Scratch through Color Coat Need to Touch Up (Picuture of Damage)

[Jbirk]

Hi,

I went to the grocery store and when I came back, there was a shopping cart that had slammed into my bumper pretty hard. When I moved it away, I saw some serrious damage, and the shopping cart had some of my bumpers color on it.

I have taken a picture to show the damage and ask for help.

What i have is two places missing some paint it is serrriously all the way down to the plastic of my bumper. In another area I have some severe scuffing. I put some red around the areas that are through all the paint, and I put a yellow circle around the areas I hope scratchX can fix.

What do you think I should do? Can I try a touch-up paint, or am I going to have to get my entire bumper re-sprayed?

I was able to locate OEM Touch Up paint for $10. IT is only sold in the form of a paint pen. One side of the Pen dispenses silver and the other side a clear paint. I was told they will have my touchup paint in stock for several years at my car dealer becuase I have a very popular color as indicated by my factory paint code. For this reason, I can come back and buy touchup any time.

My question is will touch-up paint be able to fix this much damage?

[Jbirk]

ScratchX was unable to fix it. I tried it with a Terry and did about 15 applications. The area around the scuffing has no swirls, but the scuffing remains.

Will I need to wet sand and if i do wet sand, how will I bring the luster and shine back becuase wet sanding will severely dull my finish.

Thanks.

Basically, I am looking for 90% or better recovery.

[MikeGT]

Its bad but not THAT bad. Personally, I would use touchup paint. Afterall, it IS just a car, not the end of the world. Use some touchup paint, let it sit for 24hrs, use some polish(or scratchX to help hide it a bit), then follow with a coat of wax.

If your super car crazy, then your going to most likely have to have a body shop take care of it. I just honestly think some touchup paint, and some meguiars will help hide it.

Goodluck either way, I hate careless people

[Jbirk]

Will ScratchX remove wet sanding marks?

[tguil]

Do not wet sand the bumper. You will only make a bigger mess, espcially if you do not know what you are doing.

You might try a detail shop rather than a body shop. A friend of mine runs a detail shop that does "bumper blends". He does the work at a fraction of the cost of a complete bumper repaint. I've seen what he has done and even I cannot find the repair unless I "bust my butt" looking for it.

I think that I'd be tempted to do a touchup myself and call it good. And I'm as OCD as anyone on the forum. Bumpers get bumped.

Tom

[Jbirk]

I want a near perfect repair that is very hard to detect.

I am not planning on buying a new bumper or paying a body shop big $$$ to repsray my bumper. Therefore, I am probably going to use touchup paint.

Good Touchup jobs require wet sanding.

Can't I use #2000 then #2500 and finally #3000 paper and follow with ScratchX?

I would like to do a pefect job. I would be more than happy to have your friend do the work, but I live in California and he lives somewhere else.

[Jbirk]

I have made my decision. I am going to do touchup paint and I am going to wetsand it.

With the decision made, how can I get the best results? Don't tell me not to wet sand, just tell me how to do it and how to clean up the hazy mess I know I am going to make.

Thanks

[RedSoxRacer]

If you want it as near perfect as you can get, then you should listen to the advice given and not wetsand your bumper. Bumper paint is not plain old auto paint, they use special rubberized paint so that it can bend and flex a little, and wetsanding it will tend to "smudge" the paint.
At the very least, you should buy bumper touch-up paint and go at it from there.

[bullet1]

Couldn't agree more. If you want a "Near perfect" fix, you are not going to get it done by touchup paint and wet sanding. If you don't want to have a shop fix it then you are better off getting rid of the light smudges and just leave the black parts where the paint has been scraped off alone.