sorry im new to this forum. i hope this is the right place to post for help. someone opened the rear tow hook cover off my car with a flathead screwdriver and damage the bumper paint. i tried using touch up paint and it, but wanted to see if anyone knew of a good place that could fix it in southern california. im from the cerritos area. here are the before and after pictures...
I would just leave it with touch up paint. I have some small chips in my white car and not worth the money to fix. Todd
I would just touch up and leave it also. Sometimes when you try to do more you end up with a worse result or a different problem
i was thinking about getting the bumper repainted because of this..... do you think i should? or just leave it with touch up paint?
i talked to a guy named phil from detailersdomain and he said it could be fixed with wetsanding and clear coat along with touch up paint. but i cant find anyone who can do that..... as a result i was thinking about getting the whole bumper repainted. do you think i should or just leave it as is with the touch up paint already on there? also, if i were to get it repainted, can a body shop match it 100% to the rest of the car? if so, do you guys know any places to take it to in souther california? (either to fix the damage there already or to repaint the bumper to match the car 100%??)
You reside in Southern California which means you can park your vehicle—even if you park a mile away in any parking lot from every other vehicle—and still come back to find a door ding the side of the San Andreas Fault. Who, other than you, is going to bend over and inspect your bumper and declare that your bumper has a defect achieved by an anonymous screwdriver? Phil (who owns this forum) gave you the right advice.
im trying to find a place that can do what phil suggested..... touch up more, clear and wetsand.... so im looking for a place that can do this....
The cost to have a body shop repair this is likely to be expensive. There are DIY kits out there (e.g. Turtle Wax Scratch Repair Kit* that you can find at Wal-Mart) where you can achieve good results if you feel comfortable enough to do so. Maybe there will be someone here who can professionally detail the spot for you too in Cerritos or close by? Have you ever sanded vehicle paint? If not, the area of your touchup paint is at an edge and edges are tricky owed to the surfaces changing and the thickness of paint typically being less. What vehicle is this? *Turtle Wax kit was referenced as it is an inexpensive DIY kit if funds become an issue.
i have never done any work like this before so i am scepticle to try anything myself. the vehicle is a subaru sti. i am looking for someone who can fix this. whether or not its possible to fix this, i dont know. but if you or anyone knows someone who can fix this then please let me know. judging by your name it i presume you are in the socal area. so please help if you can. it would be greatly appreciated..,.. i know the damage is really really small, but its the principle of how it happened,., i specifically told a person not to take off the cover, but he did anyways and that is why i am so upset about this and want to fix it so i can get it out of my head. like i said before its really small and might be a hard area to fix, but i really do appreciate help finding someone who can fix it because i am really scepticle on repainting it... not because of the price, but mainly due to the possibility of the repainted color not matching....
If you lived closer, I could take care of this in a snap. It's not difficult to do what Phil described, just gotta be careful. Just take it to a body shop or detailer you trust and it should be an easy fix. Might not be 100% perfect (I'd have to see it in person), but it should improve to be unnoticeable.
I would not have the whole bumper repainted. Because of the location I would just touch up and move on. If it were in a different spot I would build up the touch up and then wet sand the touch up to even it out and polish. Because its on the edge like that I would worry about going though the clear. I have a friend that does paint touch up and spot repairs. He does touch up for dealerships and individuals. Surely there's people out there that do the same thing.
Have you ever had your automobile professionally detailed? If not, you might consider having it done along with some clear film protection. Your current situation is minor so finding someone who will do it might be tougher. Having a detail done you can include this area as part of the detail. Plus, with the new sealants and coatings available you will add paint protection to your automobile. Something to consider.
i get my car detailed often from a guy at detailing.com and i have the car clear bra'd with 3m. like i said its the matter of how it happened. money isnt an issue as long as its reasonably cheaper than repainting the whole bumper
i am in the southern california area.... cerritos area to be more specific. if its not possible to fix without spending huge amounts of money then ill just live with it i guess, but id like to try first...
he tried, but it wasnt that good, so i tried another guy and still it wasnt that good. but none of them actually did what "phil" said to do.... touch up paint, wetsand and clear..... so im looking for someone who can do that....... btw thank for trying to help
Johnny, I'll go ahead and jump in here and try to give you some help. As a professional auto painter who has spent most of his 21 years of life behind the gun, and the rest behind the buffer, I'll tell you right off this is not something worth pursuing. However, I understand the principle, I was the same way with the first new car I ever bought, an Audi RS4. The issue you're faced with here is that finding some one to touch up this one spot is not only incredibly difficult, but finding some one who can touch it up with out making it worse is even harder. Being as the damaged is on the edge of the bumper cover, wet sanding in that area can be extremely dangerous. To give you an idea, factory auto paint is only 3-5 mils (0.003"-0.005") on average, with figures as low as 0.002" on some single stage painted vehicles. That being said, there is very little material to work with, and because the repair area is chipped, you're going to have a hard time getting the touch up to stick as well, which could lead to multiple attempts, further leading to burn through and making the problem worse. If some one burns through the clear coat of the existing finish, you'll have a yellow spot on your bumper, larger than the small chip that exists. The next problem you're going to run in to is if you go to have the bumper repainted. Being as your car is white, getting a color match is tough. Depending on if it's a two coat or tri coat color things could get a little trickier. Your biggest problem though is that you've mentioned getting the bumper to match the rest of the car. This is what you do not want, you want it to match the other bumper. Reason being, NO bumpers ever match exactly from the factory. They are made for the automaker, by another company, often times in a different country, with different paint, at different environmental variances, amongst hundreds of other obscure variables. By having some one repaint the bumper to match the car, the car will not look stock anymore, as now you'll have one bumper that doesn't match the rest of the car instead of two bumpers that match. On top of your bumper not matching, you're going to have to deal with that fact that who ever paints your bumper probably isn't going to be all that great, or really care about it being absolutely perfect. The color will be off, the paint will probably be a production level paint, meaning quicker drying and will result in a pinched up or hazy appearance in the finish. The bumper could also have more dirt in the paint, have runs, have areas of mismatched texture. If it's not properly prepped for paint it will delaminate over time and start flaking off. One thing I can guarantee you is that where ever you take it too will see it as easy money, and try to bust it out as quickly as possible. Most likely they'll just scuff the existing paint with a grey scotchbrite, feather sand the chip with 320, seal a very small area around the chip area, feather that with 600, base coat blend as small of a section as possible, and then clear over the rest of the bumper. They probably aren't going to get too worried about buffing the bumper all that well either. And now you're bumper is going to be yellower because it's got another coat of clear on it. Right now your bumper is OE appearance, the chip that you've shown is even visible on brand new cars as the tow hook covers are removed by the auto maker prior to loading the car on the trailer. If it were me, I'd settle knowing that your used car has something "wrong" that even knew cars (BMW, and Lexus notably) have "wrong" from the show room floor, and move on knowing that at the end of the day you can trust that you'll never let some one do it your car again and that it wasn't placed in the hands of people who won't appreciate your attention to detail.
