Hi,

I just realized that the rear bumper on my S63 is miscoloured. This car was new from the dealer (back in 2012) and I just realized that the rear bumper is the wrong black shade (never parked under the sun before). The body of the car is obsidian black, but the bumper is distinctly greyer (I'm 99% it's magnetite black). Does this signify that there was an accident when the car was on the lot or why would there have been such an error? What should I now do and what should I say to my dealer?

Thanks

 

Yeah or Re-painted with the wrong Black. It should cost you around 500 to get it matched back if the dealer won't fess up.

Good luck.

 

If there was an accident on the lot or during delivery and they replaced it, would if show on the CarProof report?

 

and wow...repairs in America are so much cheaper. A tiny scratch on my ml costs at least $800 up here

 

No, those reports only show insurance or RMV claims. So if they fixed it internally, it would not show up on any report except their internal books.

 

If it was damaged beforehand, they should've noticed me right? How far do you think I can push with this, like would I be in luck to receive any compensation?

 

The difficult part is with it being 2 years old, they are going to claim it wasn't like that off the lot. No way to really prove you didn't damage the bumper and get it replaced elsewhere with a non-matching paint job. Best of luck to you though! Let us know the outcome.

 

Thanks. I'm pretty sure it was damaged beforehand and when I was taking delivery of the car, there were waves on the hood and I had asked them to replace it. If they don't warrant it, oh well, they gave me an extremely good deal on the car already, but I really hope they do. Fingers crossed

 

No, the car has not been repainted. The bumper is plastic, and reflects light differently. If at night time, you shine a halogen light at the bumper and then the metal components, you will see this difference quite clearly on any new black Mercedes-Benz. It will look like a very dark gray and not 100% black like the metal body parts. This effect is not as noticeable on silver cars, but is very noticeable on 040 black as well as any other very dark shades of paintwork. I have noticed this shade difference on 3 of my MB's as well as a bunch at the dealers lot when I was concerned about this issue.