Bumper scratched - what would you do?
 

I was parked at Costco and someone backed into my car. The bumper isn't dented at all. There is some light "grazing" that can easily be polished out, but there would still be two 1-inch scratches left on the lower half of the bumper.

The supposed "proper" fix is to strip and repaint the entire bumper. I'm afraid potential buyers would be suspicious of a more serious accident if I do that, thereby affecting the value and sellability.

What do you guys think? Polish, or paint?

Do you plan on keeping the car or selling it?
If the guy who hit you is footing the bill, I would repaint. If you sell at 100k miles no one will care, however if you plan on selling at 40k miles you need to think about it. I personally would want the bumper to be scratch free and wouldn't bother thinking about what some hypothetical buyer in the future will want. If you think it is that big of an issue, take some pictures to prove to a buyer that there was no big accident, you just pamper the car and keep it scratch free. :cheers:

Call your local dealership and find out which mobile bumper doc they use to touch up their used cars.

That's what I'm going to do...

I would deffinately wet-sand the area and buff it first. That did magic on my car in several spots.
If something is left visible - touch it up. Proper touch-up or "peppering" is almost invisible, so chances are neither you or potential buyer will ever see it. You can always paint it later.

Not a Porsche, but someone hit hit my Jeep GC on the front flexible bumper cover and it looked really bad (of course, no note left). I first buffed it first with my Porter-Cable using various polishes and was surprised at how much came out. I then filled the big scrapes with touch up paint, slowly filling to match the other surfaces. A final wet sand and polishing makes the spots almost invisible.

If you are not comfortable with the process, the dealers know all the guys with the tricks, as mentioned earlier. If you are a PCA member, I'm sure some of the local concours guys could help you out.

I'm with jmatta, SD and al83.

As far as future buyers, the color of a respray will show with age. Not so much to worry about a bumper by itself, but the fear that maybe there was structural damage.

And it is not that all buyers would even notice a respray.

But I'd rather buy it with slight scratch an decide how to fix it on my own.

If it were my car, and I wasn't planning on selling it immediately, I would want it fixed perfectly. That means pulling off the bumper and respraying it.

there are quality body shops that can do a good job and it will look as good as new...likely your car has some degree of rock chips / scuffs - and it will look BETTER after it's repaired than it did before it was hit...

if the damage truly is soooo minimal that buffing it will remove them, then you might try that route first, and if it doesnt' correct it - then opt for the repaint.

take photos of the incident so if you ever do sell, and a potential buyer comments on it looks liek it was painted, you can document that it was minor. make sure the body shop you go to is top notch.

if you scour the internet in your area, you should be able to find out what body shop is the "place" you want to go to. over the years, I've had a handful of experiences with various body shpos - like any business / service / profession - they are NOT all equal.

there are places that do professional quality work and there are places that will do poor work.

find out where the local car clubs go... or where the local high end dealers go for their body work. do you have a dealership nearby that sells Ferraris or other high dollar exotics? where do they go for work? my guess is the Ferrari dealers don't send their cars to the low end shops...

Obviously, the fact that a shop works on $$ cars is no gaurantee that they will do good work on your car - but I think in general, the dealers and owners of high dollar exotic cars are willing to pay for the best when it comes to taking care of their cars and they know where to go. id' rather go to the place THEY go than just pick some random shop out of the yellow pages.

good luck.