[Ash83]

Originally Posted by roundel335

You can buy spray paint that is as close to a factory match as possible, but with certain colors, particularly those with metallic and pearl in them, it's tough to get them to match exactly. When I took the new covers and the car to the body shop, the BMW-certified paint tech brought out several "sprayout" sheets and matched them to the bumper in the sun.

Now - here's the interesting part: according to the tech, when our cars are built, they don't have the bumpers when they come off the production line. Those are attached in a different facility, and the color will always be just a tiny shade off from the body of the car. He showed me how the sprayout for the bumper was different from the hood. And then he showed how the sprayout for the hood didn't quite match the bumper. True story!

The upshot is that you should probably buy a couple of these and do as I did in the message above - have them all painted, install the one(s) you're missing, and keep the rest for the next time it happens. It won't cost you all that much, and then you can "recover" without having to go through the hassle again.

Thanks