Deep scratches/gouges on bumper

[Bakesalee]

We have this really narrow, community brick garage barely wide enough to park even this car. I was trying to come in through a short angle because someone had parked a large moving truck directly in front of my space.

Anyways, while going extremely slow, I felt that I couldn't go in. Uh oh I thought, I'm against the thing.

Sure enough, I have deep gouges on my front bumper. The gouges are black, meaning I've gone through every layer on my "pearl white" Sonata. Some are near the trim that curves around onto the side below the headlights, and some are closer to the fog lights.

I have some questions. Is this bumper made of plastic? I have heard that primer should go down before the paint only if these pieces are composed of metal.

What would you do? This car has been my "baby" and everyone makes fun of me for how nice I take care of it. Now I'm totally depressed. What are the proper steps to take care of this as professional as possible?

I went to the dealer and bought a paint pen. Should I wet sand the area first so everything's smooth?

[Derrick]

Re: Deep scratches/gouges on bumper

Since this is your first post Welcome to MOL. Do you have any pics of the scratch. From how you explained it, it seems as there is a big gouge in the bumper now so even if you repaint it you will still see the gouge in the plastic. Depending on how bad it is you might just have to get the bumber repaired and repainted rather than just trying to do a touch up.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Deep scratches/gouges on bumper

Welcome to Meguiar's Online!


Sorry to hear of your mishap...

Sanding the area seems like a good idea but if you get sanding marks in the surrounding clear coat they can be very difficult to remove without a rotary buffer and some skill and experience. The reason for this is generally speaking, modern clear coat paints are harder than traditional single stage paints so removing small particles of the clear coat in an effort to remove the sanding marks can often times be kind of difficult.


Instead, just wipe the area really, really good using some Isopropyl Alcohol. Most people over apply their touch up paint and then come back to the wet sanding idea, thinking they'll sand the touch up paint flat, nothing wrong with that but again, you'll get sanding marks into the surrounding clear coat paint and most people don't have the tools and experience to remove the sanding marks out of the factory clear paint.

So only apply small amounts of touch up paint, you can always add more later.

Another option would be take it to a Professional Detailer or maybe even a PDR person and see what they say.

[Mike Phillips]

Re: Deep scratches/gouges on bumper

Depending on how bad it is you might just have to get the bumper repaired and repainted rather than just trying to do a touch up.

We like this idea better, maybe take your car to a few reputable body shops and get some estimates.

Doing touch up paint work and getting it to look good is hard and time consuming.