Last month’s newsletter addressed 3 stage paint challenges. This month we will tackle paint matching a plastic bumper to the metal body of the vehicle.
Most vehicles come from the factory with plastic bumper covers. If you take a minute to look at your vehicle in the sunlight, you will likely see a slight color difference. The difference in color between the plastic bumper and metal body is due to finely ground reflective metallic flakes. Depending on the light or angle at which you are looking at the vehicle, the color may look different. These metallic flakes lay differently on plastic than they do on metal. Once the bumper is attached to the vehicle the color match may look perfectly matched at one angle but different from different angles you see color variances.
When a panel like a door or fender on a vehicle is replaced, it is industry standard to blend the adjacent panels. Blending involves painting the adjacent panel in such a way as to taper off the color beginning at the adjacent edge until it blends with the existing paint. In view of the fact that bumpers are not a perfect match to begin with, it is not industry standard to blend into the fenders. A slight variation is acceptable.
Consumers are often unaware of color variation between the bumper and adjacent metal until they are in need of a bumper replacement. To insure customer satisfaction, our estimators point out that the damaged bumper color variance exists from the factory.
Our I-CAR certified painter and paint team uses industry approved processes and high quality paint products to insure your color match satisfaction.
