So I have been lurking here for some time now and almost a year later I've finally decided it was time to get an SS. I've pretty much looked through all the galleries here you guys have posted up and I have been to just about every Dealership around here. Almost every one I have looked so far does not match up! The front and rear bumpers are like 2 to 3 shades off from the rest of the body!? I've found that Silver and Yellow seem to show it the most. Black and Red I guess show the least but still to some degree, just not as bad.

Finally mentioned it to two different dealerships and it was pretty odd to hear they both replied with a similar comment.."if you notice, none of them are in the showrooms under the lights! They are all outside on the lot b/c its not as noticeable out there. We stopped putting them under the lights b/c it was the first thing to stand out"

Has anyone addressed this with their Dealership or GM directly? Anyone actually get something done about it or just stone wall after stone wall?

Just ramdom pix as reference (sorry if yours is pointed out)

 

my black car has all these little white specks all over it!!!!!!!!!!!

 

While I understand what you are saying, and have seen it myself...I must point one thing out to you about your first picture....If you're using the front fascia as your point of reference in that pic, it's not entirely accurate...my BLACK S/C was only a few feet from his front fascia, so most of that darkenss is actually reflection from my rear fascia, as both of our cars were relatively clean at the point, just thought I'd point that out.

 

mines perfect.....

 

No one is an exact match!
Because paint takes different to plastic then it does to metal.
But in my opinion the colour difference is the lest noticable
on a REDorBlack

 

Just be happy it is no where near as bad as the last year sunfire and cavalier

 

As stupid as this sounds my buddy brought this up at work today. He is pretty close to getting his ASE and he told me when they ship cars via railroad some kind of rail dust or coal dust gets on the cars and causes this. I'll have to get more info from him this weekend.

 

MIne looks fine too me. I could really care less...

 

my paint is great, miles ahead of the paint on my vibe

 

Just hand washed my car for the first time tonight (dealer kept on detailing it for me because of service so I got to slack for 2 weeks) and I totally noticed this on my white SS. The spoiler and side skirts, specifically, seemed to have a bit of a yellowish tint to them while the rest of the car seemed whiter. Eh, whatcha gonna do? Drive really fast so no one can see anything but a vapor trail! (Sounds good to me)

 

redrocket has the right answer. if you took a paint gun, say for argument, an HVLP with a 1.3 mm nozzle; and sprayed different finishes sanded to 600 wet, ready for base clear,you will see color variance between, fibreglass, polyeurothanes, simple plastics, metal, aluminum, composite, and certain polyester filler products.
if the parts were painted at a separate time (note the bumper covers cannot be painted on the car), paint gun PSI, can cause a shift in how mettalics lay down and higher psi causes a lighter shade of color. being mass produced, i find it unlikely that the covers were painted on the same day, but the same robotic gun, in the factory, and the different material of the covers makeup will give you the variance.

my 2003 silverado ss is arrival blue and i have 7 different colors on it. i have repainted 90% of my truck, and have custom mixed colors, when sprayed on the plastic covers, so they wind up being much closer. (different color for metal than plastic).

that said, my new ss s/c is black, so can can "butt paint a panel" to repair, as well as never dealing with B/S color variance anymore.

my 2 cents.



one of my custom paint jobs from 10 yrs ago. yes, i own it. (old scan from a 4 color printed busines card.)

 

i was just going to point that out... paints lay out differently over different materials. Your bumper is never going to match the steel parts EXACTLY.

One thing that has chapped my ass since day one, other than the paint coming off, was the fact that the paint was thin on the car. The paint and clear are really thin, and also they never bothered to paint the unseen parts of the car like the engine bay, underhood, undertrunk, floorpan... makes me wonder how these cars are going to fair in the northeast.

Scott

 

the panels are completely covered in a hardened non porous "primer", paint doesnt need to be on them to stop corrosion, but if gm can save 1/2 oz. of paint per car = millions saved....

most manufacturers are using water base base coat, and a quality eurothane clearcoat.
the base doesnt stick, un less hardened by chenical, and the clear cross links with the basecoat and the clear burns into the primer, making the pains stick. yes its thin, but thinner is more resistant to rock chips, tons of clear will make your car a china doll and a rock can bust out dime to quarter sized chunks o paint!

 

i noticed it on my cobalt, espically the front.

 

My paint matches perfectly. I have seen other cobalts where it doesn't match at all. The only part on my car that didn't match %100 was the SS/SC spoiler, but that is obviously off now

 

I have no issues with my Sunburst orange.

 

My paint matches pretty well. I have no complaints as far as front to back etc...

Where my paint does NOT match, is the rocker extensions. It looks a bit grey-ish compared to the rest of the black on the car.

I agree with what most have said about the plastic and metal react differently to the paint. The plastic parts get a certain amount of "flex agent" in them as well, so that might change the metallic consistency in silver and orange and blue enough that it''s noticable. That's not a fact, just an idea I was thinking.

I've seen $80K cars that the paint don't match, so I wouldn't be all that worreid about it. Just go to a dealer that has a few of the same cars you want in a color you want and take the best one. If you drive it on a regular basis, it's going to get eaten up by stones, bugs, bird-poo, and the dread "ACID RAIN" ( wowoooooooooooo ), and within a few years you would see the difference anyway.

buy it.. drive it... enjoy it.... that's what these cars are for...

 

I work for a railroad (at Lordstown ramps on a regular basis) and can tell you for sure that we are prohibited from placing any open top mineral cars (coal, stone, sand, etc) next to a loaded autorack car for just this reason, as it will sandblast the paint. Not to say this has never happened, its just highly unlikely.

 

i went to check it out at my dealer, they had a yellow one with a way darker bumper! ...now i know what ur saying