Few things are more frustrating (and time wasting) than painting a new bumper, then fi tting it only to fi nd it looks different to the adjacent panel even though it was painted with exactly the same colour. Often, it comes down to what’s underneath the basecoat colour – applying the correct spectral grey groundcoat will get the job done faster, with less material and a better colour match. There are plenty of downsides to applying basecoat colour straight over the black fi nish on a new bumper or an incorrect undercoat colour – lots more application and fl ash-off time, signifi cantly higher material usage and poor stone-chip resistance due to too high a fi lm build. And when it’s done, it’s extremely likely the black will ‘grin-through’ so the colour won’t match adjacent panels.

People tend to be a little nervous when using new software but Protec PAINTMANAGER® is really user friendly so it’s straightforward to learn – after a couple of days it becomes second nature.

These days, the pressure is often on to minimise colour matching time but you definitely don’t want to fall into bad habits – particularly when it comes to spray-out cards.