Frankie15

I recently got my front bumper and passenger fender repainted and I'm noticing the passenger fender looks substantially darker than the hood as it curves towards the hood. The painter is telling me this is normal for my paint color due to the curve and pitch of the fender. I find it unlikely the be normal since the passenger side doesn't have the same effect.

The car is going back to have the bumper redone due to some defects and also blend the driver fender into the bumper. I'm trying to have the passenger fender repainted due to it looking darker, but he insists this is normal. Can anyone else with metallic paint (preferably JSB) comment? Would greatly appreciate any input.

I really don't want to have to live with this if it is not normal. Thanks all!









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Dano523

Bad color match, and the painter did not take in account for the sun fading of the painted parts around the painted part to be replaced.

Frankie15

Do you think the bumper and fender are a bad color match all around or just the fender? I do agree both panels look a bit darker than my hood and passenger fender. The hood was blended too.

Spaceme1117

Bumper looks fine but the fender definitely does not.

airbrush1

JSB is a three stage paint, and can cause all sorts of issues with color match unfortunately. Without seeing the prior damage, I’d wager that it was likely to the pass side of the bumper and the “face” of the fender? When applying the paint, that slope down towards the hood can accumulate overspray of the tint used to cover the initial coats of basecoat (I’m assuming the fender wasn’t removed), and with a higher film thickness in that area it can darken the appearance of the paint. This is especially apparent when it butts up directly to your hood.

Couple possible fixes, but all involve more paintwork. The painter could panel paint that fender when redoing your bumper, and take more time to do the appropriate sprayouts to ensure a color match to the hood (may still be a bit off and unsatisfactory, and might introduce color match issues to the door). They could also blend into the hood, which likely is what SHOULD have been done in the first place, and would likely produce the best results overall.

I love my JSB, but as a painter and body guy it scares me 😂

Frankie15

The hood and the passenger door WERE blended as part of the paint work. Should've mentioned that.

My car was hit directly under the headlight on the passenger side causing both the bumper and fender to be damaged beyond simple repair.

The bumper and fender had to be replaced and they were painted off the car.

Here is a picture of the fender and hood under regular lighting.

airbrush1

Ok! Makes more sense now! Looks to me like they just got an extra coat or coat and half of the tintcoat on that portion of the fender. It would annoy the hell out of me, but I’ve seen much worse. That flop of color in different light is a blessing and a curse with three stage paints, as you’re now well aware

Frankie15

Could you see if you see a similar effect happening on either of your fenders if you take it out in the sun? If you could get a pic I would really appreciate it so much.

airbrush1

I’ll go look in a bit, but the car is currently filthy. I WILL say that the front bumper has been painted during previous ownership and it does match really well. This color shifts so much depending on the way the light hits it (two side profile photos taken at the same time from different sides and it’s totally different looking), that it’s hard to tell. Your direct lighting photo doesn’t look terrible to me, it MAY just be a trick of the lighting. All of the shadowed areas come up super dark in photos and in person.

Frankie15

Thanks! I'd really appreciate it. When you say direct lighting, are you saying the pics in my original post or the natural lighting in the pics a couple posts up? Thanks again!

I want to be sure it's not just an issue of the angle and lighting causing that dark shadow. If it's a problem with the paint, I want to push to have it rectified of course.

Let It Ride

I know when I had my torch red c6 (I know, not tri coat color but just talking about the process of color matching) fender and hood painted they were painted off the car also and not blended into anything else. My painter said he shot 6 different test panels of paint to match it to the rest of the car. He said every angle of light was taken into consideration when he was testing the 6 different colors and the car came out a dead match to the adjacent panels, orange peel and all which was also accounted for.

airbrush1

The Natural lighting. Went to pick up some pizza, and took a look. Couldn’t get a photo that showed it, but even outside in the sunlight (and with some pollen on it), there IS a noticeable dark shift on the fender where it meets the hood on both sides depending on what angle I’m looking from.

I’m sure I could find the right angle at a similar lighting that would duplicate your original photos, but it would occur on both fenders, not just one.

Frankie15

Thanks so much for taking a look! I wonder if it has something to do with the angle of where the light is coming from?

For example, look at my first pic and the very last pic in my original post. Now, the fender and the bumper were painted off the car (despite it being same day, paint, person etc). Notice how that darker color from the fender actually follows through to the bumper at the point where the bumper also has a curve, but less pronounced. Does it seem unlikely that this would be due to the paint not matching correctly if it happens on two panels at the exact same location/angle?

airbrush1

I’d bet it’s a tiny bit off, but now that you’ve noticed it, it’s jumping out at you. Try parking it the again but facing the opposite direction to see if your drivers fender shows a similar effect

Frankie15

Yeah, I'm going to try to see if I can get it to happen on the driver fender and/or both at the same time with different lighting. Thanks again so much for responding and taking a look. I really do appreciate it.

Klawp

You should 100% make them respray it if you're not happy with it, considering you have to live with it and it's going to bug you. Need to keep these companies accountable instead of them thinking they can get away with subpar craftsmanship. It's unacceptable! Here's one of my old cars I was baffled by when I got it back from the paint booth from a wreck. They had to repaint it twice on their dime and give me a rental out of their pocket.

VetteVinnie

This is the second JSB car I've owned (first was a 2010 ZR1) and I've always noticed that the color can shift depending on the light direction and whether or not it's in shade. One of your photos definitely seems a bit "off" to me. Here's my 2011 Grand Sport in direct sun with no filters from both angles for comparison.

Frankie15

Thanks so much for all the input everyone!

So I went out to grab some more pics. A lot of the time the hood and bumper/fender looks like a solid match (outside of when the shadow effect occurs). I was finally able to capture some examples where there's definitely a difference between the hood and driver fender (original paint) to the front bumper and passenger fender (new paint). I feel like this should be enough for him to do the respray of the fender as well.

Even the first pic (albeit not as noticeable) shows the passenger fender and bumper being slightly darker than the hood and driver fender. Definitely more obvious in the second and third pic.

Klawp

I don't really see a difference to be quite honest

VetteVinnie

I can definitely see it in this photo that the left fender and bumper are a slight shade darker than the hood and right fender. Bear in mind, though, that the lights you're under may reflect differently off the paint material. Is it fully cured? How long has it been since painted? I had a black 2003 Z06 that looked fine in daylight after being painted in some spots, but when put under halogen lights, the sections that were painted showed up purple. That was because the shop who painted it used a blue base in the black paint as opposed to the factory brown base. And that shop did offer to repaint it when I brought it up to them.

All these photos are scaring me a bit with respect to owning this color. But, then, my red Trans Am never matched perfectly after the nose was repainted. I can imagine that these specialty metallic colors are sometimes a nightmare to deal with. I'm sure it's the reason that JSB is an $850 premium paint code.