is there any harm in this?

[imported_tuffluck]

i bumped my bumper the other day and it took some paint off and scuffed up the paint below the missing paint area. the area is relatively small at about 3 inches long, but long enough to require a damn repaint of the bumper. as frustrated as i am, i was wondering what the harm is in attempting to put touch-up paint + wet-sanding the area just to see what happens? i mean the worst that could happen is i sand through the bumper, at which point i would get it repainted, which i'm going to do anyway most likely. my concern is that i screw up the paint more and somehow that equates into a body shop trying to screw me and tell me the bigger area damaged the more it would cost to repaint?



any thoughts?



also any tips would be great. i'm sure *most* of you would look at the damage and say just get it repainted, but truthfully on my last car i had similar scarring that i did a very good job of buffing/sanding (it's on an inconspicuous area anyway), and no one ever noticed unless it was one of you guys that saw my car coincidentally in a parking lot i'm thinking if i can make it a 7/10, almost no one will ever notice and it will save me $400.

 

[imported_tuffluck]

so i worked on this yesterday just to see what happened. actually, it looks pretty good!



i had to wetsand a bit more than i prefer, only because i made a pass with the buffer and it pulled some of the touch-up paint off of the bumper, so had to repeat the process. i did this three times, but luckily i really localized the sanding so nothing was overly sanded.



a couple of spots just kept having issues and the fresh paint kept being pulled out of the cracks, maybe because they weren't deep enough of scratches, i'm not sure. i'll probably invest in the blob eliminator and touch up the rest with this.



really i'm pretty impressed. in direct sunlight it is noticeable but not bad. you have to be pretty close. ideally i will eventually get it repainted i'm sure, but for now i think this works.



the truth is that every autopian knows that 98% of people or better are never going to scrutinize your paint enough to notice anything less than a 7/10 when it comes to paint damage on your car.

 

[Accumulator]

tuffluck- If you're satsified, then that's what counts.



The damage is confined to the bumper/bumper cover, right? Then any decent shop is gonna pull it off and repaint the whole thing, then reinstall. So there's zero harm in trying a touchup and hey, you might find that you can live with it after all. Sometimes stuff that *really* bugs me becomes no big deal after I've lived with it for a while.



I do think you'd be happier with the results if you let the touchup dry/cure longer before leveling it, but it that's just not feasible then you do what you gotta do.



And yeah...heh heh, spend enough time here at Autopia and you can start thinking that nothing but perfection is acceptable, but I think that IRL 99.999% of people never notice, or simply couldn't care less, how anybody's car looks, including their own. Satisfy yourself and let everyone else do likewise. [Insert my usual rant about how life's not a car show here ]