Or what many manufacturers do now is buy the bumpers pre-finished from a 3rd party. Good luck getting a match with that, it will never happen. If they were painted at the same facility even in different booths they would have a better chance of matching because they paint robots will be drawing from the same batch of paint.

Thanks for all the feedback! Feels good to know mine is not the only one with this issue. I guess knowing that will make it easier to live with. Just out of curiosity, which 370z color has the LEAST bumper matching problem?

Doesn't the paint fade slightly differently on the plastic vs metal parts?

Easy answer, black, then Red, then PG/blue

You would think with the kind of money we are dishing out for our Z, they can at least get the bumpers in the "ballpark" of a similar color as the rest of the car? Guess times have changed from how it use to be. As for having a dealer repaint it, my vehicle is still under warranty. Should they be obligated to repaint it, or will it be a big stretch asking them to do something like this?

It's a very, very long stretch. However, if you don't ask, you won't know for sure.

The reason the shades are different is that the bumpers, side skirts, etc are are plastic, while the hood, doors, etc are metal. The porousness of the plastic absorbs the base coat and primer differently than the metal. This causes the paint to settle and refract light slightly differently and gives the illusion of the colors being slightly off.

Not to mention the brilliant silver on the 370z is extremely difficult to match. I had to have my hood repainted and had to settle on having fenders blended, as matching the metallic silver was nearly impossible. Even with the blending of the paint, you can still barely see the color shift from panel to panel.

Also, as others pointed out, sometimes the plastic panels of the car are painted separately from the metal ones at the factory and can have very slight variances in paint color mixtures.

:tup:

Both of these reasons combined are why the color of our bumpers and side skirts don't match up with the rest of the pieces on the car.

It looks especially bad here, if you look at the right side fairing you can easily see the transition in paint colors, the bumper looking much brighter.

http://i833.photobucket.com/albums/z...230_122418.jpg

yep, i was implying that it was painted at a supplier's paint booth.

these paints need to be applied at the same time at the same booth to get full consistency.

op- if it bothers you so much, take it back to the dealer and ask what your options are. my bumpers match the rest of the paint quite well. the gas cap is slightly darker in some lighting.

I'll see if I can get something out of the dealer. My gas cap is perfect. I find it pretty unacceptable how inconsistent the Z's are with this issue from car to car. One car may not have any issue what so ever, and the next can look like two different colors from bumper to fairing.

not just the z. happens to other cars (non-nissans) too.

True but I don't think I've ever owned one this bad. I mean my 2002 SE-R sentra isn't close to as bad, it is a Vibrant Blue though so maybe it's easier to color match on the bumper? I would accept that maybe the sliver is just harder to color match but then see yours the same color and almost perfect color matching. Maybe my batch was the Sunday morning hangover batch?

:icon18: possibly. :icon17:

So I'm gonna take it into the stealership tomorrow and present the bumper issue. How should I go about being as persuasive as possible to convince them to re-spary her booty? Should I tell them the paint seems to be discoloring or just say straight up Nissan did a shitty job color matching the bumper? I guess what it will really come down to is how bad they feel the issue is, and then try to convince corporate to cover the re-spray under warranty.

EDIT: Also something to note, I did not purchase the car from this dealer, I recently purchased Buick GMC dealer further away from me, but since the vehicle is still under warranty it shouldn't matter whether I bought it from them or not, correct?