Diary of a Paint Chip Repair Craftsman: 12/12/23
I saved this customer about $900 and having to leave his car at a body shop for a week or more.
The car’s front bumper was peppered with tiny paint chips. Most of them are from high-speed freeway driving – probably around 70-75mph. It’s typical damage here in California where we get a lot of sand blowing across the freeway. A trip to Las Vegas, or to San Diego through Camp Pendleton where sand blows across the freeway on windy days, or just from the speed of your car will cause this. It’s inevitable on any car, although some makes and models are more prone to it.
You can see from the Before pics how bad it is.
There’s a few ways this can be fixed. You can get a touch pen from the dealership and try to paint each little chip, but the brush on most touch kits are too big for that size chip, and the shear quantity of chips make this a bad choice – not to mention it’ll look really bad.
You could also have a body shop respray the entire front bumper. It’ll look new, but they’ll have your car for a few days, maybe more, and it’ll cost about $650 – very rough estimate. Please get lots of quotes if you go this route. And! It’s likely to happen again – unless you have PPF (paint protection film) placed on the front. (This used to be called a Clear Bra, but the name has been changed as it was pretty sexist. :)) That’ll usually cost about a few hundred dollars. I highly recommend doing that if this sort of thing bothers you – especially if it is a brand-new car.
You can also have a mobile bumper guy respray the front bumper. This is almost as good as a body shop at a fraction of the cost – rough estimate $450, and he’ll do it at your home or office.
I can give you a referral if you’d like to go this route. For this particular car, it’s probably overkill since this type of damage will happen every time you drive on the freeway.
Or you can hire someone like me to fill the chips without respraying. This might be the best option, if you want to keep your car nice, but know this type of damage will keep happening. Many times, I do this type of work for a customer who is going to PPF the front end. I fix the chips, and then it’s wrapped to keep it nice forever. I charged $225 for this customer. I arrived at his home and it took me about 45 mins.
It came out really nice and it’ll make your car go faster. (j/k) 🙂
After pic.
BMW 430i 2023
Color C4E
Multiple chips on front bumper – hundreds.
Sometimes called road rash (as opposed to curb rash – which happens when your bumper kisses the curb.
For more info, check out the full video.
https://youtu.be/MITzIW1kFNI
Or visit our website. https://www.carpaintchiprepair.com
You can also send me pics of your car’s damage, and I’ll give you an assessment. 714-766-0464
