Bumper respray issue

[Andres]

Hi everybody,

I'd like to hear some opinions about a front bumper that a shop resprayed.
I've got a stratus grey e86 and after the painting, it doesn't match anymore.
I heard good things about the painter, he said it's never gonna match without blending, which I knew, but I didn't expect that much of a difference.
Also, at certain angles its hard to tell whether it's different or not.
Am I being too picky about it?
I'll include some pictures.
Thanks

[lucasxdiniz]

Hi everybody,

I've got a stratus grey e86 and after the painting, it doesn't match anymore.
I heard good things about the painter, he said it's never gonna match without blending, which I knew, but I didn't expect that much of a difference.

Different cars have had different weather exposure and the paint ages differently, so you might get comments saying that their stratus grey bumper respray matches perfectly. But I agree with the painter, you need to blend it in so you don't see the difference.

I would judge the work by the quality of everything else as long as the paint match is reasonable.

[Penelope]

I have a Stratus Grey Coupe and have always imagined that it would be utterly impossible to match the colour. It looks so different depending on the angle you look at it. I imagine that the noses were painted separately pre-assembly so in theory it should be possible to match with the exact recipe from BMW but that won't take account of ageing. I think you'd have to have the bonnet and wings blended to make it less obvious...

[Ole gits rule]

Image 1, 2 and 4 look very different, I had an Elise resprayed due to chips and the first match was horrid, fair play the garage did not quibble and resprayed it, second time was much better.

Needs to be blended for 100% match but that does look startlingly different to me in the images, not certain that it should be that different

[GAZA62]

I agree with you OP i would be far from happy with that at all but as said above a blend is always going to be best but my previous car in my Avatar had her front bumper repainted a couple of times in my ownership due to an accident and stone chips and both times were bumper off no blending and the match was really good even though i was told that Silver is hard to match


The bodyshop that did the work did explain that you will get a difference of colour when looking at a car due to the way the light hits the surface so a rounded surface will look slightly different to a flat surface and i have heard that plastic parts can look different to metal due to plasticizers in the paint.

[Andres]

Thanks for your replies.
I really didn't want to spend more money, but it just bugs me that it's not matching
Guess I'll have to think about blending the front

[buzyg]

Clearly not a match. But that was likely to happen. When I had mine done 18 months ago I was told the same and had it blended.

[ihadablackdog]

My alpine white has had the front bumper sprayed at some point and initially I didn’t notice (blind) but when pointed out, it is definitely a different shade of white than the bonnet etc.

I’ve also been told about plastic bits looking different but I don’t understand it.

[Ole gits rule]

My alpine white has had the front bumper sprayed at some point and initially I didn’t notice (blind) but when pointed out, it is definitely a different shade of white than the bonnet etc.

I’ve also been told about plastic bits looking different but I don’t understand it.

Painted plastic can look slightly different to painted metal for certain, but that is a stark difference and I would be taking that back and asking for it to be done again, slight mismatch is one thing but that is clearly not correct

[Scooba_Steve]

Just look at the difference in washer jet covers, that's not a plastic vs metal difference.

[Andres]

Yeah I don't know why they didn't paint the washer covers, should've said something.
Had another look today whenever I had a chance and sometimes it looks almost matching, but at some angles it doesn't, its weird.
If anyone had something repainted, post a picture please, I'm just curious how close other painters can match these cars. Thanks

[Angelus666]

That's not even close, so in real life that must look even worse. It looks like they've just taken the paint code and mixed up the colour, but they should have also taken the paint reading from across the car and mixed it to get an accurate match.

[Bbs-chr]

Get them to have another go at it, even without blending they should be able to get it closer than that. It looks to me like the mix is completely wrong.

[Argyll Andy]

That's not even close, so in real life that must look even worse. It looks like they've just taken the paint code and mixed up the colour, but they should have also taken the paint reading from across the car and mixed it to get an accurate match.

That’s what happened when my Red 2006 E90 got damaged. It was the front bumper and I was dreading it because it was red and on plastic. When I went to pick the car up I was more than pleasantly surprised when I couldn’t see any colour difference.

I asked about it and he said it wasn’t very close to the original colour but after he’d taken all the paint readings the paint needed a fair bit of tweaking but it worked and the match is very good.

Don’t know if that’s more difficult with the colour/paint type on the OP’s car but red isn’t easy to match either and was managed

[True-Blue]

That’s unacceptable, there’s a reasonable tolerance without blending and that’s not within it