I'll post photo later but my wife bottomed front of her prius on uneven road shoulder wnen she turned prematurely into a driveway. Wheel dipped into ditch most likely caused by rain from tropical storm hannah. Anyway it is somewhat ground up. Doubt it can be buffed out. My question is what would new front bumper painted and installed cost? Like I said I'll post photos later. This just happened and I'm posting from iPhone.
List for a front bumper cover is $201.24 and parts.com has them for $139.14. I would guess that having it painted and installed would run $300 or so. If you are lucky you may be able to find a good used cover with the correct paint color. That would save you some money.
Here's the pic of the front bumper damage. Anyone think this can be repaired without replacing it and have it look decent ? Thanks - Steve
Especially if there are no cracks, it should be possible to fill the scratches and repaint. However the labor charge associated with filling the scratches should be compared with the $139 discounted price of a new bumper cover.
That's an easy fix. Any body shop should be able to fix it and now there are many of those paintless dent repair places that do spot work just like that on bumpers. I'd fix it for you if you were closer. Was it scrubbed on concrete? You may be able to buff it out. I don't see any of the black plastic showing through so it may not be as bad as you think.
Thanks for the offer of fixing it. Yeah - it got scrubbed up on the concrete but I don't see any black showing through. However they fix it, the grooves would need to be filled with some material and then sanded down smooth and painted. Do they make bonding compounds for filling and sandable for bumpers ? Do they hold up. Like patrick said, a new one might be cheaper than the labor to patch this one. Not sure if the new one would need painting or if you can get in whatever color you need already to go. Painting cost would shift the balance yet again towards maybe fixing the one already on the car.
Normal body filler is fine for just such a repair. It stays flexible enough after it's cured to handle the normal flexing of a bumper. I would say you have 1/2 an hour of body work and then primer and blend. It would take 2 hours of labor tops plus materials. Personally I would go with repairing the bumper cover. It always seems to me that non factory applied paint tends to peal off of plastic bumpers that were not painted from the factory over time. That's why I went with a used bumper on my '08 that I repairing; it gives me a good base for my new paint to stick to.
