my starfire pearl bumper sustained a minor impact and was in the shop, longo lexus's own body shop to be more exact, for repair

after one week of wait, they gave me back a car with a bumper that does not totally match the body color. the bumper appears to be yellowish compared to the body paint

they claimed it's impossible to match pearl white color

is that true? i am rather frustrated now

 

impossible? nothing is impossible, it's about their skills. personally i don't really care if a body shop is from dealership or not, i only want a good shop

i would have recommended backyard creations, but i don't know if it's too late for you now. if you want backyard info let me know

 

As far as paint match, Starfire is a 3 stage pearl white color which is very difficult to match. The bodyshop is not telling you a lie. Paint on your bumper vs. sheetmetal will vary. You're painting on two totally different surfaces. Also a flex additive is usually added to flexible plastic parts like bumpers and trim, so the color will have a variance. It doesn't matter what body shop you take it to. They will always vary, even from the factory.

Were you @ Longo Collision in the drive area with your IS-F yesterday?

 

yes, how do you know? hahahah.

 

I was there and I saw an IS-F in the drive. I was there in a Silver IS-F w/no moonroof driving away from the service side.

 

dang man...didn't know you had a minor accident in your rear bumper...hope everything goes better with the collision repair service...but I guess your white is hard to match...I wonder if it is also hard to match on the ultrasonic blue mica...but not my car...*knock on wood*

 

i am not sure if i agree 100%. if there is already a panel to match the color, then it should be something doable, at least to the point of marginally noticeable. it might be hard, but doesn't mean impossible.

i understand metal vs plastic difference on bumper from factory, and from factory the color does vary sometimes. but still, a good body shop should have the ability to match the color, rather than just going to the shelf and pick the paint code and blindly mix the color

case in point, my sc430. from factory the bumper and body color was very close, though at angles you can see the difference. it was in accident so new bumper. when it came out, the bumper actually was so closely matched to the body, that when they tried to put back to rear tow hook cover (which still had the factory paint), we immediately see a clear color difference.

so that clearly shows the difference from just blindly using a paint code vs eye matching color. when i brought my car in, the guy immediately said that's going to be one hard color to match. he would NOT just use paint code coz' my car has been under sun, etc... so color is different already, and he would eye ball to match it

 

In a perfect world, you can get the paint on the bumper to match the fender or quarter panel. Usually it's just pure luck to get the color to match very close, but a trained eye will see the variation. Any professional painter can tell you this. I see this day in and day out. Bodyshops are given tint color time to match the paint as close as possible and tint it to match the existing.

 

I have an Aspen White Pearl Acura MDX, and difference between the body panels and the bumpers is very noticeable (bumpers with a yellow tint). Most lexus cars i've seen that are white though have a very close color match between body panels and bumpers.

 

Not impossible but very difficult. Its up in the air... it's not even about the painting. It's more about the mixing of paint and the material

 

^^ Yes. Not impossible, but very difficult. It takes time, and time is money.

 

I grew up as a self taught painter. I later painted professionally for a collision repair shop. My friend still owns the shop. From time to time, i will go in and paint. that being said, a perfect match in this case is nearly impossible, especially when you consider a 3 stage paint, coupled with a plastic bumper and a metal panel adjacent. One could paint the bumper and the fender with the same exact paint at the same exact time with the same spray gun, and believe it or not, there will be a variance between these two panels because of their different composition. I have seen it first hand. Now if you were to paint a metal fender and a metal door the same way, there should be no variance. Whites especially are hard to match these days. In the past, they were easy, today they are no gimme.

The insurance companies will figure blend time and tint time. If you were to paint an entire fender on a car and "blend" the door from front to back, then continue to clear the entire fender and the entire door, with no color going to the back edge of the front door, believe it or not, there will be a difference between the front door that had clear put on it and the rear door that is untouched. In theory a coat of clear should not have any effect on the color of the panel, but it does slightly affect the color.
Best advice, if you are worried about color match, get a black car!