General Poor colour colour match on my fiat 500 collezione

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General Poor colour colour match on my fiat 500 collezione

YvonneAnn

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My 4 year lease on my Fiat 500 Collezione 2018 came to an end on Monday. It had to be returned to lease company who sent out a Manheim inspector. I was told by the inspector that I had replaced 6 body panels (front & rearbumbers,quarterpanel,front door, sillpanel and the Apost) which was totally untrue. I never had a bump in this car at all. He said there was a poor colour match with the door and numbers. I had the car 4years, only done 11000 miles and never noticed any poor match in the paintwork. I am now being charged over £1100 because of this. Has anyone ever noticed mis match paintwork with the 2018 Fiat 500. The colour of it was Taormina Ivory.
 
There are usually BVRLA (I think thats the body acronym) guidlines governing this. It sound like a con and you should challenge this its outrageous and there is an appeals scheme.and they must justify. The colour of plasric panels does change / fade at a different rate than the steel panels. some colours are much worse than others inn this respect. This is NOT chargeable to you. You are responsible for damage and fair wear and tear is not chargeable! There is a detailed list of this. Someone is taking the P**. Take photos and tell them you will see them in court if necessary.
 
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There are usually BVRLA (I think thats the body acronym) guidlines governing this. It sound like a con and you should challenge this its outrageous and there is an appeals scheme.and they must justify. The colour of plasric panels does change / fade at a different rate than the steel panels. some colours are much worse than others inn this respect. This is NOT chargeable to you. You are responsible for damage and fair wear and tear is not chargeable! There is a detailed list of this. Someone is taking the P**. Take photos and tell them you will see them in court if necessary.
Thank you so much for your reply, I disagreed on the day with his report. I told him I will not be paying this. I am relieved to hear that there is an appeal system in place. Not received an invoice yet. Will update when I receive it. Thanks again
 
The colour of plasric panels does change / fade at a different rate than the steel panels.
They're not even a particularly good match when new. Look at any 500 and, if you've a keen eye, you'll see that the bumpers don't quite match the rest of the car.

It's also possible that the car suffered some panel damage in the factory and had some refinishing before it even left the works. This used to be particularly problematic with BL cars in the worst days of the '70's. Some folks even had independent inspectors go over them with a paint thickness gauge prior to accepting delivery.

Actually, that's something you might consider now; if they're saying that some panels have been refinished, the paint won't be the same thickness as that on the adjacent ones; easily verified if you have the right tool.

Also if the colour is particularly prone to fade in sunlight, vertical panels will likely fade differently to horizontal ones. If the car is usually parked outside in the same orientation, that, too, can lead to colour variation in later life.
 
Thanks for the information. The guy said he had done this job for a while, I am now thinking he should have known it could be fading. I am now convinced he was just ripping me off.
 
If the car has had bodywork repairs, then the paint thickness will vary, as has been commented above, so if your paint is uniform thickness then that's fairly emphatic proof that it's never been repaired. "Faded paint" (although I've never seen a 4 yo car with faded factory finish paint) would be fair wear and tear, so they again would not have a leg to stand on/

It sounds like they're trying to scam you, or coerce you into paying extra. Name the leasing company, so we know who we should direct our future business to.. Or not.

*Edit: I've looked up Manheim. They specialise is vehicle "de-fleeting".. so my guess is they want to charge you £1100 on behalf of the leasing company to "fix" your car (wash it and give it a polish) so that the leasing company is so grateful to receive the car in such pristine condition, that they give Manheim yet more work... :whistle:

It may be worth taking the car to a good body shop to get their opinion. If you're a girl they might do it for free.... but if they agree with you/think it's a load of cobblers and sound like they can articulate a professional opinion, then you might need them later to provide a report (which they might charge you for) if/when the invoice arrives and the arguments start. Otherwise if you're a member of the AA or RAC, they might also be able to advise and help.

Take lots of hi-res' photos of the car when it's dry (give it a clean first, so they can see it's immaculate)... and ideally on a sunny day, since that makes the paint look more uniform, so you can use them in correspondence with the scammers/leasing company (whoever sends you the bill).


Ralf S.
 
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Hi all just updating on the outcome with this, finally after 10 weeks they finally agreed to remove the charges for the poor colour matches on the paintwork. I asked for the car to be inspected by a paint specialist and asked them to talk to Fiat. I sent them all the facts that I had gathered from your emails. Thanks very much for all the information provided. Yvonne
 
Hi all just updating on the outcome with this, finally after 10 weeks they finally agreed to remove the charges for the poor colour matches on the paintwork. I asked for the car to be inspected by a paint specialist and asked them to talk to Fiat. I sent them all the facts that I had gathered from your emails. Thanks very much for all the information provided. Yvonne
I’m glad it worked out, but what a hassle.
 
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