My daughter received a 2001 Saturn as Grandmother gave up her keys. The finish is scraped off the bumpers on the front left and rear right, probably abraded from concrete walls. Any ideas for an acceptable, not necessarily perfect fix?
They’re plastic bumpers, right? You have basically 2 options:
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Take it to a professional, and have it removed, cleaned up, undercoated properly, sprayed with the right color, installed, and pay the $$$ for it. Paint won’t stick properly to plastic unless it’s treated properly (as in an add in treatment).
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Ignore it. It’s plastic, it won’t rust. No problem.
If you’re desperate to clear up the color somewhat, you could go to Lowe’s and get the plastic spray paint. I’ve used it once on plastic, and it looked OK for a few months (we sold the item that had been sprayed). Can’t guarantee how long it will last. Getting the color close may be really, really tough. If you try, be sure and cover everything (everything, everything) you don’t want sprayed with a new paint.
If you want to do it yourself, you can have a body shop mix the paint for you. Then you have to take the bumpers off the car, sand, primer and paint + clear coat. It is involved. A bumper paint will run around $400, see my other thread on my fixing the scratch.
http://community.cartalk.com/discussion/2279422/best-way-to-repair-bumper#Item_21There are on-line places that would sell spray paint with the same color code as your car, but it would not match because of the age of your car. How about spraying them black? I have used black plastic spray for a lot of PVC projects and it has looked fine. And yes, bumper stickers are nice.
Black is a possibility, your bumper sticker reminded me of this!
One more vote for painting both bumpers front and rear black. I have done it before–recommend that you use a flat finish–definitely NOT gloss.