S80: Twit scraped my rear bumper, £££ to fix?

[lillia]

Ninja59: Here you go... two days later.

I'll try to buy that long-lasting bumper treatment Gtechniq C4 that I have been reading about and give the bumpers a once-over before winter.

[Ninja59]

Originally Posted by lillia

Ninja59: Here you go... two days later.

I'll try to buy that long-lasting bumper treatment Gtechniq C4 that I have been reading about and give the bumpers a once-over before winter.

you dont want c4 for paint....thats for trim you want c1 or c2 or a decent sealant such as Finish Kare 1000p, werkstat Acrylic Prime/Jett/Glos, OptiSeal or a decent wax durable wax such as collinite 845/915.

if you go down the gtech route ensure that all surfaces are completely clean decontaminated (tar remover'ed, iron removed, clayed be careful on fresh paint) .

oh and for meaness mine the grey wearing werkstat acrylic and the d2 wearing colly 845....

[lillia]

Sorry, when I said "bumper" this time, I meant the grey plasticky bits below the newly repaired bumper, what you call "trim". So I'll go around the car and do all those parts that are not painted.

Thanks for the tips!

[foggyjames]

In a way, my feelings are a little mixed on painted bumpers. I mean the clue is in the name - bumpers. They ought to absorb the effects of a minor touch without doing themselves hundreds of pounds worth of damage. No-one is perfect, and sooner or later you're going to make an error of judgement. I have a pretty good record with such things, but I kissed a wall in a multi-storey (on the 4th or 5th ramp I decided not to back up...that was a mistake!) a couple of years ago and took off a layer of paint. At least it was my own car.

On one level, I can't argue that there's ever an excuse for not leaving details, but I can understand why people don't - many people are skint nowadays, and when a small error leads to hundreds of pounds worth of damage, completely unnecessarily...I can see how people say "you bought the silly car,
you pay the bill". And yes, I do own two cars with painted bumpers, but still...!

Audi A3s and mk1/2 Mondeos seem to be the worst offender. A3 bumpers seem to fold in on themselves at the lightest touch, requiring a new bumper. A friend did £800 of damage to one, and there wasn't even a mark on his 760. A guy at work has done something similar to his own A3! The Mondeo bumpers splinter with light contact, exposing the foam behind. I'm sure you've seen one. The sale of goods act springs to mind...!

I've got to comment in this, though...

Originally Posted by Chaddie

they filled the dent (to big to pull out)

...that's back to front! You shouldn't go deeper than about 1mm with filler, or it's liable to crack - it's not sufficiently flexible. You pull / hammer deep dents as best you can, then skim with filler to finish (unless you're a genius, in which case you do it all in steel...we are not worthy!). Very light dents can be fillered. My university housemate did a smooth tailgate on a Micra with a couple of litres of P45...it was about 15mm deep, and didn't end well...

cheers

James

[lillia]

Thank goodness Volvo bumpers are strong, or the damage (and cost) would have been much worse!

I can confess that shortly after receiving the car, I backed into a low metal post/stump (about the height of the boot). I was going slowly, but even so, the impact was such (and such a surprise) that I immediately jumped out and raced to the back to survey the damage. There was no indentation, not even a scratch, on the car. This would have been smack in the middle of the bumper. I knew that I had hit the stump, which was clearly dented where it had previously been smooth. But try as I might, I could not identify where on the car had come into contact with the stump. Boy, was I relieved! That's when I realised that I had a very sturdy car. In all the years I have been driving, this was the first and only time that I have ever backed into something. I felt so lucky that I vowed never to have a repeat incident.

The amount of scratching that was visible after the Lakeside incident indicated to me that there must have been some sort of impact before the failed manoeuvre. So it left me steaming because the person not only made solid contact with the bumper, he/she then continued to attempt a manoeuvre that scraped both the back and side of the bumper, and then did a runner, adding insult to injury!

[foggyjames]

I once managed to back directly into an un-seen bollard. Luckily for me, my aim was so good that it hit the towbar, dead-on...! That was a lucky escape!

I had the misfortune to hit a badger in the V70R last year, and it did far less damage than I expected it to, based on how big the bang was. The bumper was cracked, but could have been a lot worse, and I lost a mudflap, foglight, and the bumper trim. Other than that...no harm done!

cheers

James

[40s]

looks good, glad you got it all sorted and all spik and spam, lets hope something like this happens to the BALLOON that bumped it,