In the case of the Fords I have seen where the bumpers didn't match, the paint was the correct color, but it was almost like Ford had used different color primer on the bumpers than the rest of the car. Any other color does not matter, but you can see through the white, and the different color primer causes the white paint to appear to be a different shade.
Does not take a rocket scientist to see the shadow. .
At least in California here dealers are supposed to disclose repaired damage on a form I signed. I doubt they would lie on that otherwise it's a criminal matter if I discover anything, and they certainly wouldn't give me a different story then if I asked.
It was my original plan to drive up in my trade in, do the whole in person thing, have a nice drive back on highway 1, etc. I was even going to spend the weekend and have it PPF wrapped before bringing it back down, but the guy said that's a bad idea since he recommends coming back in a week for touch ups etc, so I should only do that work locally. That in addition to my partner being worried about COVID stuff etc, I settled on shipping as a better option. I'd rather have it shipped down here straight to my Xpel guy rather than driving my like-new trade in 400 miles on a god awful trucking-route interstate up there, and a new car 400 miles back unprotected. It wasn't until after I had decided that and booked a carrier that I even found out about paint issues =as something new cars can even have, it never occurred to me honestly. My current car I bought last year is the only new car I've ever had. Like I've said this car is a keeper for me, I want my kids to be able to experience it someday, I'm not worried about resale. So if there's problems with it I can't live with when I get it I don't mind fixing them properly using a shop that will do a better job than the dealer would anyway.
Yeah...I mean you can google "bumper paint mismatch" and find 100's of examples from any manufacturer not just ford of much worse examples than my car here. So paint codes or not it's a very real issue that gets past QA all the time.
Keeper or not, I wouldn’t spend that type of money to have a “better shop” “fix” it. Wouldn’t waste time jacking with the dealer to fix it. I would find a car, do a FaceTime video If it looks solid, but it and go get it.
Company called Magna makes and paints bumpers for a lot of OEM companies. They are not painted with the car so even things like air pressure and humidity can affect the paint. My view is that on a 70K car, you don't want to come out and look at it every day and be annoyed that the paint doesn't match. You can't un-see it. I custom paint motorcycles, so I'm way pickier than most people but I understand your angst.
Well I got a facetime video of this one today and looked much better live than in the photos, so that's what gave me some comfort at least and what's tipped me towards just going with it. Again, I wouldn't be *happy* if it's not nice looking when it gets here. But it's a weighing of time and effort. If this were a base F-150 and not the last year of a limited production car then yes my attitude might be quite different.
It is very plain that is a shadow. You may have missed that having many fog and cloudy days, living across the pond.
I hope you plan on keeping the car for a very very long time because if you plan to fix the bumper issue later, your resale value will diminish. If you dont agree on a fix before the car gets picked up most likely the dealer and Ford will be off the hook.
I'm not sure what shadow you're talking about. Specifically I'm looking at the front of the hood where it meets the top of the grill cowling, which is entirely broad daylight reflection of the sun. There's a 10-15 degree difference in hue according to photoshop across the panel gap there in every photo I got of the car (many more than I bothered posting here). In fact the seam at the wheel not being hit directly by sunlight look much better matched. Shadows have nothing to do with it.