Touch up paint technique

Someone dinged the DS corner of my front bumper in a parking lot today. He found me and pointed out what he did. It's scratches, no dent of any kind.

Has anyone done any touch-up work on their front bumper and have advice on best practices? I don't feel like taking this to a body shop. Would a good detail shop be able to clean up these scratches?

 

As a former (Detailer), yes a good detail shop could get rid of the scratches, or blend them depending on if they are deep.
You can tell dragging your nail slowly across the scratches, if it catches your nail then it's a deep scratch and will probably require a bit of wet sanding to blend it, if it doesn't then it'll buff out easy.

You could also use some Goof Off from home depot to clean the paint from the other guy's bumper off yours then get a touch up paint pen from toyota. Their paint pen isn't perfect but it's decent for diy and only costs about $20.

 

Sounds like they were nice enough to offer to compensate you for the damage?

If that's the black paint transfer from the other vehicle it might just be removed and a good wet sand and polish might clean it up.

But if yhat's the black plastic showing through it will likely best be solved with sanding, primer, wet sanding and paint. Can maybe fade it or just paint the whole bumper pretty easily.
Could likely paint for $50-$100 in supplies including paint, reducer, etc. Some body shops can likely fix for under a deductible but spose others might quote over 1000 or double.

 

They took it down to bare plastic. The bumper skin will need to be repainted...

Someone did this shit to me in a Trader Joes parking lot recently, an asshole in a black Dodge Caliber, and it scuffed my fender flare. Of course they took the fuck off without saying shit, and the two parking lot monitors standing 8 cars away "didn't see anything, and the camera isn't working", I'm still fucking pissed about it. Totally bullshit. I can't find the post I made about it, but this is the scrape damage - I can only hope it REALLY fucked their piece of shit Dodge up, and I hope the edge of my bumper grabbed and ripped shit off their vehicle:

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Ahhhhhhh, that sucks @shifty` .

Everyone makes mistakes, but you have to own up to them. Sorry, man.

In my case, that is indeed the black bumper skin. The door trim from his Lexus sedan is what did the scraping work.

 

Yeah, you can see the paint crumpled up at the left edge of a couple of the scrapes.

Really, replacing or repainting the skin is your basic option. But I'd tag @Dakillacore who deals with this on a daily basis to give his 2¢.

 

That is definitely down to the plastic and will need repainting. Detail shops don't paint bumpers and this won't buff out, as there is nothing to buff with the paint missing.

Option 1: Buy a touch up paint pen from the Toyota parts department and color up. It won't look the best, and you'll still notice it but not as much as the black plastic underneath. This is the cheapest option.

Option 2: Take the bumper off and have a shop sand down that area and repaint the entire panel. It's cheaper if you do the disassembly of the parts yourself. (NOT MAACO). You can't just paint this edge and make it look good. You'll have a noticeable paint line.

Something like this would cost you around $800-1,000 in GA. CA has MUCH higher labor rates so maybe $1500.00.

 

Also to note: Out trucks are old. Some hardware can and will break upon removal. These are the risks we take with removing things.

 

Given the potential costs listed above. I would try and touch-up myself or keep an eye out for a good looking used bumper of the same color in a junkyard or for sale online.

 

If inclined and have a compressor and respirator might be a good opportunity to buy a $11.82 paint gun and a quart of primer, paint, hardner, and some reducer along with a few sheets of sandpaper ... and @Dakillacore can say ... but maybe some plastic adhere and flex product to mix with the paint. Painting the whole bumper is a great starter project as easy to keep wet and ... if it comes out scrappy just sand it back down in a few minutes. Here's a pro using a HF gun to lay paint like silk.

 

Absolutely! Flex agent is very important. I linked a PDF of paint procedures on here somewhere. I'm on mobile right now, but I'll try to find it again and link it here.

 

The PDF is in this thread.

https://www.tundras.com/threads/200...sions-or-are-they-flares.152403/#post-3944346

 

Great vids here by this guy takes the mystery out of autobody painting. He covers prep including fillers, sanding, guide coating and blocking panels, airflow during spraying, wet floor techniques, HVLP painting, as well as simple rattle can painting too with pro looking results.

https://m.youtube.com/@PaintSociety

This one is how to setup paint gun.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=pNfjSFyGYiM

Add a little pressure regulator to the shopping list...or that $11.82 gun recently when on sale comes with one for $29.99.

 

Thanks for all these resources, everyone.

This is a beautiful 1GT, and I'm bummed to see the front bumper marred a little, but I'm also not going to drop a bunch of coin on keeping it pristine.

If it weren't going to get dinged in a parking lot, it would have gotten dinged on a trail eventually.

 

Yep, my understanding is its up to you whether it gets repaired and if it gets repaired, by whom. Believe if decide to recover costs for damages that the owner is not obligated to use the shop that quotes repair costs (that might then be used to reach a settlement amount) ... or to do the repair at all.