Advice on blending panels

[Ian9999]

Hi

Im hoping you can all help with your experiance and advice. I have a black mercedes that I damaged the rear bumper which meant i had to replace it.

The bodyshop doing the repair suggested i buy a new bumper from mercesdes to replace it. I agreed and he bought the bumper and then resprayed it

When i picked the car up it looked ok, however a couple of months later and after the sun started to come out more i noticed the rear bumber did not look the same texture and colour as the rear quarter panel

Ive taken it back to the bodyshop who has agreed to respray it, however said I needed to fade it in (which he did not do first time and did not charge me for) to the quarter panels. I agreed to pay for the fading work.

He has the car now and has now said that instead of painting the rear quarter panels to fade it (which is what I assumed he would do), he will rub the quarter panels down and reapply the clear coat. He says this will make it match the bumber

As someone who has no experiance in this area I wanted to ask you helpful people if that is the right thing to do and if that is how you fade in when repraying the rear bumber only.

I also had the car detailed and so i am assuming he will mess that up also by rubbing down the rear quarter panels and reapplying the clear coat?

Appreciate it if you can all tell me if what he is proposing is right and i am unecessarily worrying or whether he is doing it all wrong.

Thanks in advance

[bigmacca1]

You will find a lot of plastic bumpers on cars looking a different shade even fresh from the manufacture's as the process for painting plastic parts is different for painting metal panels.

[Trackdayer]

I'd take one of two routes here:

If the car is worth a lot (say over £10k) I'd get it painted somewhere that does high quality work and pay a little more.

If the car isn't worth a lot, I'd live with the mismatch in colour and just enjoy it / use it as it is.

[Krikkit]

I'd let the bodyshop have another go, it must be very difficult for them to judge just how much work to quote for - too much and you'll never get the job, to little and people complain later.

[Turbotechnic]

As a panel beater and painter myself he doesn’t fill me with confidence. I’ve never seen or heard of painters just clear coating adjacent panels without blending the basecoat. Was he cheap by any chance?

[Ian9999]

Hi

Thanks for all your replies

He wanst cheap and actully probably higher cost than other places. I went there based on reviews and he had a few other high end cars he was doing - however i am now doubting those reviews.

I also didnt think just rubbing the top coat off and reapplying sounded like it would blend in

[Turbotechnic]

Ian9999 said:

Hi

Thanks for all your replies

He wanst cheap and actully probably higher cost than other places. I went there based on reviews and he had a few other high end cars he was doing - however i am now doubting those reviews.

I also didnt think just rubbing the top coat off and reapplying sounded like it would blend in

Let him finish and see what you’re presented with. If you’re still not happy try for a refund or part refund and find someone else to redo it.

[E63eeeeee...]

Turbotechnic said:

Let him finish and see what you’re presented with. If you’re still not happy try for a refund or part refund and find someone else to redo it.

The only problem with this approach (and I'm not saying it's wrong, I'd usually try to let someone correct poor work especially if they're being reasonable about it) is if it doesn't work out any better, the next repair is heading towards repainting the back half of the car.

[E63eeeeee...]

Ian9999 said:

Hi

Thanks for all your replies

He wanst cheap and actully probably higher cost than other places. I went there based on reviews and he had a few other high end cars he was doing - however i am now doubting those reviews.

I also didnt think just rubbing the top coat off and reapplying sounded like it would blend in

It probably depends on whether it's the colour or the texture match that's off - I think you said it was texture earlier - so you might not gain much by adding more basecoat.

[steveo3002]

if youre going to repaint the back end of a car and take away its originality then at least dust on a bit of base coat to get the match right ( yeah even then it can look odd)

then you run the risk of masking edges , peeling clear in the future , blend lines at the roof join etc

i agree with the other poster , find a decent shop with the magic eye scanner thing and see if they can get an acceptable match by repainting just the bumper

[V8covin]

I did a Merc front bumper this week,a dark grey colour.
The paint was matched by spectrometer and then tinted by eye.Even then it didn't quite match the wings so I blended them which entails spraying some of the same basecoat I used on the bumper,just on the edges where it meets the bumper,and then clear coating the rest of the wings .
The match was then perfect.
I did that at no extra cost to the customer.
Your guy should be doing the same

However I would add you really should have noticed the colour mismatch when you collected the vehicle

Edited by V8covin on Saturday 4th September 18:25

[Ian9999]

Thanks all for your responses.

I agree, i should have noticed it when I picked it up, not sure why I didnt

I think ill let him have a go and see how it turns out. If it still looks bad i will take it somewhere

[Piersman2]

The problem with black cars particularly is that a paint match can look prefect in dull light. Put it in direct sunlight and the differences in paint and metallic flakes in the paint become immediately noticable.

I had a black RR L322 which looked perfect until I washed it in direct sunlight, then every panel down the driver's side was a different paint! I learned to ignore it.

[Ian9999]

Thanks Piersman

Thats exactley the problem i have. I had the work done around end of Jan when the light was dull. However in the summer and with direct light i can see the difference in metaloc flakes, colour , etc.

Ill see how his fix comes out

[V8covin]

Ian9999 said:

Thanks Piersman

Thats exactley the problem i have. I had the work done around end of Jan when the light was dull. However in the summer and with direct light i can see the difference in metaloc flakes, colour , etc.

Ill see how his fix comes out

That's why I check every colour outside in the sun or with a daylight lamp before painting,not always foolproof mind,they sometimes dry differently and colours can look totally different under fluorescent lights