving up the manufacturer warranty, provided compatible parts are used and the manufacturer’s procedures are followed. Your photo log and written summary are the record that both happened. There is more detail in our piece on your servicing rights in Singapore.
Talk to us before you call the insurer if you can. We measure the chassis first and then walk the panels, and that tells us whether a proper repair is realistic or whether the assessor is likely to call it a write-off. Knowing our read before the assessor turns up puts you in a much better position for that conversation. The claim itself, the assessment and the coordination all live on our accident claims page.
Insurance claim, damage assessment and repair coordination. We deal with the assessor and the paperwork.
Learn more →Full general servicing at recommended intervals. Plain-English report every visit.
Learn more →Pad and rotor thickness measured in millimetres, calipers and fluid tested. Readings before parts.
Learn more →Knocking over humps, a floaty ride or uneven tyre wear. Checked on the lift and on a road test.
Learn more →Diagnostics, repairs and overhauls. We trace the real fault before quoting major work.
Learn more →Tyre fitting, alignment, balancing and battery load testing. Singapore heat kills batteries fast.
Learn more →Cooling coils, refrigerant pressure, cabin filter and air handling. Written report on every visit.
Learn more →24/7 islandwide towing for breakdowns and accidents. Direct line to a real driver.
Learn more →
What each line on a bodywork quote should spell out, and the wording that hides the real job.
What actually changes between the two once you look past the waiting-room coffee.
Why an independent shop can repaint your car without costing you the manufacturer warranty.
What we take on for electric cars, and where we tell you to go somewhere else.
Where an independent workshop can help, and what still has to go through the agent.