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Simple Bumper Repair – Lease Return

Simple Bumper Repair - Lease Return

No matter where you park or how careful you are , its bound to happen…

I use this car to drive to the train station during the week.  I park it in the most isolated space I can find every day, yet someone was courteous enough to commit a “hit-and-run” on me.

The damage below is a simple paint transfer and small breakthrough on a urethane bumper.   Being a three-stage paint or “tri-coat”, any repair will certainly present a challenge to the shop trying to match the color. (Three-stage = basecoat, pearl or effect coat, and clearcoat)  In addition, the approximate $400 cost to repair is not worth it as this car is a lease.

Fortunately this can be fixed by a professional detailer.

To repair the damage, I used a Makita rotary polisher, but a similar result can be obtained with a Porter Cable polisher.

To start, I used an Orange Lake Country 5.5″ flat pad, and Meguiars M105.  I set the Makita speed to 2 and slowly worked the polish over the paint.  The damage slowly came off, and the bumper was ready for some final polishing.  I used a Porter Cable and a Green pad with some Meguairs M205 for this.  Again, slowly, the light haze left behind from the M105 was removed and a near OEM finish was restored.

To address the area where the paint was broken, I used an Infiniti OEM touch up paint I purchased when I bought the car.  I wasn’t going to attempt to add the pearl, the base white was more than enough for my desired end result.  This is the only damage on the car, and it is much smaller than the allowed size as per the lease.  I slowly let the paint flow into the break.  Don’t “brush” or “wipe”, just let the paint flow from the brush into the break.  As the urethane was black, it took 3 coats of basecoat to cover sufficiently.

End result met my needs.  I’m sure the repair is more than adequate to pass a lease return inspection and save me the potentially large and unnecessary bill.

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