Hello All,

Few weeks back I hit my rear bumper in one upper corner and got a small chip, but I noticed a buck of cracks, I put some Dr color chip, just to cover all the hairlines just to prevent rust..
Question for the experts..
Do I need to re paint full bumper or just the section?
Is it better to do it know that I have new paint or should I just leave it the way it is for now .

Just concerned the cracks are going to get larger
Thanks for any help

 

First of all, the bumper is plastic so rust is not an issue you have to worry about.

The newer your paint, the less blending they have to do which translates into less money spent.

It may not, however, be as simple as a repaint. I got a love tap on the rear bumper of the 996 by an idiot (no more than 5mph) and it looked like you describe. The result, however, is that the skin itself was damaged and needed to be replaced ($2200 just for the bumper skin!).

If you are planning to keep it awhile, my advise is to ignore it for now and let it continue to gather the dings that happen. I have lots of experience getting paint fixed only to come out and find it messed up again. It's not worth the aggravation (yes after the recent $15k on mine I've already found places where people have marred the paint!).

Hopefully you'll get lucky and someone else will have to pay to get it repainted for you

 

Lol thanks for the tips, only concern is if the cracks are going to get larger

 

They could if the area continues to get hit. The 996 suffered from parking in DC and the front bumper started as a spider web, but over time a good 2 square feet of paint flaked off. She ran with it though and made a "band-aid" out of skull and cross bone tape and rolled like that for years.

Now that she isn't taking it downtown anymore we finally had the bumper redone last fall. No physical damage so it only cost $500 to get repainted.

 

Thanks Gnat, can they paint just the area?

 

Yes that can be done and they just blend it to the rest of the paint. With newish paint that can be done and not be noticeable. When it's older paint, however, you are better off having a larger area (e.g. the whole piece) done as the difference between the old and new paint will be noticeable when you catch it right.

A good shop will still go through the labor of removing the bumper to do the work (for a small area) as that will allow for a better job as well as inspection for damage that isn't obvious from the outside. A shop that doesn't remove it will save you money, but (in my experience) they are also the ones that don't do good blending jobs anyway and can make it look worse (e.g. noticeable from farther away) than what you are trying to correct.

Since it sounds like you haven't gone through much body work in the past I would suggest you ask around locally for recommendations and talk to your dealer about who they use (I found my guy as he used to have a contract with a local Jag dealer). Then take it to a few shops to get estimates and interview them about the work. Get them to explain what they would do and what they recommend. The shop that's willing to take the time explain stuff to you and let you into their shop area to see working being done is probably a good bet. The high volume shops, ones that don't want to explain things to you, or feed you a line of BS are the ones to avoid.

Another rule of thumb is don't trust who ever your insurance wants to send you to (when using insurance). A lot of them have certified/preferred/etc.. shops that they blow all kinds of sunshine about how it's best if you use them, but the reality is that they have contracts with those shops to do as little work and as cheaply as possible to get you back on the road. Regardless of what they imply you are free to take your car anywhere you want and they still have to pay for it. My companies favorite line is "through our shop we warranty the work for life" (though any issues not caught before you take the keys usually results in the shop claiming it happened after you left), but any decent shop is going to stand behind their work anyway.

Unfortunately guessing what it will cost is a hard game. The 996 was rear ended in July and that cost $822 to fix. The current round was a softer hit and looked like less damage, but it's at $4500 so far (the difference is where/how they hit). This makes it hard to determine if someone is low balling you (where there will be additional things found after work has started), being honest, or trying to milk you.

Edit: Now that I'm finally on a computer and can see your pics, anyone that tells you the bumper doesn't have to come off to fix it is someone to walk away from.

 

Thanks so much for taking the time and explain everything, now I have a better idea of what to look for

 

what you guys think of this..

Porsche dealer collision center.. price

quoted 17.5 hours labor for a total of $1,285.

they told me they need to get the bumper off, sand, paint, put the thing on the oven and put everything back ..

what you guys think of this price is this high for a complete bumper re spray..

just worried if the paint will actually blend with the rest of the car

then I got another quote from a guy that paint minor or bigger cosmetic things at Dealer and told me the same procedure but the job doing it on his shop like a side job for half the price

 

That does sound a bit high to me, but not unreasonably so. I would have expected in the $1000 area. As I said before though, this can be hard to judge if you don't do it for a living.

See if you can get recommendations from other nice car owners in your area for an independent shop to have look at it.

 

Gnat I called my parts guy at the dealer and bumper cover was $320 so I talked to the body shop guy for a quote just for paint it was $500 and to dismount and reasemble everything $700
Its cheaper to buy the new one and keep the old one, my only concern was this guy telling me he need it the Cayenne to blend the color, so I ask him why if he was using the paint code and alao that my Cayenne was two months old and paint was fairly new, I was thinking I could drop off the bumper and just picked up and he said some times they need to blend the color in case it wont match, does this sound normal?

Thanks

 

He could certainly paint it to a code for you and then slap it on, but he's right that if you want it done right he needs the car. Even with fresh paint there is some variation in the color codes (much tighter these days though).

Additionally the first few months of your paint's life is it's most vulnerable while it is still hardening. You won't notice it as the whole car is changing at a similar rate, but even this young if you slapped on a fresh color coded bumper without the blending, it will drive you nuts every time you look at it

Because of it's age, however, he really shouldn't have much blending to do.

 

Thanks Gnat makes sense