somervillian

Hi all,

I'm new here, and have read a bunch in the paint forum before posting, but please forgive me if there's already info on this question somewhere and I missed it.

My question is, can a scratch on a bumper be repainted, in a quality way, without having to have the bumper removed, sanded down, painted from scratch, and then color-matched back after being replaced? That is what the body shop wants to do, and it seems excessive to me.

The car in question is a black 2010 Camaro. The scratch is a white mark made by a bike basket, on the left side of the car on an area that is bumper. We think it may be a paint transfer and not a scratch into the paint of the car itself, but it hasn't responded to just waxing.

I'm the bike owner, and I'm working with the car owner to find a solution that keeps both our costs down and ideally does not require the bumper being removed. He is worried that if the bumper is removed and repainted, it won't match exactly, and will be a much bigger aesthetic issue for his car. We don't think the scratch needs sanding and re-priming and all that jazz. It needs retouching. At the same time, we agree that with it being a 2010 car, we want the final result to look good.

So far we have talked to two body shops in our area and both insist that "you can't do anything to paint on a bumper without removing it," which strikes us as weird, and more a way of padding what they can charge than a true requirement. The estimate we got is reasonable if the bumper does *have* to come off (98 for materials, 300 for 7+ hours of labor), but we aren't automatically willing to accept that the bumper has to come off.

Is there another option besides doing it ourselves, which we're loath to try? Is it possible to find a body shop that will work with us without insisting on removing the bumper (and ballooning the cost)?

We are both in the Boston area; ideally any body shop recs you guys might have would be for south shore ie Canton, Brockton, etc.

Thank you!

67goatman455

iTrader: (14)

to rrepaint a bumper. a good shop will require that the bumper must come off. a hack shop will say its fine to leave it on. either way, it takes less than 30 minutes to remove it. let them do their job

somervillian

Thanks for your help. Does that mean then that you can't buff out a scratch, even if it's just in the clear coat? From everything we can tell, this is a paint transfer only, or if anything is scratched it's in the clear coat.

I guess our question isn't as much "if you need to repaint a bumper does it need to come off?" because the answer seems to be yes from multiple sources, and I really appreciate having someone here confirm that.

What we still are trying to figure out is, for a paint transfer and/or scratch in the clear coat but not the actual paint of the car, is repainting the entire bumper necessary?

67firebirdak

Just waxing might not take it off. I'd try giving some of your local detailing shops a try, they may be able to possibly wet sand the scratch out and then polish it. At any rate, I'd think they might be cheaper than a body shop. If it does indeed need to be repainted, have them take the bumper off. It'll turn out much better that way!

freefallen.1

You are better off posting some pictures up. For those of us that do this for a living and serious hobiest will be able to give better info.

2002nbmss

iTrader: (2)

Once again i agree with freefallen1. Post some pics!! If it is indeed paint transfer and not a scratch then you should be able to try some automotive laquer thinner on a soft rag and wipe the marks off then polish it back out. I do this all the time, however, if you see that it has indeed gone through the clear then yes it will have to be repainted. We remove every bumper that we paint no matter what the damage. If it's getting repainted then it's gettin removed! Trust me, the owner of this 2010 Camaro doesn't want overspray from paint and or clear ending up on the rest of the car or undercarriage and I don't care how well you mask and bag a car theres gonna be overspray somewhere on the car when trying to paint a rear bumper!!!! Take my word for this. It's not a big deal to remove it anyways. As far as the bodyshops trying to cusion there estimate by saying the bumper has to be removed, I don't think thats the case because it probably only pays 1 -1.5 hours to remove and reinstall this bumper which translates to about $46 to $65 dollars depending on the hourly rate. I can't stress enough how important it is to remove this bumper in order to repaint it!!!!!! Hope this helps!!!!

2002nbmss

iTrader: (2)

Oh yeah, DON'T go crazy with the lacquer thinner either!!!! It doesn't take much! Just dampen a soft rag and that's all you will need! Don't soak it on there!!!!

somervillian

Thanks everyone! I really appreciate your help - I'd been feeling totally at sea til I found this forum.

I am working on getting pics from the owner. It was too dark to take them the night of. He has a busy weekend so it might be a couple days though.

If a bumper removal is only a couple hours job, then do you guys think there's padding in the labor costs? They are saying the entire job will take over 7 hours, and that the reason why is the bumper removal. The labor breakdown on the estimate just says:

Body - 3.1 hours
Refinish - 4.1 hours

That's for the whole job though - it could defiinitely be that everything else involved does push it to 7.2.

I am definitely persuaded that if repainting is indeed what needs to happen, we need to deal with the bumper removal. Just wanting to make sure we don't do or pay more than we need to.

2002nbmss

iTrader: (2)

Ok I wrote an estimate using our system and this is what i came up with. keep in mind i haven't seen the damage to the bumper. I am strictly goin by what you described.

Remove and Install Rear bumper cover- 1.9 hrs
Repair rear bumper cover- 1.5 hrs
Paint- 3.3hrs

Materials- $115.50 (you multiply the paint hrs. by the materials rate which is $35 hr. here

Body labor total-3.4 @ $46 hr. here
Paint labor total-3.3 @ $46 hr. here

Total labor- 6.7 hrs. @ $46.00 hr. = $308.20
Materials- $115.50
Sales tax @ 7% = $29.66

Total = $453.36

That is what we would charge for this job. Depending on the labor rate where you are it could be less or more. As for the bodyshop cusioning the estimate, well, as you can see it's pretty close to what we would charge and thats using a computerized estimating system.

Hope this helps out any!!

somervillian

Wow that is awesome - thank you so much for taking the time to do that estimate!! It definitely helps a LOT, because now I definitively know that the only real question is whether this can be fixed without a repaint or not. I'm pretty sure that if we do need to repaint, we'll both be comfortable going to the shop where our estimate came from and be able to trust we're being dealt with fairly.

I'm still waiting on the pic, but I'll post it when I've got it. Thanks again, this is really a fantastic resource community.