Long story short, I have lots of scratches/scrapes/dings on my front and rear bumpers due to the incompetence of drivers in socal. I've been wanting to repair both for quite some time and went to a shop recommended by a friend. I've seen the guy's work on other cars and it looked wonderful so I decided to use him.

Unfortunately, the paint does not match and I can clearly see a line that separates new and old paint. He is being very amicable and says he will gladly take the car back and match it better. My question is this: I know Ivory Pearl is a real bitch, so will he able to blend the paint well enough or will the entire bumpers need painting to match acceptably?

I know IP changes even depending on the surface type its painted on (my plastic bumpers and skirts always seemed darker than the rest of the car, and they had never before been painted outside of the factory). If the color was just slightly off, perhaps I could accept the results, but the repaired/repainted areas are significantly lighter than the rest of the car. The mismatch is even more noticeable from a distance where the disparity in shade is obnoxious. Luckily, this guy is being honest and friendly, but I'm a bit skeptical that even if he does it again, it won't look like I want it to. I don't want to waste my time (the shop is an hour away from me and I need a vehicle for work) or his. Those with the knowledge and experience, what say you?

Maybe tomorrow I'll take some pictures of the affected area so you can get an idea.

 

Sometimes the ONLY way to perfectly match a color is to paint the surrounding areas and blend the color. It's far more costly though so people just try to get the color as close as possible and just live with it. It's not easy though because it's not just the color it's self, but the technique used to apply it which makes the colors LOOK different even though they aren't.

 

It's not only matching the color. You could have a perfect color match, but there are several reasons why the color will look differently on bumpers:

1. A color can vary depending on the substrate on which it is painted. For example, the
evaporation rate for solvent varies over metal or plastic. A longer rate gives a flake
pigment additional time to “float” and can darken the face of the color.

2. Light reflects differently on curved and flat surfaces causing the appearance of a color shift.

3. (as GT-ER mentioned) slight adjustments can be made during application creating a lighter or darker color, or causing the metallics or mica elements to lay down differently.

I have a decent amount of experience painting cars and motorcycles (just as a hobby), and it still happens that sometimes colors don't match. Since you're only having small portions of your bumpers painted, that makes it a lot harder to color match partially faded factory paint and then blend it, so give the guy the benefit of the doubt and let him take another crack at it. Painting just the bumpers shouldn't be more than an overnight job (2 days turnaround at most), especially because you just had them painted, so the prep work is minimal (just scuffing and cleaning). I would tell him that you'd like the whole bumper sprayed though, I think it'd be both easier for him and you if he does it that way because you'll have a full color match. Keep us posted on how it goes.

 

oops, triple post...

 

oops, triple post...