EXACTLY^^^ A good shop will match it perfect. When I had my 2011 bumper painted they did this^^

 

^ Werd. I'm usually right. haha - JK JK.

Really though, if they want to blend to guarantee and acceptable product, it probably means they are using cheap paint or are not skilled at analyzing the current paint and mixing to match.

The good shops that I have used seem to like Dupont paint. Its not the top level, but it is apparently a pretty high quality paint.

 

I just got hit and had the front bumber looked at and quoted. To fix the ripples in the front bumper and repaint and "fade" match the bumper into the fenders and grill was a total of $600 and they are going to paint my JP lip at the same time. look elsewhere. They are doing repairs to mine and its only $600.

 

Usually bodyshops mix the paint using your car's color code then spray a sample to see if it matches or not. Most more than likely it will be a little off especially on ivory pearl color. My guess is the shop just want to make sure you're happy. Tell you the truth, 500.00 extra to paint the hood and fenders are a good deal. Also, you can't just paint part of your hood,fender or whatever. Example if you got some scratches on the hood and only want to get that painted they gotta repaint the whole hood, same as with any other panels.

 

Just to clear things up for you OP, "blending" into the adjacent panels is actually the shop taking the color that they mixed up for you car, per the paint code, and spraying that color over your entire bumper and the front parts of your hood and fenders. The "blending" is making that mixed color integrate into your existing factory color in order to trick the eye into not seeing any color variation. They will clear coat the ENTIRE hood, bumper, and both fenders. This ensures a perfect color match. Just an FYI, most vehicles have mismatched bumpers-body colors from the factory. This is because color shows differently on plastic then it does metal and also because bumper covers are typically painted at different factories then the metal bodies. Hope this provides some clarification for you. To summarize: you want "perfect," pay to blend. If you want "close," but not perfect, then just have them tint the color to get it close. FYI- they will not be removing the "old" paint off the bumper. They will simply sand/scuff the old paint to provide adhesion for the new paint.

 

No mean to TJ, but do you have info to a good bodyshop?