Why are my Grey Plastics lighter?

[givememorepower]

I've just had my front bumper de-badged and smoothed, but although the paint shop used my Vin for the colour code, it looks lighter than the rest of my car in certain light?

 

Looking more carefully at my car, the side skirts and rear bumper and petrol cap and spoiler all look slightly lighter, more silver than grey?

 

Anyone have a reasonable answer to this? Other than the front bumper nothing else has ever been painted on my car, so I wondered if a different finish is achieved on plastics as opposed to metal??

[marzman]

I think everyone's zed looks slightly different at the front bumper vs bonnet. However, one explanation could be that the wrong shade has been used. For example, when i got the duct and my eyelids sprayed, the paint shop said there were 4 different mixes for my paint code, and they had a swatch of each which we held up to my car and i picked the best match.

 

Could be this... did your bodyshop do that do you know?

[clarkie34]

I had this conversation last week with my bodyshop and the nismo skirts fitted as they look darker.They said the plastic reflects light diffrently to the metal.The only way round it was to blend into metal then re laquer everything.

 

A job for next year for me.

[givememorepower]

They definitely checked the codes and shades. Good workshop with proper service, no problems.

The bottom of the bumper looks dark enough, just the bonnet and top of the bumper don't look the same shade exactly. They said they'd re paint the bumper and try and go darker, but that the paint was the correct colour for my Vin code.

They told me that since the introduction of water based paints, shades can be difficult to match, and the only way to blend the bumper in would be to creep into the bonnet and front wings. At an additional cost though.