I hit a curb the other day, and really fucked up my front bumper. It’s not dented, cracked or broken in any way, but it’s scratched to hell. I’m really low on money right now, so i’m trying to decide how to deal with it.
First, the previous owner of my car painted it himself, and while it looks ok from a distance, it’s a very poor paint job. It’s only a little more than a year old and it’s already started to chip in some places, and its not smooth at all. So I am planning on getting a proffesional paint job within the next year (when i get some cash).
That said, what can i expect to pay if i go to a body shop and ask them to deal with it? It’s only in one corner, but i’m assuming that a body shop would want to paint the entire bumper so that it will match. A good body shop should be able to match the paint to the current color pretty well, right? Do you think i could get them to do a ‘good enough’ job, just to cover it up?
The other thing would be to either contact the previous owner to find out what paint he used, or just get a body shop to mix me some matching paint, and take the bumper off to do it myself. I would either simply sand down the area that is damaged and paint over that, or if i need to, paint the entire bumper. How good a job do you think someone who’s never done auto painting before could do? I don’t want it perfect, i just don’t want it to look like shit.
So basically, i’m looking to tips as to what my options are, and what would be the best cost to appearance ratio. Remember that it already has a fairly poor paint job, and i’ll be getting the whole thing done pretty soon anyways.