Painting the bumpers on a Forester?

My wife's new '08 looks nice with the painted bumpers next to my '03 with black. But a couple of years ago I scraped mine and damaged tail light backing into garage and body shop managed to salvage bumper without replacing. Looks fine and did this to avoid increase in insurance because if repair when above ~$600 my premiums would have gone up. Color in black bumpers is uniform throughout but painted is obviously only on the surface and can be easily scratched off.

I suspect to do what you want to do, you may have to have whole car painted and bumpers may need special treatment for paint to adhere.

It'll look exactly the same from the driver's seat, so who cares?

Check this page out. Has factory colors in spray cans, and paint for non metal parts so it shouldnt crack. Proper surface prep will prevent it from peeling.

Paints for flexible parts often have a flex additive mixed in at application time by the painter. I might have missed it, but didn't see a mention of it on that site. The flex additive isn't cheap stuff. Years ago, I paid ~ $25 / pint for the PPG version to paint my airplane's wingtips, so I'd doubt they would add it as a precaution. I also remember a "pot time" for the additive. You couldn't mix up a bunch and store it.

The bottom line is to specifically ask about the flexative when placing the order, or seek a local auto paint store that fills spray cans with custom blends. We have several auto paint stores in our local Yellow Pages that can fill spray bombs, and I don't live in a heavy metro area.