What are the odds?

[1986stangfan]

Hypothetically speaking what are the odds of purchasing a body panel from a vehicle with the same paint code and having it match your vehicle?

[5.4MarkVIII]

really depends on the color. high metallic can have a lot of variance, so would be close but may not be perfect. if your hypothetically talking about a yellow 2 door sports car. then it should be fine iirc wasn't many variances to that color, though that was a long long time ago.

[Ponyryd]

I’ve done it before with great results. The colour will always be a very, very close match due to it being the same paint code, only difference will be how weathered the paint is from the donor car, the the receiving car.
I use www.car-part.com

[Stephen06GT]

You should be okay, but there will always be a difference. Paint code stays the same, but suppliers can change. Lots can vary from one to the next. Think of it like a colour tolerance, you can be on the high side or low side and still be within spec.
http://p3s197.com/forums/index.php?attachments/fontana13-jpg.9305/

[Laffs]

I've done it before, wife backed in to a post and I swapped a new metallic silver bumper on her focus. No one could tell a difference.

Also on my Mustang I bought a 2001 Cobra hood in factory UA black, dropped it on my car and its a 95% match. Only in certain light can you see a slight difference which I attribute to my front end having been painted/blended when I added the Roush fascia.

My advice would be if you're going to do it, make sure it's a factory painted piece going to match up with other factory painted panels. Also try to keep the year range similar. Sometimes OEM changes the colour slightly while keeping code/name the same. So a 98 Yellow might not jive with a 2004 Yellow