The reason I don't like the blend concept because if you ever put on a factory painted front bumper, now your hood and fenders don't match. You're basically stuck with that shop's odd ball silver color on multiple parts of your car.

 

^^^yeah pretty much

I think I'm going to have the sop respray to try to get it back to a closer color

 

That was my point. They are either using an off- brand product or not using the correct code. I've had work on a silver met Dodge, a red hyundai and my black z. I have NEVER seen someone make a decision off swatches. That right there tells me there is guess work on color that did not work out.

Could be wrong,I don't claim to be an expert. Something smells. I think your job is to evaluate whether you trust them to continue, and then you still have the rear work also.
If it were me, I would visit other shops for "Estimates" and let them arm you with info on how they would correct it. Free knowledge.

 

My buddy owns a paint shop and we looked at his computer that mixes paint. WV2 comes with 3-4 different tones. The least they can do is pull up each tone and compare to the existing paint. His colour swatches were spot on. Maybe they mixed up the swatches?

 

yeah we told the painter WV2 and he came out with 3-4 swatches. placed them on my car and then selected the one that he felt was the closest. On the car, the swatch looked good. On my car it looks completely different. Maybe they did end up choosing the wrong swatch who knows

so the shop is saying they can blend my hood for me. As nice as it is of them, I don't think this is the correct route. This isnt fixing the problem which is that my bumper is just a completely different shade of color.

And oh yeah I just realized, the shine lip was definitely no fitted and modified for my car.....because they told me not to leave my car there! it culdnt have been modified (heat to the fiberglass im assuming) if my car wasnt there for them to do it.

At this point Im thinking about asking them for a refund and I just move on to somewhere else. Is this reasonable for me to do? I've never had to ask a shop for a refund. It was a $700 job and I would think about asking for $600 or so back (since they did take the time to prep the pieces for paint)

 

oh and a question thats a offtopic

this new bumper since its longer, is causing me to scrape coming out of my driveway as there is a large dip coming out. I want to get a piece of plywood to lay over this dip so when I drove over it it wont scrape

how much thickness would I need to support the weight of a car driving over it? 3/4 inch? 1 inch?

 

i would get like a 2x8 and angle the edges to whatever degree you need to make the gap not as bad..... then you wouldn't ever have to worry about it breaking..... just my thoughts

 

Plywood isn't the best choice, ever see when it gets wet?

 

okay so i just got back from the shop to try to work something out

they are vehement that repainting the front bumper isnt the best solution and that blending the hood will be the best option. I'm just hesitant cause I'm not sure I want to blend a completely different shade of color than the rest of my car.

So I said I would consider just blending the hood if we can work something out with blending the fenders. With this he said he doesnt think fender blending is a good idea because he would have to blend the front part of the fender and then re-clear the entire panel which might cause color differences with the door....is this true?? How does clear coat change the color of the rest of the fender?

He said another possible thing they could do is blend 6 inches into the fender, and then clear cloat that 6 inches, plus another few inches beyond it. The issue with this is that the clear coat might fade faster this way (the point where the new clear meets the old clear may fade faster he means). Is this true??

 

Internet where I am sucks. So I didn't see the bumper till now. That shade of bumper looks a little more silver. Looks like my shade of wv2. I had something else painted a few years ago that was wrong and looked like the shade of your car, a bit darker tone.

That being said if they blend it it will look better but if you still want to try a different tone...tell them to paint some other body piece and see if you like it (if they can do it for you).

Also when my body shop painter friend looks at the swatches he pulls out a high intensity lamp when he does the compare. Because if it's cloudy outside or something it's harder to tell. When I get him to paint stuff I give him an original body piece to compare.

I don't know much about blending so I can't really comment on that but suffice it to say I've had several pieces painted without blending and it's like 90% there. Blending I'm told a closer shade is just icing on the cake (due to the original Color fade, and differences in clear)

 

they are trying to cheap out... have them fix their eff up... end of story. swatches are not oem colors

 

Dont let them "blend" your hood. Then your hood and front bumper will look like they came off someone elses car.

 

Dont blend. It will look like crap from the side when you will look at the fenders and door. My brother got a cheap paint job for his integra and they did that. Very noticable in direct sunlight. Not bad for $500 to paint the entire front on an older car, but I would never consider this with my Z. I will see if I have pics of his car to show you.

 

It is tough to tell in the pics, but look at the fenders closely, you can see the shade change. It is much more noticeable in person

 

I've done auto body and paint in the past, simple if your trained in it.

 

Just as an update

the body shop told me that they went ahead and blended the hood, as well as both fenders.

I'm a little skeptical if they even did for the blending though. If they did, the color transition should be 100% seamless right? In my opinion, the shade of color DOES look a little better, but it's not as seamless as I thought it'd be for blending. I still see a difference between my bumper and hood/fenders

I had quite a few rock chips on my hood prior to bringing it in. Now about 90% of them are gone....this should be a telltale sign that they DID indeed blend/repaint my hood right?

Also, I had a scrape/dent and paint crack on my driver side fender. The scrape is no longer there, but the dent still is. And there is still a paint crack there.....is it possible that they just buffed the scrape off but didn't repaint hence the small crack is still there?

 

Any good body should have paint cards for every paint code... Meaning 1 paint code can still have 15 different shades. Ur shop is a joke and should repaint it on employee error. I'm an autobody tech n that's so off its kinda gross. How much did u pay? Along with the rear kit...They should have sanded some of the kit to get the right gaps. Looks like a macco paint job.

 

And for ur fender. A cracked is usually from the bondo filler. If u want it properly fixed u have to grind it to bare metal. There no way of just filling the cracks since its is already cracked right to the metal. If they hack it and just fi the cracks. . And it bends again.. it'll cracked.

 

^^okay gotcha. But I should have no reason to believe that they DIDNT blend the color right? Because I still see a difference btwn my bumper and the fender/hood

I was just trying to gauge whether or not they lied about blending the color

cause it does appear that the fender and hood have been worked on. but then why isn't the paint match 100%. Or am I confusing it with the light reflection? Certain angles it appears the hood and bumper is 90% close, whereas other angles (in direct sunlight) the hood look muchhh darker

 

If they blended it properly it's supposed to fade into the next panel. Im sure the took off the bumper and sprayed it off the car which is why I don't think it's been blended. It would also cost them money if they properly blended it cuz they would have to blend the hood and fenders.