Paint it Black. Or Red. Or Whatever you Want.

March 3, 2008 – 1:52 pm by Matt Radel
Filed under Car Care

Our neighbors to the north have launched a groovy new automotive paint supply site. We here at VB are set to throw in our two cents.

For 45 years Roberts Paint Care has been supplying automotive (and motorcycle AND watercraft) refinishing products to the masses, and they’ve just stepped up their game by launching a brand spankin’ new site. I have to say that in terms of content, visuals and functionality, it’s quite nice.

What’s Great
Overall the site is easy on the eyes, as it has a very nice professional feel. Everything is easy to find and is organized extremely well. The fit and finish just screams automotive, and is extremely welcoming to car buffs(the beautiful car imagery doesn’t hurt either).

The site is easy to use as well. They have a great color picker just underneath the top navigation that helps you find the right paint color for your car, right down to the year. Just choose the manufacturer, year and model and you’ll get nicely formed color results that match up to their available products. All prices are in Canadian dollars, so I’m assuming a there’s a conversion to U.S. dollars at checkout.

They also have a great section with how-to videos that take you step by step on how to fix things like chipped paint, cracks and even large dents. Each of the videos has an itemized list of materials used, all available for purchase from the site (of course). The videos are complemented by a fairly nice FAQ section as well, which offers the novice (like me) answers to typical questions like “Why sand?” and “What causes the paint to chip?”.

What Needs Some Work
There are very few areas that could use some improvement, but I have to jump on my web development soapbox for a second. Being a web designer by trade, I was a bit dismayed to peak under the hood and see a completely table based layout. I’d prefer to see the site created with clean (X)HTML & CSS, as well as tweaks made to make the site more accessible to disabled users. The site doesn’t print too well either (I know it’s picky, but some folks get really angry when a site doesn’t print well). I’d also link the logo to the homepage - lots of users (myself included) get in the habit of clicking the logo to get home as opposed to a home button.

U.S. users have to keep in mind that this is a Canadian site, and you’ll have to work around a couple of small barriers. As I mentioned before, all prices are listed in Canadian dollars, and it appears that you have to wait for the conversion at checkout. This is the nature of the beast of course (not their fault), but if they want to draw significant business from America, it might be in their best interest to have the price conversions more readily available.

Also, being a VW owning U.S. user, you might have a little difficulty finding your specific model for a specific year. Try finding a 2004 GTI for example. Again, this isn’t Roberts’ fault - just something to be aware of when using the site.

Check ‘em Out
All in all, aside from some minor development issues, Poberts Paint Care has a fantastic site. I’d highly recommend checking out if you need any refinishing supplies or just want to peruse some of the great resources. For their efforts I give them an enthusiastic tip of the cap (if there is such as thing).

Note: Volksbloggin does not receive any compensation from Roberts Paint Care or any other automotive supply distributor for our reviews. We just like to give folks a cyber high-five when deserved. :)