need help on not so small scratches

Oh man I did the same exact thing...late one night..dark in that end of garage...forgot there's a little protrusion at the bottom of the door...the back bumper rubber is so soft it didn't even make a noise when it slid down it. Pretty deep scratch from top to bottom of bumper. Past the paint into the rubber.Went to a dealer and got one estimate that was $ 500. According to these rip off artists the bumper which is really just a very flimsy skin has to be completely removed
fixed & painted. They say you cannot feather a rubber repair in correctly. Maybe because the bumper cover is so flimsy. Talked to another shop & they said the same thing. Not sure what to do except not paying $500 to fix a scratch.I looked under the car and it appears the whole rubber bumper skin can come off the metal bumper skeleton fairly easy. I did auto body shop for a few years when I was a kid so thinking of taking the bumper off...fixing the rubber scratch with some 3M AutoMix (which I bought) and then having a shop shoot it. Still looking at about $ 150-200 with a shop prep & paint & shoot cost. Sucks. OR...could just put a bumper sticker over it!

 

I'm always getting some little tiny nic or ding of paint as rocks and debris fly up at the front of my car... I just bought a bottle of paint from the dealer... "I think around 6.00 bucks" and with great care fill in just the little scratch... it works great!

for scratches that are only thru the clear coat.. I use Zaino.

those little tiny dings are just too expensive to make perfect for extreme up close viewing knowing you'll have another next month anyway.

 

I just retired from the auto body trade. Its about $325 to repair the scratch. You did not mention front or rear bumper. First is the scratch through to the primer, or worse into the rubber. As I said to my customers, I know your heart broken when your new car gets its first ding or scatch. But bumpers are going to get bumped, and you would be even more pissed if you pay me 325 to fix it and next month some one dings it again.--- SO Just compound around the area (no wax) and get as much of the bruising off as you can wash and dry the area, and when use the bottle of touch-up from the dealer. Keep it very small , just fill in the scratch DONT GO OVER THE MARGINS. Let it dry over night and repeat. You are fortunate that you car is black and not a light color metalic. Send me a pm if you have any questions.

 

Sorry to hear about that. This happens a lot more frequently than you might suspect. Start looking at cars on the road and you will notice this particular damage all the time- quite easy to spot with the double scratch marks running straight down the bumper. I would say in CA Bay Area about $500 to repair with just paint damage.

 

Since the OPs car is Black (if it was a metallic color, I would have just bitten the bullet), one thing that might work is to take some touch-up paint and try to fill in the scratch(es). Use a number of passes with a touch-up brush to build up the paint to the level of the surrounding finish. Once you get to the level of the surrounding finish, let the paint harden for a good 48+ hours and wet sand with something like 1200 grit (maybe better yet, use rubbing compound) and then polish. You may be able to get real close to what $500 would have got you; if you don't like the result, you can always spend the $500.

 

Consider Using a Sharpie

I'm not sure of the type of scratches you have, but one thing I've used successfully for a lot of typical bumper scratches and nicks is a fine point Sharpie. It's cheap, effective and much more precise than touch-up paint (brush-on touch-up paint in a jar tends to be goopy, and touch-up paint pens tend to be runny).

You have a black car so you can try the ordinary black Sharpie. Those with colored cars can try a good art supplies store to find a Sharpie, Prismacolor or other similar permanent ink marker in a color that best matches their car.

 

I like the bumper sticker idea. My HOV sticker covered the small ding I had perfectly. Nearly every Prius I see has stickers of some kind, HOVs, political, eco, take your choice! One car I saw must have had lots of scratches, it had about six bumper stickers on it!