Well here are the results... I think I won seeing as I have insurance and the cat is still on the side of the road.



The stress cracks are new





Droopy fog light




I'm going to pull it apart this week and see whats broken behind there.

I called the insurance company and they are going to pay for the repair but I am pulling the bumper and delivering it to the shop.

 

All in all this is for the better as the front bumper needed a fresh paint job anyway to repair the 70k worth of rock chips.

 

I am not even going to ask about the condition of the cat. May it

 

Yeah, that tombstone is appropriate.

The road is called Rte288 and its a rural bypass, so I can only guess it was a stray as it had no tags on.

I saw him pop out on to the shoulder about 50yrds ahead of me on the left and I changed lanes, then as I got closer he decided to go for it, at that point I had no where to go but on to the right shoulder and unfortunately I wasn't risking that.

 

Ahh, for the days of chome-plated, heavy gauge steel... Sorry to see the damage, but good to know it's covered and you've got a plan.

 

Why?

 

in kitty heaven...

Sorry to hear about this.

 

You lost me, why share? why the cat? why fix it?

Help me out.

 

Our front bumpers are insanely easy to remove, and every piece comes off which requires less taping and makes this much easier.

Here are a few progress pics.

First off a little paint matching, there are 10 variations to the Carbon Gray Pearl



Then the break down

 

Sorry the old bull screen Dell kicked into before I could edit.


Why fix it yourself? (looks that way from pics) And I have a ton of chips too, so how much is this job costing you.

 

Ahh, no worries.

Well, first off I am not a painter, but as a glorified shade tree mechanic I am very particular about who I trust to work on my car when I cannot do it myself.

A few things went into my decision to repair it myself:

1. the original finish on the bumper was not factory, I bought this car used and it looked as if a hack job was done to repair the rock chips and possibly a minor fender bender. (the fenders and hood are factory with no filler that I've found) Thanks to this poor work, I knew that I needed it fixed right this time.

2. Knowing the above I took it to 3 shops for an estimate and after much debate I found that for the money Allstate was willing to pay they would not paint the whole bumper, just repair and blend and anything over that would be out of pocket.

I think everyone who has ever had insurance work done knows it never turns out well when things are "blended"

3. I confirmed with the dealer and the Allstate estimator that there was no headlight, alignment, and or body damage. Not even the fog light, which took the brunt of the hit, was damaged.

So with those factors, I decided to pull of the bumper, educate myself a little on the car, and have a good friend of mine that owns www.lloydsairbrush.com actually fix this to better than factory quality. (with out his help I would not have taken this on alone)

Right now I am $100 in material, including the paint and prep materials, as well as 20 mins of my time and a couple of hours of his.


_________________________________________

Cliff notes:
the bumper had shitty paint on it
my close friend is a skilled painter
I wanted the whole bumper repainted and not blended
We drive nice cars, and money wasn't the concern as much as getting it done right.

 

Checking back in....

First off these things are not cheap, 10 from our sponsors and 20 from a dealer.




Second, we got the color on last night. It will spend some time sun bathing today and I will put her back together this afternoon.

 

Does the bumper cover have a VIN sticker somewhere on it?

 

I looked it over and couldn't find one, I thought for sure it did.

 

Today was the day to button her up... parts ready to go




Fog light and the repair area. The fog light bracket had a minor bend.



The temp sensor bracket suffered a devastating blow. Zip ties fixed it.



Back in business!



And a few touch ups for good measure.

 

I am most certainly happy that I partnered with my friend on this one, he did a great job repairing the whole bumper and not just fixing the damaged area.

 

Looks great!

 

Great job!

 

Very nice job !

 

Thanks guys.

 

Wow great job! That seems like a lot of damage for a kitty kat, but at 80...

 

After the paint cures, consider putting on the 3M paint protection film to preserve that paint job. Min 30 days to cure, otherwise you risk potentially pulling the paint off if you ever want to remove the film.

 

Well consider the fact that I don't believe the previous paint work was done very good and that made the damage much worse.

But I confirmed it was a cat, 100%.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, I will look into it.

 

Sweet job.

 

Nice work,... whats THEGD ??
In my world thats The Grateful Dead ,....

 

LoL, my name is Greg Davis and my friends call me GD.

I've been told that it looks like a reference to "the God" but not Grateful Dead haha

I have fun finding plates like this:





And mine says theGD.

 

Glad someone said something, I thought Grateful Dead as well. I assumed you were a DeadHead.

I bet lots of others do too when they see the car.

I also bet a few sharp police types notice as well. If you ever get pulled over and notice the officer "sniffing" more than usual ...

 

I was wondering about that GD thing...

I was thinking it was just blasphemy... haha

that plate "GDINME" takes on a whole new meaning now that I know YOU are GD... it's almost pornographic... hahahahaha

and finally... it was just a cat. next time hit it with your tires......