This weekend the front of my car bumped into the back bumper of a Chevy suburban. The other driver took their car in after getting “the lowest quote” and sent me an email with the estimate for $850 repairs. Understanding that of course it can be hard to judge from a picture, let me know if you think that sounds accurate. It sounded really really high to me.
The bumper is made of plastic. So it can’t rust.
The body shop will just use touch-up paint and touch-up clear coat.
But you have no say on the estimate.
You’re at fault for the accident.
Tester
Thanks Tester. Yes I️ understand that, I️ was just curious. I’m going through my insurance now.
They will paint more than just the scraped area. It has to be blended in, and they will need a foot or more on either side to do it. If it gets a clear coat, they will have to do the whole bumper.
$850 is reasonable, depending where you live. It’s is reasonable near D.C.
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Doing a proper paint repair is expensive. It isn’t just a matter of using touchup paint, the plastic covers will have to be prepped, surrounding areas masked, new paint properly prepared with a flex agent to allow it to flex with the plastic, sprayed and blended, perhaps a clearcoat if the vehicle came with it. And then it’ll have to be all rubbed and polished to be just like new. And the price to just have a gallon of a specific paint perfectly blended in real automotive paint ain’t cheap.
You have insurance to take care of this. The less contact you have with the other person the better. Just let the adjustor do their job and don’t make any statements that might cause you problems later.
$850 seems reasonable to me. I know it doesn’t look like $850 worth of damage, and in fact it isn’t. But there’s a lot of labor time involved to fix it so it looks the same as it did before the incident. In days of yore folks would just touch something like that up so that is was nearly as good as it was before, but these days we all want perfection. And $850 is the price to pay for perfection.
You need to remember too that the bumper needs to be just like it was before you bumped it. A touchup on your own bumper might be acceptable, but you’re responsible for making the other driver “whole”, that means in this case having the bumper repair to as if it had never happened. That’s a lot more expensive than just a repair.
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My old shop used to charge $150 per panel for painting but they would need to blend in to both adjacent panels to match the paint. So the minimum was usually three panels. Now my latest where a lady backed into me in a parking lot ended up at $3000. That was for a bumper cover, headlight, a little fender and hood repair and painting. Hard to believe it’s that high but painting is expensive now.
Looks to me like there’s some gouging in the plastic itself. If so, they’re gonna replace it.
Doesn’t anybody think it’s a trifle… unreasonable…to be forced to pay for “repair” of scuffing to a bumper?
The function of a bumper is to prevent damage to the rest of the car in the event of a minor collision. As such, the bumper is (IMO) a WEAR ITEM. As it does its job, isn’t it reasonable to expect it to wear a bit, in the form of superficial scuffing?
I know, if your suitcase gets scuffed in baggage handling, any airline WILL tell you “that’s just your suitcase doing the job it was designed to do,” and not pay you. How is this any different?
People are not supposed to be ramming into your vehicle. You say it did its job which is technically correct but that was only to save from the damage being worse, not acceptable to damage it. These are not bumper cars. You hit my car, you pay for the damage that results…
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Are you a lawyer? 
No, it’s not unreasonable at all. The bumper is meant to prevent damage to the rest of the car. The bumper cover, which is what’s damaged here, is meant to make the car look good. Scratches and gouges on the bumper cover look bad, which means it is no longer doing its job as a direct result of OP’s actions.
Because OP did not make the other driver sign an arbitration agreement before he crashed into the guy. And because no one is going to sue an airline for damaging their suitcase because a) the airline has lots more lawyers than you do and b) the airline has lots more money than you do and can bankrupt you with court games.
OP is not an airline, is probably not worth billions, and does not have lobbyists to secure insane legal advantages over the person he hit. OP therefore will have to make the other guy whole because OP is not capable of engineering corruption in his favor.
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Sorry @meanjoe75fan but I have to disagree. Back in the old days with chrome heavy bumpers, I never worried about a few nicks and dents caused by others and never did anything when someone ran into my new car. But now with the painted bumpers, scrapes and tears really detract from the appearance and need to be fixed. I usually would just do it myself though at no cost to anyone else. Would I rather have nice heavy chrome bumpers again? Yeah.
Not unreasonable at all.
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No. It’s damage. You cause it, you pay to fix it.
I find it appalling that some cause damage to others and then balk about having to repair it. Or even worse, try to disappear rather than take responsibility.
I find it sad that we need laws to protect us from damages by those who then think it unreasonable to be required to fix the damage they caused.
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Wow. Snarky and judgemental much?
My point being, having been on the RECEIVING END of “parallel parking rash,” I could not, in good conscience, demand the other guy pay to have my bumper “buffed and spit-polished” to like new status.
FAR too many people treat even the most incidental of contact as an “early Christmas” and try to get the whole damn car restored on somebody else’s nickel. I guess I was just raised better, dunno.
Typically, I either treat the incident as “de nada, brother,” or I’ll see if the other guy would be willing to settle the issue for an autographed picture of Benjamin Franklin. (And the few times I did this, it was because the hit was at 5MPH or so, and he put an actual gouge in the bumper. I wouldn’t feel right doing this for a parallel parking bump.)
When I was much younger, I saved a guy who had run out of gas in the Squirrel Hill tunnel by bumping him to safety in my Camry. I had co-workers tell me I was crazy; that he could turn around and sue ME for superficial damage to his bumper!
At the time, I couldn’t IMAGINE somebody being that superficial and petty. Alas, I’m starting to see their point. 
No, not at all. But arguing that the bumper is supposed to do one thing and therefore OP is not responsible for damage to it because it can still do that thing sounds a lot like something a good defense attorney might come up with.
OP hasn’t indicated that the other guy is trying to get the “whole damn car restored.” $800 is right in line with fixing the cosmetic damage to the bumper. Actually it might be on the low-end of what could be expected.
Some drivers care about their car’s looks. I guarantee if someone runs into me tomorrow, they’re going to pay to put the car back to the way it was, including how it looked. I take very meticulous care of my vehicles, and they tend to still look new even when they’re more than 10 years old. I’m not going to get shafted by having someone screw that up and then let them skate.
If you don’t care what your car looks like and are willing to let people off the hook, that’s very admirable, but it is not required in order to not be “superficial and petty.”
People with a sense of personal responsibility don’t even have to question whether they should have to pay for repairing any damage they do. They just do it.
That isn’t snarky. That isn’t judgmental. That’s simply being responsible.
NOTE: the OP never asked this question. He’s accepting responsibility. He only sought opinions as to whether the amount of the repair quote sounded reasonable. This is a legitimate question for a responsible person to ask.
It’s those people who think it’s unreasonable to have to repair any damage they cause that are the problem. That’s why cars end up over the years with parking lot dings, scratches, and other forms of damage that appear out of nowhere. I work hard to take care of my car and to keep it looking good. I take some pride in it. Some jerk damaging it and thinking it’s unreasonable to have to pay to have it repaired make that impossible. And they’re usually the ones that “blow up” when anyone else touches THEIR car!
If it happened to our brand new car I would pursue repair, if someone did that to my 03 I would say forget about it.