The other day while detailing my '04TL, I noticed a mark and indentation on the rear bumper. It looks similar to what whould happen if someone with a trailer hitch without the ball hit my bumper. It's 2 vertical lines spaced about 2" apart that scratched the paint and put a slight dent in the plastic. I have no idea how it got there but I think my garage door is the culpret. If the car wasn't inside the garage far enough, the handle on the door would have hit the bumper in exactly that area.

This being the first scratch on my new car has me pretty upset. Does anyone know how much it would cost to replace the bumper? Also, do the new bumpers come factory painted or would the dealer have to paint it to match my Anthracite color. My insurance would cover everything except the ($500) deductable.

To avoid the garage door problem in the future, I purchased one of those laser devices that turn on automatically when you drive in the garage. The laser shines on the dashboard, and when the red dot in on the center speaker...I know the car is in the garage far enough. I'm not sure if the garage door was the problem, or someone hit me with a trailer hitch, but the laser should solve the problem with the garage door in the future.

 

Sorry to hear about your misfortune.

The rear bumper lists just shy of 300 and must be painted to match.

 

THe first scratches/dents on a new car are awful and I am sorry for your problem. Shortly after getting a new 05 TL some workers that entered my garage hit my bumper with some shingles scratching the bumper on two places. The contractor sent me to a (POS) detail shop for repairs. Some guy came out with generic black paint and 3 minutes made the spots worse with his touch-up. I got prices for bumper replacement which turned out to be really expensive and decided to try and touch up the areas myself. The results were not perfect but, in normal light, they are invisible. I read scratch repair posts here and used acura touch-up paint. Now I don't notice the defects.
Before spending a bunch of money on repairs, I would ask the dealer if he has someone under contract that does his dent repair and touch up to give you an estimate to fix the area. The dealerships usually have good resources for hiding problems (go figure) and maybe you can save a few hundred bucks and/or a hit on your insurance. Good luck..

 

thanks for the information. after living with the scratches for a few days, I think I'll just learn to accept them and stop worrying about such a small scratch. If the bumper came factory painted, and cost only $300, I might consider replacing it, but having to have it painted would just end up costing too much and probably not match the factory paint and end up looking worse than the scratch.