Faded Bumper

[32valvesftw]

My Black rear bumper looks more gray than black and all attempts at restoring it to black seem useless. Cleaner wax, Polish, ect..So I am thinking it may need to be painted,does anyone has a ball park estimate for what that would cost. Also any tips on other methods of restoring the color?

[WARP TEN]

I don't know how helpful this is, but I recently had the bumpers painted on my 2010 BMW 535xi. They had become scratched and in one spot cracked. I had them redone at the dealership at which I used to work so I got the internal rate, which was $280 per bumper. I would guess that a customer rate might be $400-$500 per bumper but I don't know for sure. They were repaired and painted and look like new with a perfect paint match, so I am happy. You might check with a couple local higher-end car dealers. They regularly have to paint used car trade-in bumpers and often used an outside firm (Carnica in our area). Our dealer recently brought that process in house (and separate from its more expensive in-house body shop) and run it through the 20-bay Detail department. Our dealership has Mercedes/BMW/Land Rover/MINI and Hyundai, so they are used to doing quality paint work. Also worth a check with a local body shop or two. If they don't need big repairs and you are OK with just having the bumper paint taped off (instead of blended into other panels) as I did, you might find a reasonable price. Black is probably a good color for this; Silver and white not so much. Good luck with it,--Bob

[fred]

You probably have clearcoat deterioration. Once it gets so bad as you can't sand and buff it out, the only cure is refinish. The good news is , you can just paint the affected areas by masking to the lines, not requiring a full repaint. Since you aren't "blending" color match shouldn't be a problem. I'm not sure if its a result of additive added for flex which changes the paint and makes it more susceptible to the sun, or just the position on the car (your front bumper top should have the same problem, but there's a good chance it has already been fixed). Any body shop should be familiar with the problem (its not just on corvettes, but any car with urethane bumpers) and can take care of it.

[32valvesftw]

I saw one recently that was repainted, it looked just like it had been repainted. I have not been brave enough to try and wet sand it, but I may.

[fred]

I saw one recently that was repainted, it looked just like it had been repainted. I have not been brave enough to try and wet sand it, but I may.

If the guy knows what he is doing you shouldn't be able to tell (unless the rest of the paint is bad).

[Bob Eyres]

The paint and flexible plastic on the nose and tail of the car are more subject to sun damage than the rest of the body.
My white 91’ suffered from sun exposure in the last few years, and has to be re-sprayed. The nose was done last Year, and the tail will be done soon.
I advise to get the paint color matched accurately, as even the Arctic White has got to be mixed just right to match well.


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[WARP TEN]

The paint and flexible plastic on the nose and tail of the car are more subject to sun damage than the rest of the body.
My white 91’ suffered from sun exposure in the last few years, and has to be re-sprayed. The nose was done last Year, and the tail will be done soon.
I advise to get the paint color matched accurately, as even the Arctic White has got to be mixed just right to match well.


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Certainly True. White and silver are some of the most difficult colors to match. Black--particularly non-metallic-- is easier. My BMW has a very dark blue called Carbon Black and they seem to have matched it fairly well, as one would expect form a BMW dealer workshop. In any case, even a slight mismatch on a very dark car is hard to spot.-Bob

[Bob Eyres]

I know about those BMW blacks. My son has an older 740 that I whacked a side mirror on. It cost me $350 to re-spray it. The black had a rainbow of metallic in it, looks cool at night.


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