Hi all - has anyone ordered a new painted bumper cover for their Expedition from sites like paintedoemparts ? Long story short, I hit some ice and slide into a guardrail and damaged the bumper cover on the passenger side. I can buy the oem bumper cover, but they normally come unpainted and the cost to paint by body shops is crazy high. I am sure I can figure out how to install it myself, so wondered if any of these sites that claim to sell OEM parts painted to your paint code are legit? Thanks in advance for any insight.
Hi SeattleBob:
No, sorry that I can't help with first-hand experiences with the company that you mentioned nor any other company painting OEM Parts. But, I and my guys have had first-hand experiences with other supposed factory-painted after-market products. And, although done cheaply, they looked GREAT but only for a year or so. It turns out that (on a color matched painted, fiberglass, Chevy PU 8' bed cover [for example]) the paint that the seller of this fiberglass bed cover used was the cheapest quality, least expensive and was done with no sanding prep or base coat primer. It was just base color coated then single, clear coated over. This pick-up was washed every week and waxed every-other month but was parked outside and within a year, the clearcoat started having white spots which became larger and larger over time. By year two (2) the actual base coat color was getting splotchy and discoloring. The rest of the original GM PU body paint was still almost perfect. That bed cover looked "awful" on such a nice truck, otherwise.
The lesson we learned was that if you are just painting something to clean it up and selling withing a few short months, you could get away with this cheap, short cut painting method. But, if it is something you intend to keep for some extended time and want it to stand up well and look good, you are better off having it sanded, primed and prepped properly then, painted professionally so that it looks nice and stays nice, for years. That's my 2 cents worth from years of experiences both bad (few) and good (mostly), Lance
