Front bumper respray

mOdO

mOdO

mOdO

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After being left with a broken front bumper in tesco's, took a chance on a plastic non oem (£100) and had it painted (£250)

However, the colour is not 100% match. Garage said they would need to blend the wings and bonnet for an extra £150.

I could live with how it is as I don't want to spend more, but does bug me!

Picture does look a lot worse than real life.

What would you do?

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No way in hell I’d be living with that. I’d also have expected any job to paint and fit would have matched the car.
 
Looks like they used the wrong paint to me?

It’s common to not entirely match older cars as the paint fades a bit in the sun, but yours looks fairly new and the bumper is lighter rather than the other way around!
 
If they had to blend in the wings and bonnets surely they would then have to blend in the doors and all the way back on the rest of the car
 
That looks aweful. I had a similar problem with an old Fiesta - I think the colour codes for grey are notoriously garbage.

You need to take it to a body shop with a colour match tool, i.e. one that doesn't need the paint code.

Do not under any circumstances blow the wings in. It looks garbage. As I said, I'm very familiar with how bad this looks!!
 
was the paint they used off the shelf - or -did they mix it to a particular (pantone) recipe you can compare with original body colour. -
what was their process ?
 
jpaul said:
was the paint they used off the shelf - or -did they mix it to a particular (pantone) recipe you can compare with original body colour. -
what was their process ?
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Not the OP but they probably just took the paint code from the car. These are usually a poor way of determining the colour as there is far too much variation.
 
I also imagine OP took the bumper and it was sprayed separately to then be fitted at home.
 
You never get plastic bumpers to match the bodywork 100% (even from the factory they are usually slightly off) but it should be closer than that.

There can be loads of variations of the same colour depending on year, so it might not actually be the same colour. The car has to go in so it can be matched.
 
Thanks for all the replies.

I gave the car to them and it took 2 days.

The body shop bought the paint off the shelf.

Now, he was honest and said plastics do not match 100% and it did look off. I got the feeling he didn't want to repaint and wanted to blend in.

Now what should I do? Tell him to repaint and correct for free? What if he says no and wants to blend for the fee of £150.

I've already paid cash so I don't think a partial refund is on the cards.
 
TBH mate you are best off just sucking this one up to experience. He took the paint code which is what you're "supposed" to do, you have just got unlucky in that your paint code is goofed up. Like I said, it happens often on grey cars. And unless you are going to main dealer you don't really have any expectation for them to do anything better.

You now need to take it to a proper place that can spray it using a colour match using a machine.

Under no circumstances let him blow it in. He is just offering that because he likely doesn't have the tools or ability to mix his own paint, so that is the best he can offer.
 
Yep they will have just sprayed it to the paint code, which is basically what you told them to do.

You can give them the bumper, let them prep it all and then take the car in so they can get a reading from the bodywork. Then they alter the mix to get a "perfect" match.
 
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dLockers said:
TBH mate you are best off just sucking this one up to experience. He took the paint code which is what you're "supposed" to do, you have just got unlucky in that your paint code is goofed up. Like I said, it happens often on grey cars. And unless you are going to main dealer you don't really have any expectation for them to do anything better.

You now need to take it to a proper place that can spray it using a colour match using a machine.

Under no circumstances let him blow it in. He is just offering that because he likely doesn't have the tools or ability to mix his own paint, so that is the best he can offer.
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Fair enough.

It will take me a few days to make peace with it!

Thanks to everyone as I needed to get this off my chest!
 
A common mistake made on plastics is they do not use the proper primer so the base is poor to begin with (you need to use a specific plastics primer). Decent body shop will do a flawless job but also charge you about £500-750 that is the going rate nowadays per panel or bumper.

Take it to a main dealer they will get it looking better than this but still not 100% as no way to apply the same level of paint as the bodywork on plastic as it would take forever and needs week to dry between layers!
 
AWPC said:
A common mistake made on plastics is they do not use the proper primer so the base is poor to begin with (you need to use a specific plastics primer). Decent body shop will do a flawless job but also charge you about £500-750 that is the going rate nowadays per panel or bumper.

Take it to a main dealer they will get it looking better than this but still not 100% as no way to apply the same level of paint as the bodywork on plastic as it would take forever and needs week to dry between layers!
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Good to know!

Oem bumper from vw was £380.

Maybe I should have gone through insurance but didn't want the inflated premiums.
 
mOdO said:
Good to know!

Oem bumper from vw was £380.

Maybe I should have gone through insurance but didn't want the inflated premiums.
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Have you checked eBay? There are a handful I can see right now painted in grey, 'good condition'?
 
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