I have a winning blue (27B)

I scratched both bumpers.
The rear bumper because it had a dent as well I decided to take it to the dealer (they keep their own body shop). The work performed is excellent. The dent is not seen at all and the paint i could say that is about 98% to the rest of the car.

The front bumper now because it was a minor scratch i took it to a body shop a friend suggested. The bumper was taken off and painted. however, the colour is not matching the rest of the car. Under certain conditions it looks darker and sometimes looks lighter.
I hope you get my point!

Is it the paint (brand/mixture) or the way it was painted?

Another point... my roof rails has two paints on them. At the very ends of them the colour is different (much lighter). If you see the rails from one foot distance you don't mention anything at all.
Is yours the same?

 

yes repaints will do that. it is unlikely that it will match perfectly after a repait. unless you repaint the WHOLE car. only if youre REALLY REALLY lucky your body shop will be able to match it perfectly. just leave it. theres nothing you can do.

 

So what it makes the difference:

--The paint as is??

OR

The painter? ?

Thanks!!

 

The paint is pretty consistent these days, provided of course high quality and a computer match. But the application variables are many. Temperature, humidity, spray equipment quality/setting, curing time and/or bake and the painter's application skill.

 

i think another reason why the paint on your bumper doesnt look like it match is because they didnt blend the paint to another panel of your car. it would be almost impossible to tell if they did...well of course it also depends on the painter.

 

u should not be ok with it - u should not leave it - u paid and they did shoddy work - I have had parts repainted - it matches perfect - they need to redo it.....

ru

 

What? Dont listen to this guy he has no idea what he is talking about!

 

This is very true you have the right to bring that car back 100 times until you are happy with the job!

 

First what you are seeing is called a FLOP, when light hits the metallic in different directions it can give off different shades of your color. (silver is one that usually has this problem the most!)Maybe from head on its darker and from an angle its lighter. This is the fault of the painter. I have had to repaint many bumpers myself until I could get the color just right. Some colors are harder than others. All cars are slightly different shades depending on what factory they were painted in. there could be 100 winning blues and each one be slightly different shade! When a painter mixes paint he normally uses the computers formula, although because there are so many different winning blues out there.. there will be many different formulas.. Your painter chose the wrong formula. sometimes even the formulas provided are not correct and I have to start changing the color by hand. This means add a little black or white to make it darker or lighter etc. If your painter is incompatent wich many are... you can get a prophet taken by your local auto body paint store, a prophet is a machine that takes a photograph of you paint and the computer comes up with the formula.
The best way to get a perfect match is to blend the color into the hood and fenders, although a good painter can match any color almost perfect by hand!!!

 

This is how that works, paint is usually a 2 stage process, basecoat(color), and clearcoat. Sometimes parts of your car are painted in different factories and then assembled in another. the base coat sometimes doesnt match, for example bumpers and other plastic pieces are usually painted in a different factory than metal pieces. It is very rare to see even on a brand new car have a perfect color match on bumpers and such. Another thing you have to realize is mazda is a cheap company, yup. Many of these cheaper companys are trying to save money, mitsubishi is really bad, chevy, kia,hyundai etc. by applying just a little less paint on each car they save millions. what you are seeing is not enough paint coverage. There are many spots on your car like this you just never noticed, under trunk, under hood, bottoms of bumpers, door jams and more. The sad thing is that car companys like bmw, and mercadez dont do this because they pride themselves to much on quality craftsmanship. mazda cuts corners in order to save money, which makes the car les expensive, which makes sales go up, which makes them more money, weird huh! I you are relly unhappy with the color of the drip rails a body will paint them for you.

 

Get a custom repaint. Or, keep going back in there and bitching about it until they get it right. Which they should! It is their job and you should take nothing less than what you fully expect. I have gone back to a bodyshop almost five times in two weeks to make sure they got little details that they missed corrected.

 

I ve had a talk with a performance shop and they told me that they know a paint shop that the guy there could do a 100% paint match with just his eyes. It sound to me very weird but the guy insisted that i can get it there the car and see my self.
The thing is that my front bumper has the best finish i ve seen on a repainted part. I think i will go to a paint shop get the paint and go back to the painter withit :P

Anyway... Thanks for you feedback

 

Yes, matching a color by hand mixing is what you mean.. I do this all the time. You have to be a very good painter to do this, and there are very few. If he can match the color by hand I would want HIM repainting my bumper not the shop that screwed it up the first time.

 

colour on plastic/fibreglass bumpers will give you a diffrenet shade to the same colour applied on the metal surfaces.

the colour needs to be computer mixed first then match it to the existing colour by eyes.

spraying technique/spray gun/booth are important too.