Is this bodyshop having me on??

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Agent_Trig

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Recently had some repair work done which involved respray of bonnet, door and front bumper.

They sprayed the door and blown it into the rear quarter and it seems to be a very good match.

But where my front bumper curves round the side and meets the wing, I can see a difference in shade between the front bumper and wing (which had not been sprayed).

The new paint is a slight shade lighter than the old.

I just rang them up and they said to pop it in but mentioned that paint never matches from plastic to metal. Seems strange as it was a perfect match before it went in.

I have a Lava Grey A3 and not sure if this is a tricky one to match or not and would appreciate some advice on this before I take it in so that I'm armed with some facts incase they try to fob me off.

Cheers :)
 
should match in ok
what year is the car
 
Yeah this is normal. Some cars even come out of the factory with a slight mismatch between painted plastic and metal.

On yours, you've got 7 year old paint meeting brand new paint, there's bound to be a shade difference. My A3 was the same age as yours (Silver) and when I had the conversion done the shade difference was more noticeable where the rear bumper met the rear wing. Especially in certain light.
 
This will happen ive dropped my rear s line bumper and spoiler off for spray and they said it will never be the same match although the quality will be good the colour match wont be exact as my body paint is older than the fresh paint on the bumper only soloution os to respray the whole car but that would cost couple thousand £
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Nothing unusual.
Have a look at other similar cars.
 
Even painting the bumper wouldnt match for definate as mentioned above your painting on to different materials and as mentioned most cars not only audi/vw etc dont match when they leave the factory ,we have this problem all the time at work as people never notice before an accident but after when you have got fresh against old paint its even more noticeable
 
If they did the bonnet & bumper, they should of either painted the wing or blown into it, the professional approach would of been including the wing.
 
Thanks for all your comments guys - looks like this is acceptable then but I will ask them to blow into my wings to at least not make it so noticeable to me.

Like someone said, you probably wouldn't even notice hadn't I just had it done so I'm looking for a mismatch.
 
NHN said:
If they did the bonnet & bumper, they should of either painted the wing or blown into it, the professional approach would of been including the wing.
Click to expand...

Depends on the insurance company or if a cash job how far there wanting to go but this isnt normal practice for most and then again depending on the car,the paint and the colour
 
I am a sprayer and painting plastic or any other substrate should not change the final colour. They should be primed then a coloured high build primer put down then waterbase base coat then clear. The only reason you will get colour difference is if they have not put down enough coats of base coat or have been a bit heavey handed with one of the tinters when they have mixed the colour.
They should have blown the colour in to the other panels as this is needed for matallic paint as this paint can vary in shade depending on each painter and factors such as air pressure.
 
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phil76 said:
Depends on the insurance company or if a cash job how far there wanting to go but this isnt normal practice for most and then again depending on the car,the paint and the colour
Click to expand...

Any professional outfit would of blown into or painted the wing tbh given the front door, bumper & bonnet were painted, you would never leave a wing out in that scenario, as it will stick out like a sore thumb imho.
 
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NHN said:
Any professional outfit would of blown into or painted the wing tbh given the front door, bumper & bonnet were painted, you would never leave a wing out in that scenario, as it will stick out like a sore thumb imho.
Click to expand...

Sorry mate thats me not reading into it correctly,now seeing that they have painted the side and the front and missed the wing is stupidity ,as a reply to Heap i agree with some points but we have had parts painted from the factory on many occasions ie honda bumpers and honda bumper spoilers which come slightly different shades because they are made of different materials and there parts painted by robots,and insurance companys will normally back up the case that bumpers and panels wont often match .

But agree a lot of cases is down to the individual painter and the prep work
 
Stuff done by robots may vary as i think the bumpers are sprayed seperatly, but any decent human painter should be able to blend any panel no matter what substrate it is.
 
I'm not the only one then! My Avus is the same, I reckon it's had a bump and the bumper has been painted and not blended into the wings.

Everyone keeps saying I am too fussy but it severely gets on my nerves, so much so that i'm considering selling the car!!

Still going to take it to a few body shops and see if it can be fixed at a reasonable sum of money.
 
Most of them in certain colours have noticeably different colour bumpers. Got a friend who works at a VW/AUDI garage and they do get some complaints about it on new cars. My Dolphin Grey Sportback is like this as was my old Akoya Silver. Ironically when I had a rear bumper painted it was a better match than the original!

The difference is sometimes not noticeable but then very obvious in certain light. Perhaps it is the thinness of the factory paint means the shade can sometimes come out slightly differently.
 
I thought every audi has different colour bumpers as standard! Fairly common opinion, particualry on lighter colours where its easier to see.
 
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