Facelift bumpers colour difference - does it affect you?

[ukanalyst]

I haven't noticed mine and forgot to look today but I was sat behind a new shape Fiesta and that had a deep black sparkly bumper while the body work was slightly less deep and non-sparkly black. I suspect as Harry said it's the plastic parts that show up differently.

Dave

[leeds vectra]

I think the main reason for these non matching bumpers could be that most car manufacturers now have the bumpers delivered from the suppliers painted and ready to go on the car. Even Jaguar at Halewood have bumpers delivered for the assembly line pre painted at the suppliers. This would point to why the bumpers are out slightly??

[Ian]

plastic also gives a different shade to metal, even though its from the same batch of paint. Mines okay, but in really bright sunlight the purple pearl stands out more on the bumper than the bonnet. Perhaps its cos theres a definate change between the bumper and the bonnet, whereas on the prefacelifts its more a gradual change of angle if you see what I mean?

[VauxVeteran]

It's the same on the older ones too, I put it down to the plastic vs metal thing, the paint is all the same shade, but the surface it's on determines the final shade to the eye.

[VectraV6CDTi]

Cant say I've noticed a difference with mine

[spoons]

Nope me neither, Mine seems OK to me..

I have noticed it on other Vectra facelifts though, especially lightening silver... always seem to notice it more on that colour

[greeningr]

Cannot say I've noticed on mine.

But it has been covered in Mud for the last month or so... just not worth washing it as no sooner washed it's muddy again!!

[leeds vectra]

Seems this is also an issue in Germany with the facelifts and Astra H's:-

http://translate.google.com/translat...language_tools

Page 1 need to be clicked on first!! It's defaulting to page 3 for some reason.

Paul.

[sig63]

Nice translation tool, but not yet perfect

My impression is that all new cars suffer from it and that is has something to do with the newer, less harmfull waterbased paints.
On mine (silver lightning) you sometimes see it very well and other moments you cannot see any difference in the paint; depends of the sun and the reflections.
Anyhow I gave up doubting about it and always better than the black bumpers/-parts

[sig63]

Have a look at this one (brand new and same color as mine):


as you can see the color match is ok, but the reflections on the plastic are different to the ones on the metal. My guess is that if you wax the plastic enough, the glance/shade will get better and the differences will minimize or disappear on darker cars (possibly a reason why certain members state that you can't notice it on there cars)
(nono, I don't work for meguiars )