kupe

Here is my drama: (the main question is at the bottom)
I received a high-velocity stone scratch on the front bumper
between the Honda emblem and the bonnet (hood).
It didn't cause any physical damage to the bumper but it
did remove the paint/primer back to black plastic.
Damage was about 4mm X 20mm. It also made a slight scratch
on the bonnet (hood) which can be buffed off.

Thinking, "Oh my good. This sucks", I then thought about
fixing it. I feathered it back around the edges with 2000 grit
wet & dry paper, and then thought... this is a job for the
professionals.

I stripped down the entire bumper, took it off. Then proceeded
down to a high quality car repair yard (which I've been dealing
with for 5 years). I gave them the car and bumper and said
mix/match and spray the bumper please.

Got the bumper back today and fitted it. Now, I'm one to
appreciate the skill and difficulty in matching metallic silver and
assumed it is possible. Well, suffice to say, the bumper just
doesn't look right. In 90% of different lights and 90% of angles
it's fine. But it's that last 10% which isn't right. In sunlight it
the color just doesn't flow from the guards and bonnet to
bumper.

I feel sick to my stomach. This car is brand new. Cost a fortune
(for me) and now I've destroyed it.

The spray shop uses Glazurit paints. It seems that the factory
paint has more blue in it and the Glazurit slightly more yellow.
I don't know. I'm not an expert. I just want to know what to do
now ?

The Question:
Has anyone got any recommendation on either (a) What paint
should I demand... to get it right ? (because I'm definately going
to have to fix it or sell the car - and some paint brands may be
perfect [What does Honda use at the factory?]) or
(b) Should I now cough up another $2000 and have the
whole front of the car completely resprayed?

any constructive advise is welcome

Regards,

-CK.

kupe

Interestingly enough, I was going to take a
couple of photo's of the bumper to bonnet/guards contrast
I was talking about, but stumbled across a photo of
a 2002 S2000 in another thread, which seems to have the
problem I just caused by having the bumper resprayed.
Check it out... the contrast between the front bumper and
bonnet (hood)

ianl

Hi Kupe

I fully sympathise with what you are going through - I have been there with my Silver Prelude, and I did end up getting about 1/2 the car re-sprayed to get a good match to my repaired rear bumper. As you allude to, silver is a sod of a colour to match.

However, during many conversations with my very patient body shop (in the UK) one thing they said was not only is silver tough to match panel - panel, but it is even more difficult if the panels are made of different materials (bumper plastic / bonnet, wings, Aluminum/steel. They have to add some sort of plasiciser to the paint which is used on plastic to make it more flexible/less brittle. This additive, though clear, can make a difference to paint tone - either immediately, or over time as the paint ages (take a look at a 3-5 year old yellow MX5/Miata if you get chance!) I was told that even new cars suffer from this - I thought they were having me on! But sure enough when my brand, spanking new Silverstone S2000 arrived I could see subtle colour differences in certain lights, particularly on the front bumper / bonnet/wing area - much as in the photo posted above.

Going back to my prelude - the paintshop finally achieved a brilliant match which even my over-fussy eye couldn't detect by blending bumper paint onto adjacent panels
.

Hope this helps a little

All the best
Ian

PS You must have serious rocks down there - 20mm, jeez!

lucid

I only use PPG paints whenever I do any spraying. From what I've noticed, shops that outsource their paints to jobbers instead of mixing it themselves produce better results.