What is “paint 5” on the data card?

[psportoveloce]

I’ve seen several 2-digit codes on data cards next to “Paint 5” all starting with 7. Eg: 71, 75, 77. They don’t appear to be DB paint codes like DB040 etc. anyone know what paint 5 is? Paint 1 is clearly the main paint color and paint 2 (if present) is the color of the hardtop on convertible cars, I think.

[gerryvz]

What car(s) are you referring to? Can you post an example/examples? As far as I know, most all E500Es only had the paint code used in the "Paint 1" data field, as seen on my (attached) data card for my car.

Paint 2 would indicate a second body color, as a two-tone paint car. This was seen often in 1950s and 1960s MB models, such as the Pontons, Finnies, 114/115, and 108/109 models, where the lower body color was one color, and there was a second color for the A and C pillars, and roof.

It certainly could -- and did -- also indicate the color of the hard-top on R113 and R107 roadster models, if so ordered with a different hard-top color. This was actually quite common back in the day for the roadster models, but I think went out of fashion during the 1970s. I'm sure it could have applied to the R129, as well, though I don't know that many US-spec R129s were actually ordered with different-color hardtops.

In recent years, a lot of Maybach cars have shipped with two-tone paint from the factory.

Cheers,
Gerry

[gerryvz]

Earlier models' data cards (up to the W116; the W126 in 1981 started using the more "expanded" data card format that we use with our W124s) only had two places for paint color. These were marked "UT" (Unterteil -- body) and "OT" (Oberteil -- A/C pillars+roof or hardtop AND hubcaps, if applicable) and could have either the same paint code, or different codes if a two-tone car from the factory.

See attached data cards from Pagodas that show these data fields (field #7 in the illustrations below).

Two-tone paint:



Monotone paint:

[outrbnks]

I believe it's the lower cladding on E500E's.. see attached, a partial screen shot an excel file that came from gvz, see the 2 Lower Cladding columns, you'll find your 71xx codes there

[psportoveloce]

What car(s) are you referring to? Can you post an example/examples? As far as I know, most all E500Es only had the paint code used in the "Paint 1" data field, as seen on my (attached) data card for my car.

Paint 2 would indicate a second body color, as a two-tone paint car. This was seen often in 1950s and 1960s MB models, such as the Pontons, Finnies, 114/115, and 108/109 models, where the lower body color was one color, and there was a second color for the A and C pillars, and roof.

It certainly could -- and did -- also indicate the color of the hard-top on R113 and R107 roadster models, if so ordered with a different hard-top color. This was actually quite common back in the day for the roadster models, but I think went out of fashion during the 1970s. I'm sure it could have applied to the R129, as well, though I don't know that many US-spec R129s were actually ordered with different-color hardtops.

In recent years, a lot of Maybach cars have shipped with two-tone paint from the factory.

So the car I’m specifically asking about is my white 1991 R129 500SL. It doesn’t currently have lower cladding that is a different color and I would love to know if this is factory or whether it originally had light grey lowers like most other pre facelift R129s I have seen. It shows paint and and paint 2, both matching, and this is true of every other R129 I’ve decoded, monochrome or those with different lower cladding. Like W198s W113s, which I am most familiar with in terms of data cards from my work, the second code is almost certainly the hard top, although as you point out, I’ve never seen an R129 with a non-matching HT.

All cars I’ve decoded, 124.036, 201, R129 etc., show “paint 5” and even cars that are the same colors as one another have different 2 digit codes in the “paint 5” field. I’m trying to figure out what paint 5 and what the codes decide to, and why two two-tone white/light grey R129s would show different “paint 5” codes.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[gerryvz]

For the .036, in any case, the "old" MB EPC data cards do show a two-digit code in the "Paint 5" data field on the data card. In the case of my 1994 E500, this is a code "71"

For the MB ISPPI (the "new" EPC) and MB official VMI (Vehicle Master Inquiry) data cards, there is only a "Paint 1" code shown, and in the VMI the field for "Paint Upper" is left blank.

I do not believe there was ever any data in the "Paint 5" data field on my data card (which would have been pasted into the back cover of the Maintenance Booklet), either.

The lower cladding paint code for my car is "7700 Alto Gray" -- not 71, 71XX, etc.
I do not believe that this "Paint 5" data field is an indicator of lower cladding code.

Cheers,
Gerry

[gsxr]

Looks to me like "Paint 5" always matches the last 2 digits of the interior color code... this may not be coincidence.

[gerryvz]

Looks to me like "Paint 5" always matches the last 2 digits of the interior color code... this may not be coincidence.

I saw that on my own data cards as I looked at them this morning, but didn't look at others. Interesting, but given that the interior color already has its own data field in all data cards, I wonder why.