PAINT BLENDING, YES or NO ?????????
 

i need to paint the rear bumper, possibly hood and front bumper, not sure yet, depending on how deep the scratches are, but the rear bumper for sure. cant tell from the pics and hard to see, via crappy bb torch.

the car only has 13,000 kms, bought new, never driven during winter, will be hitting 2 years old soon, Magnetic black color.

someone on this forum on my other thread said not to blend if its still new, because you can never match the OEM factory paint, shouldnt spray over it and will ruin it, and that a good body shop shouldnt have a problem matching it since its in great condition and new.

another thing, "IF" blending was to be done, lets say to my rear bumper, i know they would have to blend the adjoining panels (hatch, and both sides quarter panels) BUT, my question is how much of the hatch n quarter panels will be blended, a bit ? or the whole thing, idk.

any expert advice will be appreciated greatly, thanks ahead !

I am no expert but was in a similar situation. The paint experts will say "don't blend." Proper method is to remove the panel/bumper, prep, and paint.

I did have a small area around 3x2 inches that had scratches on it and I got lucky and found a paint shop that was able to blend the paint successfully (without removing the panel.) I am very happy with the results. My paint is gun metal which is pretty much impossible to blend because of the metallic specs. So I got very lucky.

I would say that the level of damage you need to repair would dictate whether blending/touch up is even an option. If so then you need to spend a long time to find a shop that could pull it off.

orrrr if your thinking of painting all those pieces...just wrap it

im still not familiar with what blending is, i looked it up and saw youtube vids, the things online said that they would have to spray a coat on the panels that adjoin the ( lets say my rear bumper in this case ), but i dont understand why they would spray over a perfectly fine panel such as the hatch, and the 2 quarter panels that touch the rear bumper, makes no sense, you cant just spray on top of clear coat especially when the other panels are perfect, and the youtube vids online did show anything like what i read online, the titles stated blending, but everything else was taped and covered, and only the bumper was painted and they called it blending.

i found the most expensive bodyshop, theyre the only mclaren dealership in North America i think, i know its the only one in Canada for sure though, they deal specifically with mclaren, audi, and porchse.

and idk if the insurance will tell me to just get the bumper repaired, or buy a brand new OEM one from nissan.

if it's just the rear bumper you shouldn't need blending. plastic bits are painted separately during manufacturing anyway.

they really need to suck bad if they can't match black. white pearls i can understand..

the reason for blending is to hide subtle difference in shading/metallics. they paint your entire bumper with the new paint, and then lightly work their way out from the edge of the adjoining parts so that its a gradual shift in shade and is unnoticeable. even if exact, there can be subtle differences with metallic content, etc, so the piece next to the bumper blends from the original paint one the far end to the new paint on the close end.

ok, ken said they shouldnt even do it, since its the bumper. but in case they do, so your saying they "will" spray a coat over the perfectly fine panels and hatch? im assuming they will sand the clear coat first on the other panels before spraying the base? right?

That was my understanding. My experience with blending involved the body shop painting a small portion of my fender and then blending with the (undamaged) portion of the same fender. This was done to prevent removing and repainting the whole thing. No paint work was done on adjacent panels.

Zeetah - you have any pics of the damaged panels/bumper you could share?

Yes, if they blend, they will scuff and paint the good panels.

ya its on my other thread, i dont have very many, so it should be easy to find, and also pics were taken right away, no sun, and crappy bbtorch.... also dusty from being stored.

thanks guys

Really comes down to the skill of your painter on what I would do.

I've never seen a body shop not blend. They ALWAYS do. Between the family and me I've seen a few fender benders needing new parts and after paint the car looks brand new and perfect! Always blended! The only issue is if its a big panel they end up doing a lot of the car. My ex's doors where keyed down the drivers side and the drivers side paint was 100 times better than the OEM paint on the passenger side. Clean smooth awesomeness vs orange peel crap. While you can't see both sides at once I still noticed if I touched or looked hard.

I didnt read through the whole thread or post but....Every piece that I have had painted on my metallic black Z has been blended (OEM), and has looked really good. I think the car would look 'different/funny' if some parts were just black and some were metallic OEM.

what do you guys think of kenchans comment though? 3 comment i believe

great info, took my car in for repairs