I was working on touching up a few minor areas of my '04 graphite metallic XF. I couldn't find the aerosol spray available any where I looked, so I tried the Duplicolor touch up pen. Needless to say, that made it worse than before. Once the touched up areas dried, the areas looked at least two shades lighter than the rest of the car. So, after a lot of research I found that at some point Honda adopted the color and call it "Graphite Grey Metalic". I've completed one of the areas on the XF and it is an exact match with the rest of the car.
The Duplicolor part number is BHA0928

Also, I found that the 3M headlight restoration kit worked excelent when removing the orange peel between clear coats and final polishing of the small area.

 

Be careful when recommending touch up paint, because there are at least 4 variants of this color in existence just for Chrysler. When we were painting a few areas on my car, my painter brought over 4 samples straight from his paint book and it was amazing how much variation in color and flake there were.

Always try a small spot or something no one will see (like a door jamb) before doing any larger touch ups.

 

Yeah, I agree with you there. It seems that Chrysler varied this color each year to some degree. A co-worker of mine has an '05 but the "same" color, but parked side by side his seems to be a bit lighter than mine. Which is partly why I specified the year of my XF.
Some people even suggested that the color was gunmetal grey, which is way off from being graphite.
I guess the problem I was having with the touch up pen was that there was far more metalic particles in it than there is on my XF.
Once I get the clear coat buffed, I'll post some pictures of the end result.

I'm also contemplating doing the center of the hood, the part that comes down to the center of the Chrysler emblem in chrome. Just to give the car a bit of a retro look without going crazy with it. But I haven't made up my mind on that yet.
Any thoughts / suggestions on that?

 

If I follow, you are talking about doing something like the center spine on the hood in the more metallic finish just to set it off in a subtle way?

I say go for it, but know that the results lie 100% in your prep work. If you want it to look as good as the paint on the car now, you are going to have to spend some serious time, if you know body work, and some serious money if you do not.

Good luck!!

 

My '07 Machine Gray Coupe has the 'strakes' on the hood 'pin-striped'. When I found it in KCMO, it was already like this. Sort of a mauve color. Actually looks good up close and the shade doesn't draw attention to it. And striping is painted on, looks like be a professional.

 

Hey Dedwards,
I just looked at the pictures of the XF in your profile.
Was all of that detail done by the prior owner?
The work that was done with exceptional taste.
Either way, the car looks awesome. Great shine on the paint as well.

 

Not sure what detail work you're referring to. As the car shows in those pics, I've done all the work to get it to look that way. Like I said before, the only exception is the pin-striping along the bottom of the hood strakes.

I'm kinda partial to the Machine Gray color. I got a dark-colored car without having to go all the way to black. And this thing just 'sparkles' in a high sky!!!

By the way, I've found this outfit (Automotive Touchup) to be about the best source for touch-up paints for all my vehicles. They do a really great job of correctly matching the shades. And I've been in discussion with Dr.ColorChip to get the exact match for the Machine Gray. I've used the Dr.ColorChip product on a couple of my other vehicles and the results are really amazing.

 

Update of my post.
I just finished buffing out the areas Saturday. I have to admit (possibly even eat a little crow) that even though the honda graphite gray metallic is a good match, it's not as close to perfect as I would like it to be. There's really no visible metallic fleck in comparison to the OEM.
I'm going to have to follow Dedward's lead on this one and give the Automotive Touch up site a try.
I did call the dealership part's department and gave them the last 9 digits of the VIN# and they were able to give me the correct color code within a few seconds.
Also. I checked every suggested area on and in the XF to locate the color code: door panels, side rails, underside of hood, behind glove box, under hatch carpet, wheel wells, and so on. Why MB and Chrysler decided to hide this from us is beyond me, maybe when I bring the car in for the next oil change I'll ask the tech at the dealership to point out the location of the tag. If he does locate it I'll post the location of it on here.

 

From directly above....

Some honda variant will not even be close. Go to a reputable body shop where they have the full catalog of colors and they can look up your code and literaly take the 4-5 variant samples out in the sun and compare to your car, that is the only way to find out what YOUR car really is.

It is a complex paint that is hard to put down, and with the number of variants, it makes it hard to even find the correct paint....