Ok, maybe I am crazy. My car is a 2011 Starfire Pearl RX 350. My front and rear bumpers do not match the paint on the rest of the car. I am sure it is because of plastic verses metal surfaces that are being painted. Has anyone else noticed this? It is driving me nuts. Not a drastic difference but noticeable to me.

 

Mine are a slightly different color. Since they are painted with a different type of paint and at a different time it makes for an o-so-slight difference. Eventually you get over it.

 

Same here. Ever a slight difference in tint, I attribute to metal vs fiberglass.

I kind of like the dual tint. Does'nt bother me. But I see your point.

 

I don't know of any auto manufacturer that produces and paints its own bumpers. They are usually purchased from a company that deals with plastics and painting of plastics - which require a different paint application than that of metal - there has to be flex in the paint. When I toured the Cambridge Lexus Plant in November, the bumpers arrived already painted. I know BMW and GM buys bumpers already painted.... so its not surprising that there might be a slight variation in paint colour.

dentate
Oshawa, ON

 

i can't see the diff with my naked eyes

 

All the cars in my sig, colors match.

My neighbors car he has an RX350, 10 or 11 idk and a GX. They are White and color matches.

It should match, if its noticeable talk to someone at the dealer.

 

My front and rear bumpers are very mismatched. It stopped bothering me 3 months into my ownership.

 

The bumpers on our car don't match the body either. Its annoying, but it stopped bothering me after a couple of months. We had a white 2008 RX previously and it did not have this problem.

 

No real issues on Tungsten Pearl. The problem is with the white colour. Bumper has flexing agent for the paint to stick properly with the plastic. Any slight color mismatch is obvious on white if you take a closer look.

 

My obsidian black RX450h front bumper is slightly different color than the fender, but its only visible in just the right lighting conditions. Doesn't bother me though

 

My new (2015) Starfire pearl RX-350 has very noticeable color difference between plastic parts and the rest of the body. The read bumper sticks out the most.
The difference is not obvious under the sunlight, but very apparent in the shade or even in twilights. Dirty car also aggravates the difference.

The dealer tried to dissuade me from fixing it. The only thing they could do would be to re-paint bumper locally which would mean repaired look (since every bumper has the VIN written on it sowewhere) and less durable surface. They do not offer to just install new bumpers of the right color.

 

I have the same issue on my 2015 Highlander and any of the white Lexus' I've had in the past.

 

i think its a common thing . To get an absolute perfect match of shade, even from the same source of paint. All the plastic has to be hanging on the car during the spray which i don't think they do at the factory.

Mismatch can be seen with inexperienced painters as well at body shops. Take 2 doors and one source of paint.., lay one flat and spray it and hang the other one as it would hang on a car and spray it. The results would look like 2 different colors.

 

Figured I'd bump this instead of starting a new thread.

I'm guessing that the Starfire Pearl (white) tends to be more of an offwhite on the bumpers compared to the rest of the body? I've seen a handful of other RX350s on the road with a different shade bumper at this point.

 

The biggest culprit in my opinion is the tungsten pearl (silver) but really all the colors suffer from this problem. Toyota has always had this issue. Makes it harder to determine if there's been repainting due to an accident or not.