Bodyshop Colour Matching - reasonable expecations

[Rawhide]

Hi all. I don't normally tend to use body shops as I've been fortunate enough to not prang my cars, or the insurance has paid.

My wife decided to hit the bumper of my Honda CRZ whilst it was parked on the driveway. There was a scuff right through to the primer and it spoiled an otherwise mint car so I wanted to get it painted. The car is pearlescant white so I knew a match would be a bit challenging. I got three quotes. They ranged from 300 - 500 from memory. I agreed 300 with my local bodyshop who looks to be pretty large mainstream bodyshop and were quite professional in the engagement. In order to keep the price down I suggested I would remove the bumper and provide it loose. It was only about four screws so really not hard to do.

The bumper came back from the shop and the entire bumper was sprayed rather than a spot repair. The colour looked a bit too yellow when I saw it but I fitted to the car hoping it was just my imagination. However the colour is really not a good match. Looking at it flat, against the boot for example it doesn't look too bad, but as it's a large bumper and on the end of the car the pearl effect looks too dark and yellow compared to the car.

I decided to drop into the shop today to politely voice my concerns. They did agree that the colour was missmatched. However they told me that pearl is hard to match, and if they add more paint its likely to get more yellow. They've asked for the car to be booked in again so they can inspect and take advice from an expert or suchlike. I'll leave the bumper and car this time intact.

I should note - the bumper HAD been painted before but the match was really so good you could not tell. Only the fact the sensors were 'painted in' gave this away.

I did not discuss payment for any remediation but I wanted a sanity check here. Is it reasonable to expect a perfect match? I expect the bodyshops who bid higher knew this was a job they were not keen on, but in my book £300 is still a chunk of change to spray a loose bumper still.

Can anyone tell me what is reasonable here to expect?

Edited by Rawhide on Monday 17th January 21:06

[Sebring440]

Rawhide said:

I suggested I would remove the bumper and provide it loose.

There was your mistake.

How could they possibly colour match it if they only had the bumper?

[Davie]

Lowest bidder got the job and it was a loose part that was painted in its entirety... to be fair, I think you'd be struggling to get perfection with that combination more so as the original paint will have altered slightly with age and painting up to a panel line will always highlight any differences, even minor. A localised repair, blended into the existing paint on the bumper may have been a better option given the circumstances?

[Rawhide]

Davie said:

Lowest bidder got the job and it was a loose part that was painted in its entirety... to be fair, I think you'd be struggling to get perfection with that combination more so as the original paint will have altered slightly with age and painting up to a panel line will always highlight any differences, even minor. A localised repair, blended into the existing paint on the bumper may have been a better option given the circumstances?

Playing devils advocate is it not for the professional to advise this? The scuff was about the size of a £5 note so local repair would be fine for me. They knew it was pearl and inspected the car.

[paintman]

Bodyshops tend to be geared to painting large areas.

The size of the damage you now told us is SMART repair territory and a competent SMART repairer should have been able to deal with that.

[V8covin]

Pearl white is 3 stage so requires a larger area to blend into.
Not only that but it's notoriously hard to colour match.