I just stumbled across this thread.
I recently had my 1997 Sahara repainted. Great shop. Nice paint job. Wrong color. I was so disappointed when I went to pick it up and saw that the shade of green it was painted wasn’t right. It was lighter and more silver than I remembered. The owner insisted that he used the paint that matched the paint code “PJN” provided on the door sticker. It was super awkward discussing it with him. I mean I didn’t want to be “that” person. The color was pretty and probably a lot of people wouldn’t know the difference so we paid the bill, picked up the Jeep, and went on our way. The days that followed were unsettling because every time I looked at it I knew the color wasn’t right. I also knew what would be involved for it to be repainted. I kept saying to myself I mean it’s not a Shelby going to auction it’s just a Jeep and the paint job probably cost more than the jeep is worth… But still the color was wrong, the paint guy said it was right but I knew it was wrong. To further confirm my thoughts I could see the difference inside the tailgate in certain areas that weren’t painted on the jeep. Granted, over time a paint color will change, but I figured it was unlikely that it the old paint would be darker than new paint of the same color. So I decided to go by my local Finishmaster shop and have a look at the paint cards. See attached photos of the Jeep in 2013 with the original color, a page from the original “Jeep Book brochure” showing the colors for 1997, a photo of the new paint job, the inside tailgate and hinge showing the contrast of the new and old paint, and the color cards from finishmaster against the front fender with the new paint job. I knew immediately which color was the correct one.
My understanding is that the color shade was tweaked over a few years of the TJ but they kept the color code the same. What the heck?
Anyway, to end this long story...I got a sample of the correct PJN color and sent the photos to the shop. They are going to repaint this month to match the sample. Stay tuned!
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