When I bought my 380 I noticed that in some light the body kit both front and back looked a slightly different shade of gold from the rest of the body. I had noticed this on some other 380s, but not exactly the shade I noticed strongly today when I parked it next to another 380 of the exact same colour I happened upon while at a shopping centre.

My car is pictured below on the left.
http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk82/djchozen91/twocar.jpg

Is this normal? Notice the shade of the body kit on the right 380 is more BROWNISH than the rest of the body while mine is more GREENISH. ???

I remember hearing something about MMAL having issues getting certain paints to match depending on the substrate. The same paint going over metal can sometimes appear different over plastic. It may be that your car was manufactured at a different time to the one next to it, and at each time they were trying different shades to get it to match.

Or the other guy had his bumper touched up by a crash repairer...

My rear bumper on my storm grey GT suffers with this. Panel beater told me the same story.

Mine is Stealth (black ) and same again ,the bumper looks a slightly different shade to the body ,its only on the rear bar though ,front seems fine .

The front bar on my ralliart was like this but it turned out it was resprayed.... Lol

I heard somewhere, don't quote me, but manufacturers use a different primer between metal and plastic and the paint comes up different on different primer compounds?

lol On every car the plastic bumpers etc from factory are a slighly different shade at the right angles. Plastic is a different substrate from the metal body and thus reacts differently. Giving you a lighter shade. Perfectly normal

One of the worst cars to have this is the VE commmodore lol

One of the worst cars to have this is the VE commmodore lol

Was just about to say that! By far is the silver! Looks like dark grey!

i have same with Molten red... and also just seen BMW X6 rear bumper being fixed... and the bumper bar is so shiny it looks weird... plastic and metal makes different shades i think

Was just about to say that! By far is the silver! Looks like dark grey!

I used to notice this all the time back at Holden - Brand new cars with clearly two different colours on the plastic and metal and it was considered to be normal.

Thanks for the replies guys. Very helpful and informative. :)

Id be tipping you purchased the car from a dealer and the dealer had scratches repaired by a touch up van 380s have a 3 layered pearl paint and touch up vans dont

It's common knowledge in the auto industry that bumpers and plastics are painted in a different area to the bodies, so that combined with the difference in materials will cause the paint to look different. If you want a really bad example of this go have a look at a late model mazda 2/3. You don't even need to be parked int he sun to notice the difference.

It's common knowledge in the auto industry that bumpers and plastics are painted in a different area to the bodies, so that combined with the difference in materials will cause the paint to look different. If you want a really bad example of this go have a look at a late model mazda 2/3. You don't even need to be parked int he sun to notice the difference.

That advice earned me a written warning when I was a client manager. I thought the customer should be aware, my manager thought differently.

However I think that something has happened to his bar and it has been repaired because if you look at the bar it is a green yellow and the one next to it is the more correct colour

Also brown don't fade to green

What do you mean by bar?

What do you mean by bar?

Ummmmm your bumper bar?

Ummmmm your bumper bar?

He said "if you look at the bar it is a green yellow". But anyway, it can't have been any damage that caused it because the front body kit is the exact same colour. Greenish yellow.

It's common knowledge in the auto industry that bumpers and plastics are painted in a different area to the bodies, so that combined with the difference in materials will cause the paint to look different. If you want a really bad example of this go have a look at a late model mazda 2/3. You don't even need to be parked int he sun to notice the difference. yes i know as i used to paint them . look at his photo you can see it isnt the same