So i parked my car at a public parking lot and some jackass rear ended my bumper twice leaving 4 holes on my bumper. I just got my TL-S last month which pisses me off even more. So its 300 to repaint it and fix the hole. I spoke to a guy at a dealer and he told me not to paint the bumper because the car value will go down dramatically. Any thoughts and suggestion?

 

The guy you talked to is a most likely a moron, and that statement makes no sense. Bumpers get painted all the time, even on brand new unsold cars. If the workmanship on the bumper is top notch, most people and even most dealers won't know it's been refinished or replaced/painted. Hence the value would not significantly be decreased if it wasn't reported as a collision, documented, ect.

If you have "holes" in the bumper, I would just replace it w/ an OEM part.

 

According to the guy at the dealer, he said that theres a machine that can tell whether the bumpers been repainted. If they detect that it has been repainted, dealers assume the car was involved in an accident hence dropping the value of the car. Thats what he said. I have no idea if its a valid statement or not. Replace it with an oem part? I was thinking of that. But the bumper itself is 200-300 (w/o paint). If i get it painted thats antoher 300. Wouldnt it be better if i just get it fixed and get it repainted for 300 than to spend 500-600 and get a new bumper? That's just my thought.

 

the guys an idiot as stated by powerflow.

hes talking about a mil guage..it measures how much paint thickness there is on a vehicle,most of them only work on metal surfaces,and i believe the electronic ones might work on plastic but i doubt it because there is no metal surface to use as a referance.

the thought that a dealer would check this is retarded,unless they have REASON to believe that it has been in a bad accident.

at any rate,just repaint the bumper. the body shop will more than likely do a good job unless you go to a hack shop.

make sure they have a qualified body man that knows PLASTIC repairs and isnt going to just fill the holes with body filler.

repainting your bumper wont make it lose value,besides,the car is brand new,how many years do u plan to keep it anyway? if u plan on keeping it long,living in ny im sure youll end up having ot get something else painted..either way...when u go to trade it in,just make them more focused on selling you a new car than buying yours.

 

The guy basically told you one of their tricks to low ball people on trade ins, dealer purchasing ect. Which they may turn around and forget when they resell. There is plenty of other ways to tell if a cars been in a hit without an expensive mil gauge.

Yep Delta, I use to use a mil gauge. It was a common electronic, metal substrate only one. They do have ones that will do plastic, ect but their more uncommon and more expensive to my knowledge.

Plastic repairs are hit and miss, as far as the quality of the repair as mentioned. In general the bumper will lose durability, flexibility, if your repairing actual holes in the bumper. That's why I recommended a replacement.

 

If there is a hole in it then you should replace it. I think it is silly to save a couple of hundred bucks on a $35,000 car especially when the repair will make the repaint more obvious.

There is a body shop on eBay that sells painted bumpers. I bought one for $550 shipped for my 2G TL and you can swap it out in 10 minutes. You might even get lucky and find one at a junkyard for half that.

 

Let me take a picture of the bumper and post it. You guys do have a point. Whats another 200 when my cars worth 35K. If the guy at the shop can fix it perfectly, perhaps thats not a bad way either. I dont know exactly how they are going to fix the hole but the guy at the shop did promise that it'll look brand new again. Also one more thing, is it just me or does the bumper color look slightly different from the body color? I was washing my car the other day and i noticed how my bumper looked slightly different from the body paint. I'm thinking, did my dealer sell me a car with repainted bumper?

 

Yeah post pics. But the "better" repair/fix is to replace, if that's what your going for.

Honda/Acura has a very low acceptability level as far as paint in general. They could do it right when they manufacture, they regularly mis-match bumper on certain colors.

Also bumpers don't sit perfectly flush with the adjacent panel. That will make certain colors flop differently at a particular angle, resulting in an mis-matched effect. So the color may match but appear different, which is a characteristic of some auto paint. This effect also doesn't help the Honda mis-matching issue either.

 

get a new bumper skin, and have it painted while its off the car, then have the new bumper skin installed...since your car is soo new, there is no need for blending into fenders and or the hood....doing it this way will save you the hassle of having your car oversprayed all over it and the wheels because of a poor tape job....trust me on this one....

 

^^^ Yep. That is pretty much standard though, when replacing.

 

Pardon my ignorance, but what's a bumper skin? How about the price for a painted hood? My car is rock chipped like crazy!

 

bumper cover, bumper skin...its basically the plastic painted part of your bumper...

 

Gotcha. Thanks. I see myself buying a new one in the next year. $300 isn't as much as I expected. How much for a new hood?