LA5Y helios blue help

Hi, my car is almost ready to be painted and the body shop have asked for a paint code so they can source the paint. I've decided to go for helios blue but having looked around there seems to be a few different shades. I'd like to sample all of them before making a final decision but all I have is the LA5Y code to give the body shop. Does anyone know how I could go about getting different shades of the same colour code?.

I would of thought your painter would be able to do that for you to make it lighter or darker to suit exactly what you want.

Not the same but when I had my Honda Monkey restored about 15 years back we had a problem with the paint code.

It was for a modern single coat and not a two coat from 1973.
So all my guy did was to mix a drop we did a test spray, let it dry and keep on adjusting it till we got a perfect match.

It took about 5 or 6 goes before we got it right!    

Thanks for the reply golf cabrio. I forgot to mention in my post that we don't have any paint to go on as the car is in primer. I'm not sure how we would go about ordering whatever different shades of the colour there are to try them out?. Would it be a case of the bodyshop approaching their paint supplier and asking what variants there are?

That's odd - most body shops have a paint weighing machine and a book that tells then the weight of each base colour required. All the different shades of Helios Blue should be listed.


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That's basically what I was driving at but of course if you're painting it yourself you can only buy the paint and hope! 👍

Bodyshop just asked for the year of the car and paint code which made me think he was just going to order whatever his supplier had for that year. I've mentioned that there are a few shades available and I'd like to try them all before deciding and just waiting for him to get back to me. He didn't mention anything about having a book with different shades in it just that he'd order the standard colour and try that. 

Have a good look through this website, you should find somewhere a listing of all the paint codes.

Museum

I'm sure it's there somewhere but there's lots of good info on other stuff as well. 😀👍

That's a great resource thanks. Having looked through the paint section there is only one code mentioned for helios blue so I'm unsure where to go from here. If there is only one paint code I'm confused as to how you would go about selecting a different shade other than getting the paint shop to adjust it for you, in which case it's then a non standard colour.

You could go and ask your friendly VW paint shop if they have any info as to whether or not there are different shades of LA5Y or just simply go with the standard book one and have done with it.

After all you want to keep it standard I think!  

Well I think I'll have a chat with my friendly VW parts guy see if he can find out any more information. The car is heavily modified as it is so I'm not after any originality just whichever shade I prefer if there are different ones available. I'll report back once I find out anything.

Ok according to my VW parts guy there is only one helious blue which is LA5Y. He said if there was any other variant it would have a different paint code. Any difference in shade is down to how the paint is mixed which makes sense. 

I heard a guy over here going on about he had a Golf with a different Alpine White.

I had to explain to him there is only one with that paint code L90E which his is not, anything else is not Alpine White! 😀👍

Well it makes things more straight forwards fo me. I've just asked the bodyshop if he's ever heard of differing shades of the same colour due to year of manufacture and whether you can specify colour code and year or just colour code. I shall report back.