Am I seeing things?!?!?! Paint question.

[Mr. Dalvin]

Hey guys and gals,

Has anyone else noticed that the paint on the front and rear bumpers looks slightly different (darker?) than the rest of the body panels. Our car is painted CWP by the way. Is this just on CWP cars? Am I just seeing things? And if it is true, should I be as bothered by this as I am right now?

Is it because the bumpers are made from a plastic of some sort rather than the metal on the other body panels and so the paint looks a bit different? Let me know!

Cheers,

D

[yearoftherat]

Nope...I notice it on a few other mazda 3s also.

[MPS]

plastic bumper is correct

[dentinger]

mine is the same way.
and it bugs the crap outta me...

[Fuman]

mine is fine?

[MPS]

thats cus ur car is a dark color

[Kevin@nextmod]

just wash it often then you wo'nt have that problem. My original bumper is perfect. My speed bumper is off cause of the painter.

[Mr. Dalvin]

i do wash it often . . . at least once a week. when clean it is still noticeable, albeit, quite a bit less noticeable.

looks like i'm not the only one so that makes me feel a little bit better. i have to stop looking for it every time i see the car . . . cuz i know it's there. but i do it anyways and then it bothers me for the rest of the day. hmmm, should of went with a dark paint.

[Fuman]

thats cus ur car is a dark color

ive winning blue... its not that dark

[dentinger]

i find you only see it on sand mica, sunlight silver, and other light colours..

[WhiteSpeed3]

ya i had the same problem

i dont think my side moldings were even painted cwp to me they looked like the artic white from previous years no pearl at all

[garboui]

my body shop guy explained this to me a little while ago. this is a problem that happens with metallic colors or colors with suspended particles like pearl. what happens is that bumpers are usually painted off the car. and the body will be painted separately and most likely with the same paint. so where does the color variance come in? well it all has to do with environmental conditions. the humidity, temperature, rate of drying, etc. these variables all contribute to how the suspended particles in the paint sit as the paint dries. this is the same reason even on stock paint jobs bumpers look slightly darker/lighter and sometimes only in certain lights because even though the same paint is used they are painted at seperate places and times in the factory.

[Mr. Dalvin]

my body shop guy explained this to me a little while ago. this is a problem that happens with metallic colors or colors with suspended particles like pearl. what happens is that bumpers are usually painted off the car. and the body will be painted separately and most likely with the same paint. so where does the color variance come in? well it all has to do with environmental conditions. the humidity, temperature, rate of drying, etc. these variables all contribute to how the suspended particles in the paint sit as the paint dries. this is the same reason even on stock paint jobs bumpers look slightly darker/lighter and sometimes only in certain lights because even though the same paint is used they are painted at seperate places and times in the factory.

thanks for the explanation. at least that lends some insight in to "why" it happens. unfortunately, it's still a piss-off every time i notice it. i have to try NOT to notice . . . and that's almost impossible.

[garboui]

yeah it bugs me too, most light everything looks awesome but unfortunately under some lighting conditions my cars rear doors look a bit different.

this condition is very apparent on my parents odyssey van that i was driving when i was having my car fixed after my accident. i pulled up to the body shop to check the progress on my car and the first thing that was out of my body shop guys mouth was "did your dad have the bumper repainted?". it wasn't repainted but under the light at the time it looked one solid shade darker.

[Mr. Dalvin]

so now i think i'm obsessed with this. i'm pretty much looking at every Mazda 3 i can to see if the bumpers and side sills are a different colour than the other body panels. haha, oh man. i've got to stop this.

in any case, i can see differences on pretty much every white, grey, silver, or red 3 that i see. unfortunately, it's the most noticeable on white cars. hmmm, maybe i should've bought an electric blue or black mica . . . nah . . .