Arrrgggg!!!!!

[paranoid123]

Man, a couple of hours ago, I did a quick wash of my car, a silver WRX with Gold Class and dressed the tires with Hot Shine. When I was done, I went to out to dinner in a different car. When I got back, as I was looking at my car on the driveway, I spotted two fresh, deep scratches in the rear right corner bumper!!! Apparently, my dad had hit my car on his way out.

He said he would get it fixed. Anyone in Southern California know any reputable body shops who can fix it? What do they do? New bumper?

Sorry about the quality of photo, I took it at night with a flashlight and digital camera with flash.

[Mike Phillips]

Be careful you don't open a can of worms.

A couple things to think about, if you're car's finish is in really great shape right now, i.e. no swirls in the finish, then you want to make sure that when you choose a body shop, you want to point this out to the person you deal with. You don't want their painter to fix the area and then have their shop detailer take a rotary buffer to the entire car as a complimentary detail for you.

The damage done will be worse than the original damage you're taking it in to get fixed for. We've seen this kind of thing posted on this forum a number of times. You actually don't even want the body shop to wash your car as a service to you.

What you want is to find a shop that can paint the entire rear bumper and clear it, hopefully match your cars original color to the T, and leave behind a nice smooth finish without excessive orange peel, without overspray over the entire car and without washing or instilling swirls in the rest of the car.

Huge deal for a couple little scratches, but I'm telling you, we've seen the horror stories before.

[SpoiledMan]

In many cases, you can leave to cover at the shop to be painted and continue to drive your car. When it's ready, they can give you a call and install it. No hack detail happens and you get what you want.

[paranoid123]

I'm going to take Mike's advice and have them just fix the damage, no more, no less.

Can anyone tell me exactly what will they do? I've never taken a car to a body shop. Will they just spot touch up paint, sand, and polish? Or does the whole panel get some kind of treatment? Will they apply clear coat?

After the work is done, do I need to follow some of the advice I've seen for brand new paint jobs? Like don't wax it for 30 days while the paint cures?

Thanks!

[Superior Shine]

To repair the bumper properly the scratched area will be sanded down and filled in with the appropriate rubber bumper repair filler.

Once smooth a flexible primer will be sprayed over the repair.

The whole bumper should then be scuffed down or sanded with 1000 or 1500 grit paper.

Only the damaged area should be painted with color and fogged out (gradually blended) with the surrounding original paint.

Then the whole bumper is clear coated with flex agent added to the clear.

Once dry, the bumper should be lightly color/wet sanded to remove any debris and to match the original paints texture.

The job can be done in a day and expect to pay about $350-$450 for the job.

[paranoid123]

Thanks for letting me know the steps, Superior Shine. Should I not wax the area for a month while it dries?

One small aside: I need to clear my dad's name. Turns out he wasn't the culprit. My aunt who was visiting from Canada came in (probably in a rental) and must of scraped up against my car. We all thought my dad did it, because he's usually a bad driver and has a tendency to hit pillars, walls, and other inanimate objects, as his POS Nissan Quest can attest to. So Dad, you're in the clear! As for my Aunt.......

[Mike Phillips]

Read this on paint curing and applying wax to fresh paint...

http://meguiarsonline.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3704

[Superior Shine]

Auto paint manufactures recommend waiting 30 to 90 days before applying a wax.

If you need to top it use #80 speed glaze on it.

[paranoid123]

I finally had the chance to talk to a body shop about this, and they said that they would need to paint the entire bumper. At first I couldn't believe it. They need to repaint the entire bumper for those scratches? I asked if he was sure they couldn't just spot fix the problem because I was afraid that they would screw up parts that wern't messed up. But I reread Mike's and Superior Shine's thread, and they seem to confirm that the guy wasn't lying. The need to repain the entire bumper.

My question is, why is this? Am I risking making it worse by screwing up good parts?

This place has a good reputation in the area, and is acutally more expensive than SS suggested. They claim to guarantee all their work.

[Pete-FWA]

Originally posted by paranoid123
At first I couldn't believe it. They need to repaint the entire bumper for those scratches?

Yes.

Especially if this is a base/clear paint finish, a spot repair would be very obvious. Silver isn't the easiest to match due to the heavy metal flake content.

As Superior Shine says, "Only the damaged area should be painted with color and fogged out (gradually blended) with the surrounding original paint."

This is one method of eliminating your damaged areas.

The other could be to strip and refinish the entire bumper after doing the necessary surface repairs. With a vehicle in nice shape, having factory finish, most shops would prefer to use the method Superior Shine explains.

Another problem with simple spot repairs is how they look years after the repair. Both the color and clear applied will be newer than the rest of the bumper, often causing more obvious differences in new and old paint as they both age.

[tguil]

First of all I'm as fussy as anyone on this board and I certainly do not like scratches. I've made many trips to the body shop and have had minor repairs result in major mess-ups.

This is a bumper. Bumpers get scratched. My suggestion is to get a small bottle of touch-up paint from your dealer or an autobody supply house and do a brush touch-up. For the scratches that you have, you'll not have to worry about flex agents or clearcoat.

There are lots of websites that give great directions for touch-ups. Yep, the silver metallic will not allow for a perfect touch-up, but it is better than a less than perfect paint match from a body shop and cheaper too.

I've been doin' brush/toothpick/match touch-ups for 45 years. I got good at it after about 40 years.

Tom