Duplicolor Spray Paint and Clear Coat Review

I had a part on my car that needed to be painted so instead of paying over $100 to get it painted at a shop, I decided to paint it myself.  I went to the local Autozone to get the paint.  I found a color that matched the closest; an exact match was not necessary for this part.  The can costs about $8 for 8 oz.

At home, I got everything set up and started painting it.  They recommend letting it dry between coats.  I found that it took a lot of coats to really get the paint to cover it.  I would say 7 to 10 coats or most of the cans worth.  Overall the color looked pretty close but it was a matte finish so it looked a lot different from the rest of the car which has a clear coat.

So the next week I decided I better go back to Autozone and get the clear coat.  I went with the same Duplicolor brand.  It was also about $8 like the paint.  So I followed the same procedure with the clear coat.  After about 7 coats it looked a little bit more shiny but not nearly as glossy or smooth as I was hoping.  After seeing these results, I wondering if the clear coat is just not very good or if you need a professional set up and paint to get that real clear gloss finish. 

Overall the paint was ok, but the clear coat was a let down.  For now I will leave the part as is, but it is still annoying that is does not match exactly.  I found out later that the Duplicolor clear coat did not get very good reviews online.  If you are thinking about painting your car, definitely do the research on the paint before hand.