Body scratch question

Last night, when pulling into our driveway, I scraped the right rear fender of my silver Mazdaspeed3 against the left side of the rear bumper of my dad's Buick Rendezvous. There was no denting or structural damage to either car. I brought my MS3 to a reputable body shop who told me it would cost me $790 to fix because the right rear door also needed to be blended to match the fender. Or I could just have it buffed for $75 and live with it. While I plan on shopping around a little, I'm probably going to have to take the latter route since I've offered to pay to have my dad's bumper fixed, and he gets priority since it's my fault. He is still considering my offer.

The bumper cover of the Buick is plastic and painted a bronze. I couldn't tell if it was molded that color or painted it. The scratching is hard to see until you get up close. Based on what the estimator told me, I'm going to estimate it would cost half of my MS3's repairs because it's only one panel that needs to be painted as opposed to my MS3's two. A quick search on car-part.com shows the nearest bumper cover to be in NC and I haven't seen any Rendezvous in the local junkyards; otherwise I'd look into replacing the bumper or bumper cover as a whole. So, does $350 sound like a accurate estimate to you guys?

If the scratching is really that hard to see on your dad's bumper, i'd just get some touch up paint in a bottle, unless he's going to be really REALLY critical of the repair.

There is no need to replace the bumper cover unless it's cracked through or torn. Bumper can be painted independently without blending. How much time it takes to repair is open dependent upon if it's caused the paint to crack beyond the impact area. You'd also have to pull the entire bumper off to paint it correctly. It should be under $500, but $350 may be a bit light.

^Thanks for the tip, I'll look into the mobile body shops. My dad isn't as picky as I am about his car, so they should be sufficent for the Rendezvous, as long as they don't completely screw up the color or take too long.

I'm still going to shop around for the MS3. I might just get it buffed now and repaired later, depending on how it looks after the buffing and how much my dad's repair will cost.

It's silver metallic, right? In which case the bodyshop unfortunately is right, they'll have to blend in the repair over a large enough area so it's not noticeable.

If they don't do that, the repair will show up when you walk around the car as the flakes in the paint aren't aligned the same way in the repair as they are in the rest of the paint. The reflection will change and the resprayed panel will look either darker or lighter, depending on where you stand. If you're really good with spraying you can minimize the effect but you can't completely get rid of it.

Aren't you glad new cars don't use rubberized bumpers? I'd just go over it with a clay bar to remove any foreign paint and live with it. I'm not a fan of touch up, it will never match the existing paint, always will look off. It is like on a painting, you might get a drop of paint where you don't want it but have to live with it because covering it up will make it worse than leaving it alone.

BoxheadTim wrote: It's silver metallic, right? In which case the bodyshop unfortunately is right, they'll have to blend in the repair over a large enough area so it's not noticeable. If they don't do that, the repair will show up when you walk around the car as the flakes in the paint aren't aligned the same way in the repair as they are in the rest of the paint. The reflection will change and the resprayed panel will look either darker or lighter, depending on where you stand. If you're really good with spraying you can minimize the effect but you can't completely get rid of it.

So I was told by two shops. The second shop quoted me around $500 for the MS3 and offered to buff the scratches for free. I didn't get a chance to see their work or ask what paint they used, so I'll take advantage of their buffing offer and ask those questions. I'm still going to shop around a little more. No luck with mobiles' seem like every dealership around here either sends their cars to a collision center or has one in-house.

benzbaron wrote: I'd just go over it with a clay bar to remove any foreign paint and live with it. I'm not a fan of touch up, it will never match the existing paint, always will look off.

Are you talking the little touch-up paint bottles or the fender and door respray?

I'm talking about the small tubes of matched paint from the dealer, a shop could do a much better job than me.

RexSeven wrote:

BoxheadTim wrote: It's silver metallic, right? In which case the bodyshop unfortunately is right, they'll have to blend in the repair over a large enough area so it's not noticeable. If they don't do that, the repair will show up when you walk around the car as the flakes in the paint aren't aligned the same way in the repair as they are in the rest of the paint. The reflection will change and the resprayed panel will look either darker or lighter, depending on where you stand. If you're really good with spraying you can minimize the effect but you can't completely get rid of it.

So I was told by two shops. The second shop quoted me around $500 for the MS3 and offered to buff the scratches for free. I didn't get a chance to see their work or ask what paint they used, so I'll take advantage of their buffing offer and ask those questions. I'm still going to shop around a little more. No luck with mobiles' seem like every dealership around here either sends their cars to a collision center or has one in-house.

I'm not sure what the labor rates are for a decent bodyshop but $500 is roughly what I'd expect to pay over here at retail rates for the kind of work you described.

I'd definitely want to see a couple of examples of their work though, I've had an FC convertible resprayed twice because the first bodyshop screwed up really bad.