Made a mess already :*o

**gsf** · 09-08-2009, 07:23 PM

Well I knew it was possible, I tried to be careful, but it happened anyway

...

My wife's car had this gouge (1/8" wide x 1" long) on the top of her back bumper, down into the plastic. She filled it with touchup but it still looked like crap. So before I read the warning articles about wet sanding, I had only read stuff on about.com or ehow.com about doing touchups. I sanded a tiny bit, put a couple layers of touchup in to build up the gouge. Then I started trying to sand it down to level it, and oh? what's that? primer!

So I then did more research and found out that this was not a good idea and went about trying to make it better, I'm sure you know where this is going

I did another touchup covering the primer, sanded very gently, and it didn't look too bad. Then I got out the clearcoat touchup, shook well (as directed) and applied the clearcote. I looked at it after a few minutes, it was already mostly dry and it had tons of tiny air bubbles.

So now I have a 1/2" by 1.5" swath of touchup paint that looks 12 shades different from the original paint. Can I do anything to make it look any better? How much should I expect to pay a shop to fix my mistake? If I take it in, I'm assuming they'll have to repaint the bumper and do some blending. If so, will they be able to fill/sand the plastic to take out the many other marks in it?

Here's a pic:

On a positive note, it feels much smoother than it was when I started!

**Rsurfer** · 09-08-2009, 07:32 PM

I had a ding on my bumper repaired by a body shop and they resprayed the entire bumber. I must say it matches better than the original. Because bumbers need a flexing agent they are not sprayed at the same time the body is and it may be a little off color. If you should attempt this kind of repair again, use a rattle can clear coat.