Colour Matching Problems

[SH20]

Removed front bumper recently on my 460 as part of a general refurbishment of a number of areas. I removed the sills and rear bumper and had them painted by the same body shop I have known for 20 years. Really good colour matches for both the sills and rear bumper. I handed them my front bumper which they painted but this time the colour was well off when I refitted the bumper especially where the bumper meets the front wings. It's Sienna Red Mica Metallic and as a retired Insurance Company Assessor I thought I had been lucky with the sills and rear bumper matching so well.

Took the car to the body shop after refitting the bumper and it was clear for all to see including the foreman painter the colour was off. Blending was something I was never going to allow as I've seen enough blended edges re appear after 6-12 months. Edge to edge painting is always a risk but when I asked if the colour coat was mixed and used immediately I was told they had mixed enough colour coat for all the parts they knew I wanted painting over 2 weeks and conceded that the last of the mixed base coat might have gone off sitting on their shelf.

The shop is going to re paint it but be aware that if the base colour coat of these modern water based paints is left to stand too long and not used immediately once mixed they can go off and the pigments can start to break down. The two pack lacquer top coat is rarely a problem which is a solvent based mix but if it's covering a base coat that stood too long the chances of a good match is poor. It's a pity given that the other parts were successfully matched. Some paint manufacturers who supply body shops with their mixing schemes may have a few variants of the base coats but in my case the mixing scheme they use only has the one variant of Sienna Red. It's a lot of work taking off and refitting panels and frustrating when your are in the hands of an individual with a spray gun in his hand. The body shop I use is a bonus based shop which is never good when painters need to beat the hours allocated to them by the work shop controller and can lead to short cuts being taken.

[Cotswold Pete]

Sounds like a real pain, and though I am not an insurance assessor, I like things to be as they should, and not look a little bit 'not quite right'.

Best of luck getting it sorted.