Steven79

Okay so I just got a 2010 tungsten pearl IS250.. to me its just plain ole silver..

What is the "pearl" part that i'm missing?? Ive seen other pearl paints and they shift in color. mine just looks silver lol.

Someone plz explain.

pli

iTrader: (1)

pearls are the sparkly things in your paint. if you go super close to the paint, youll notice it. its not like a flat silver.

CleverName

I had the same shocker. Thought I bought a used silver Lexus, till sunset. then I saw this!


The "Pearl" part is the iridescent coating over the base color.
It was so funny to me to learn this nearly two weeks after i bought the car!

Vince

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

A "special" shade silver lol

Kidding aside, their both right though

JoshIS408

iTrader: (11)

i thought it was a fancy name for silver LOL

All4sho350

iTrader: (7)

look deeply at the paint..it kinda sparkles

Steven79

I thought "sparkles" would just be classified as a Metallic paint..?

Pearls should "shift" in color/hue..

I guess Tungsten pearl shifts from light silver to medium silver lol.

RastaRacer

iTrader: (5)

+1, Tungsten almost sounds like the car should be green. to me at least

flowrider

iTrader: (9)

The "sparkly things" you speak of are in metallic paint, not a pearl. It is my belief that a pearl paint has a somewhat iridescent quality and will appear to change color in different lighting situations. As you can see by my sig. I have Mercury Metallic paint and my wife has Tungsten Pearl. They are pretty close in color when parked next to each other in the garage. My Metallic paint does indeed have metalflake, however I have yet to detect a shift in color spectrum from my wife's ES Maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.

Lou

spicaly

iTrader: (1)

i notice a slight blue on certain lighting

CleverName

It would be more accurate to have a paint specialist answer this question because Im only throwing out an educated guess, but I believe lowrideraz has hit it very close to the mark.
Metal flake is a Mylar or reflective silver flake embedded within the base color, with a clear coat sealer over the whole thing.
Pearl could be the same process but utilizing mica instead of Mylar (mica is semi clear, and can act as a prism, breaking the reflected light into various parts of the spectrum).
I suppose it would be possible to use the mica type material in the clear coat to achieve the same effect, but again, I'm not a painter, I'm just trying to give you a slightly clearer description of the difference between metal flake and pearlesent.
My car shows a golden , or almost pinkish hue in last afternoon sun, yet shaded light says it is a silver car.


Vince

svntwosix

iTrader: (3)

Yeah, what I noticed a lot is that my silver looks pink when the sun shines on it. That's the "pearl" part working it's magic. At first, I thought it was my eyes playing tricks on me. However, my friends agree that it looks pink at times. So like the GFM shifting to blue, the TPs shift to pink.

olp1069

Wow thanks for the explanation I always thought it was silver too. I probably have to drive around in different times of the day to see what our talking about.

509IS350

iTrader: (5)

Yes, tungsten pearl shifts color depending on lighting/surroundings. Its a slight change. I notice it more because I'm into detailing somewhat, no expert thou. In the sun, its a brilliant silver. In the afternoon or overcast it gets a little darker almost matte sometimes I think. Its harder to capture without an SLR camera. In person its pretty gloss, especially after a good polishing. I thought it was just plain old silver too lol.
Here's some straight from my Galaxy S3, no edits.
When the sun is setting:

Overcast:

Sunny:



Another angle:

iRyan

iTrader: (7)

yea it's there...also depends on how well you maintain your car paint...as in washing, wax, paint protector...the better you maintain it the better you will see it....I notice mine all the time...then again i wash my car twice a week...