peteRr

I just recently got my car back from theautobody shop from a front end collision and it looks great. They repainted my fenders, hood and front bumper.

The thing is the front bumper seems lighter than the rest of the car in the sun.
Is it because the bumper is a different material than the hood/fenders that it comes out as a lighter color? Should I wait a few weeks to see if it comes darker? Ill try to get up pics asap. Thanks in advance

chairmnofthboard

paint does darken, but not that much.

plastic will be slightly a different shade, if they did not blend/fade the paint it will be noticable.

It is very difficult to match paint, just the way you use the gun will vary the paint tone.

bring it to the body shops attention, see if they can get it closer to your color and fade it into the doors.

S2kracka

Yeah definitely go back to the shop and ask them to redo it...your car is practically brand new, you should insist on perfectly matched paint. Can pre-painted bumpers be ordered from Honda?

pikkashoe

Paint on a bumper very very rarely ever matches paint on metal, its a different material and thus the paint looks different. You can clearly see this on any brand new audi or lexus in white, look at the bumpers, you will notice the difference right away if your looking for it.

darkknight1999

They does match... its the same batch but it will reflect differently due to the fact the bumper is plastic and the hood and fenders are metal. If you go to the dealer and look at a brand new off the truck S you'll see the same thing 99% of the time.

robs_silver_s2k

agree with the above seen it many times - esp with Silverstone silver

pikkashoe

The reason bumpers dont match metal is that flex additive is used on bumpers, this normally darkens the paint a tad bit, just enough to notice the difference.

2002S2K

It is not always true that the colors will match in all different kinds of lighting. It is called metamerism, it means that if they used different stock colors to get to the same end color, they have the potential to look different under different lighting. Basically if you add yellow and red to get orange, it could look different then just using a stock orange.

When color is matched it must be done using natural light, under the sun you will have the best chances of having a direct match that will not show the metameric diffferences in different lighting.

In this case, it could be the plastic vs. metal difference, but if they just painted the bumper and didn't feather it out, there probably will be a variation between the two.

darkknight1999

[QUOTE=2002S2K,Apr 16 2006, 06:59 PM] It is not always true that the colors will match in all different kinds of lighting.

2002S2K

Darkknight, I totally agree with you, the factory stuff does look different. His paint job didn't come from the factory, it was a redo...

Another great factory mismatch is the leather/vinyl combo on the seats, it will never be exact.