Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper

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Wed 13 Feb 2008 15:42
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - nick62
Yesterday whilst returning to my car in a "stately home" car park, an oldish chap with his remote control aeroplane paraphernalia on a buggy, kindly dragged it past my car and proceeded to make a "nice" 8" to 10" scratch in the rear bumper.

I actually saw it happen from about 50 yards away and when I inspected the damage, it has gone down to the black base material in a couple of places.

I approached the kind chap and asked if he indeed admitted to hitting my car? He reluctantly agreed, but thought he had caused no damage! His mate, (also the wrong side of 65) came to give me the "try T-cut" advise, which was not at all appreciated.

I've got said chaps name and address/'phone number. He was very cautious that I should not get my car totally re-sprayed on his account, but I think he will cough-up.

My question is, what is the best way to get this fixed? I could possibly make a fairly decent job with Autoglym polish and a good touch-up brush, (the damage is low down on the rear bumper, just behind the rear wheel), but my car is an immaculate 55 plate Legacy and this has happened due to someone else's negligence. I wouldn't have minded too much, but there wasn't another car parked within 100 yards of mine, it just happened to be in the direct line of where this pill0ck was walking back to his own car.

Edited by Webmaster on 13/02/2008 at 16:47

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Wed 13 Feb 2008 16:07
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - *Gongfarmer*

A company like "Chips Away" will come out to you and do a localised spraying job on the bumper. Not cheap, but less than the £200 or so even a back street body shop would charge.
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Wed 13 Feb 2008 16:55
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - Ravenger
Chips Away did my front bumper scratch (quite a big one) for £80. Did a very good job too - you'd never know it was scratched.
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Wed 13 Feb 2008 17:03
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - Falkirk Bairn
Chipsaway did my rear bumper coner - 6 years ago and still nobody can tell which is the original paint and which is the spray job ( £50 then)
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Mon 25 Feb 2008 16:06
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - nick62
I've had varying feedback on "ChipsAway", mainly that it is a cosmetic repair and will show with age (from 6 months in the worst case). Also the quality is down to the operative, (only the paint is supplied by Chips Away and the skill of the painter and/or quality of the equipment is not guaranteed). The cost with VAT will be about £110.

All the local body shops recommend painting the WHOLE of the rear bumper if I want the car to be as before the damage was done. Cost of this is about £250 with VAT.

Now the chap who did the damage is getting-on a bit and I'm almost sure he will have a cardiac arrest if I present him with a quote for £250 (as I said before, his mate wanted to do a "T-Cut" job on me).

I didn't do the damage myself so I think he should just cough-up, but my conscience is pricking a bit at the price difference, however, I also think he will splutter at the lower estimate anyway. Do you think I'm being unreasonable?
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Mon 25 Feb 2008 16:19
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - oldnotbold
"Do you think I'm being unreasonable?"

What if (I can't imagine the circumstances) he'd done £2,500 of damage? No, he reasonably should pay for your car to be put back to the state it was in before the incident. That doesn't mean a quick blow over from a man-in-a-van, it's a proper job, even if it's expensive.

Next time he may take more care.

Edited by oldnotbold on 25/02/2008 at 16:20

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Mon 25 Feb 2008 16:19
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - Wilco {P}
>>Do you think I'm being unreasonable?


Not at all - cost should be to return bumper to the condition it was before the incident - if this is 250 pounds so be it.
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Mon 25 Feb 2008 16:52
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - Lud
Thinking about it, I don't think the OP is being unreasonable either, although my first thought was: 'It's a bumper for heaven's sake, a rustproof bit of plastic low down and out of sight and ostensibly designed to protect the real paintwork of the car... drive through some mud and then it won't show. Or put some dog poo on it or something.'

What I do think is unreasonable is the current practice of car manufacturers in this area. What is the point of flimsy bumpers that don't accept small scuffs and don't protect the tinwork and cost a king's ransom to restore to as new condition when some jerk waddles past and nudges it with a supermarket trolley or similar?

It is in fact systematic daylight robbery. I try to make my opinion known on this. I know that others here prefer their modern repmobiles wearing their blowsy paint and false eyelashes, but I prefer a more practical finish. London driving isn't a vicar's tea party.
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Mon 25 Feb 2008 17:03
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - Lud
To explain myself, I still remember a Ferrari Daytona parked outside the Westbury Hotel just off Bond street in the sixties, just parked, with the engine still ticking as it cooled. The front was plastered with dead insects and there were numerous stone chips and even small dinges in the front end, although the thing had the patina of a car regularly and normally kept clean.

We can't all have Daytonas unfortunately but why shouldn't lesser cars be like that too?
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Mon 25 Feb 2008 17:03
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - Hamsafar
I had quite a severe scuffing on the corner of my bumper to the wheelarch and this was also on the colour-coded rubbing strip - caused by a van. A local independent two man band said they would re-spray the bumper for £120. When I went to pick up it was perfect and they only charged £100 as he said he didn't have to paint the whole bumper and blended it on the corner, you really couldn't tell where they blended it and the finish and colour was a perfect match.
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Mon 25 Feb 2008 17:07
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - nick62
Lud, very good point.

Should we insist on generic black plastic bumpers?

Perhaps we should all have black cars so they match the bumper colour......."Black is the new silver" anyone!!!!"

Edited by nick62 on 25/02/2008 at 17:11

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Mon 25 Feb 2008 17:22
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - Paul I
As above it's all in the skill of the operative, I use a local guy who does the "SMART repairs" as he works "word of mouth" and doesn't have a Franchise just a VW van and a very good reputation because of this he charge's the "trade" £45.00 plus VAT.

When talking what is interesting is that he charges the same to all garages both second hand and Aston Martin dealerships who he deals with !!
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Mon 25 Feb 2008 17:18
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - hugopogo
Don't think its unreasonable to ask for the full cost of the repair... Its annoying that you take care of your car, clean it, polish it, service it, cook for it, bring it drinks... and then some other great clumsy numpty comes along and bashes stuff into it without a care in the world.

To date I've got a crumpled bonnet from who knows what (i suspect it was used as a trampoline), a dent in the door from an Ikea trolley, a dent in the rear passenger side quarter panel (unknown cause), a dimple in the rear driver side quarter panel (again unknown) and several scratches and dents in the boot from the loss of my Nissan logo. Oh and lest I forget.. Some kind soul ran a key along side the driver side door and scratched that too.

In fact when I actually caused some damage to my own car (a gust of wind blew the drive gate into the side of it and scratched the door bumper... Colour coded for some reason) I let out a cheer.

I've literally given up on ever getting it repaired because the car is 6 years old and is worth about 2 grand tops. So now I either drive it till the wheels drop off or hope someone will take it in part exchange for something a bit bigger.

Heh, sorry, this has turned into a rant against ignorant members of the public.

In summary: Send him the bill.
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Mon 25 Feb 2008 17:40
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - Armitage Shanks {p}
If this old buffer has any sense, and is a responsible aeromodelling person, he should have about £1 Million worth of 3rd party liability insurance; this is to cover the damages if his craft crashes into and injures someone. If he hasn't he is a fool and, if he was flying or preparing to fly in a 'public' place (park, playing field, recreation ground etc) he is probably legally required to have such cover. Thus if he hasn't he may be illegal and is definitely ill-advised. Send him a bill and either he can pay or his insurance can/may. His problem!
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Mon 25 Feb 2008 18:33
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - yorkiebar
Right, time to be the devils advocate maybe?

I am not saying he shouldn't pay up to repair it properly but just consider the other side of the coin too?

Have you children? Have any of them damaged/scratched etc the property of somebody else, even unintentionally? If they caught a car with their bike whilst out would you be happy with the maximum cost choice thrown at you?

There is a theory called live and let live. A compromise between the full works and the basic repair to get it to a state where it is good and acceptable for a car of its age if you were looking to buy it?

Where there is a blame there is a claim is all well and good; but as we all know it just develops into a free for all and everyone insists on the best repair possible.

Consider honestly, did your bumper have ANY damage on it before this incident? If so, why is the guilty man (no argument of his guilt) to be expected to pay for this other damage?

Difficult one to call maybe but we are all human ?
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Wed 27 Jun 2018 22:25
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - mikeymo

10 year old discussion, I know, but...

"Have you children? Have any of them damaged/scratched etc the property of somebody else, even unintentionally?"

Yes. My daughter opened our car door against somebody elses in a restaurant car park. It made a mark in the paint. We walked into the restuarant, found the owner, gave him my phone number. He sent me the receipt for IIRC about £50. I sent him a cheque.

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Wed 27 Jun 2018 23:05
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - Ethan Edwards

If he is a member of the British Model Flying Assoc then he gets iirc 5m quid of cover. We are a very responsible bunch of geezers and girls.

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Fri 29 Jun 2018 10:37
Repair of minor scratch on plastic bumper - FoxyJukebox

Similar thing happpened to me. Slight scrape down a wheel arch while my car was nicely parked in the street. Lady who did it admitted it might have been her fault-"I was trying to give way to oncoming traffic" . Damage slight but highly visible--a £150 quid jobby at least

Reported to my insurance and insisted this was not my fault. Insurers agreed--they also kindly agreed that since damage was slight and within £300 excess limits I would have to pay. Grrrrrr

Luckliy lady( who lived locally) gave in and paid £180 invoice.

Told insurance company that I would stand absolute no nonsense if they started hiking up my premium "next time". They said they would not. They didn't.

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