Dent - Suggestions?

My vote is to start with the touchup paint. What have you got to lose? Automotivetouchup.com has some nice stuff, including clear coat, and ultrafine sandpaper to feather the edges before you paint. I used their teeny-tiny brush sticks to repair dozens of specks from road gravel that were all over the hood.

 

I'd give it a shot, as Pluggo suggested. Check out some Youtube videos. I watched a bunch of videos and built up a whole lot of courage to do it myself (fixing rock chips).

Worst case, look up dent removal/paint repair on Yelp (usually the dent guys will do both). I've seen some amazing paint repair done in my work parking lot by these guys.

 

touch up. you're lucky, i did the same thing and cracked the cover.

 

I'm not sure I can trust anybody to come out and do body work and paint in my parking area. You gotta be very trusting to do this.

To the OP, that little scratch, touch up paint will easily cover it. Or get a silver sharpie type marker

 

I'm in a similar situation, except, also have a bunch of small dents. I want to fix it myself, but not sure how to deal with the dents part. Does anyone have advice on it?

The options I'm thinking about: getting behind it by removing the fender and using hammer & dolly; using stud welder; or just simply using filler. Which one would you do in this case?

 

This is how it looks:



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View attachment 186908

 

Clicking on your attachment links returns an error, so I can't see the pix. My PiP had some minor dents and I was thinking about trying one of those dent pullers that stick to the car and you simply pull them out. Might work. Might not. In the end, I decided that even if I fixed them, it would just get dented again, so it wasn't worth the bother and expense.

 

Maybe wait till it hits something a little harder? Then get a body shop on it. It's plastic, purely cosmetic.

A good body shop will make it completely go away, get the surface flush, and paint using "blending" method, so you really can't see there was a repair.

There are some "we come to you guys" that are very competent. I'm looking for a video, can't seem to find it at the moment. It's a Vancouver guy, repairing a rear/right corner dent on a dark blue Matrix, if anyone else recalls.

If you've got to, clean it up and get the proper paint code touch up, either through dealership or maybe Dupli-Color.

 

To me it depends on how many miles. Less than 100,000 and I want my car to look new. It would be worth the money to get it fixed at a body shop. Get estimates at a bunch of places. Many will want like $1200-1500 even for a little repair. They do big jobs and want to make a minimum for each car they work on. They’ll do it right and repaint the whole bumper and it will look new, but it’s overkill. Unless insurance or someone else is paying for it. You may find a small independent shop or mobile guy that will sand it out and touch it up for $200-500. If you got 6” away you might see that it was fixed.

The other alternative if it’s got over 100k miles is touch it up yourself. It will cost less than $100. Maybe at 2 feet away you can see that it’s been touched up. But if your car has dings and little chips already so what.

I wouldn’t leave it as is because you’ll see it every time you walk up to your car. Make it so it’s not obvious and you’ll forget about it even with just a quick touch up.

 

I was thinking a bit more, if you were to DIY:

1. Get a spray can, the proper Toyota paint code colour.

2. Cut out a cardboard mask, the same shape but just slightly bigger.

3. Fine sand the paint edges, feathering the border. Thoroughly clean the area, cloth damped with isopropyl alcohol, for example.

4. Roll little balls of masking tape, about 1/2" dia, with the adhesive side out. Three minimum.

5. Afix them to the far side of your card template, as far from the cutout as practical.

6. Attach the template centered over the damage, making sure it's well offset, nowhere near touching.

7. Mask well away from the template with newspaper and tape.

8. Warm up with the spray can, on some cardboard or whatever, aim for for multiple light passes, 8 to 12 inches distant.

9. Spray for real, using the same technique. Don't try to get it done on the first coat. Having the template raised, clear of the surface, should help to feather it. Be patient, let the coats cure.

10. Repeat with a couple of coats of clear.

11. Let it cure a few days, then go over the area with a polishing compound.

It won't be as good as a body shop would do, but it'll pass casual inspection.

 

Has anybody ordered one of the $180 bumper covers that are paint matched on Amazon? If so, how was the fit? Seems a lot less expensive than taking it to a body shop for paint.?

 

For a minor scrape? And the carpool lane decals?? And within a week when you get another scrape???

 

Didn't notice the carpool lane decals. We just have the license plates in Virginia. There was a recommendation on having a body shop repair it which would almost definitely be more than a couple hundred bucks.