Entaille

iTrader: (16)

buffable or not? I hate people.

DavesZ#3

iTrader: (26)

Can you feel it with your finger tips or catch a nail on it? If so, not buffable.

Entaille

iTrader: (16)

thanks, dave, its definitely cracked. I am f'ed. arg

TheFarmer

iTrader: (19)

That sucks

Entaille

iTrader: (16)

the paint is 3 months old. there are no other markings to indicate that a car bumped it. I wish I knew what happened. pretty furious right now. rawr.

sdZ33

iTrader: (39)

Some a-hole probably leaned on the hood and scratched it

Waiz

iTrader: (57)

Do you think they could be stress cracks from scraping the bottom lip too many times?

I got raped by a piece of wood on the freeway and it gave me a similar scratch on my passenger side.

Entaille

iTrader: (16)

maybe Waiz. I have scraped a few times, nothing within the last month though, and this for sure happened within the last two days. I check my car pretty frequently and as of lately I've been getting absolutely ****ing bombarded with bird **** diarhea at work, so I've been washing it often and paying attention to it .. hah

davidv

iTrader: (2)

A professional with a machine can make a considerable improvement. The results may not be perfect.

Entaille

iTrader: (16)

thanks david. in the interest of spending less money on the Z, perhaps I will have them try to cover it up / blend it as well as they can. I can't justify respraying a bumper painted this recently.

a detailer told me he would be willing to buff it to the best of his ability as long as I signed a waiver if it got any worse.. that worries me. maybe I should be having a paint shop do the cover work instead?

350LowLife

iTrader: (8)

You can try what I did on my wifes car when she came home from the store with a foot long scratch down the door.

I had the touch up clear coat and filled in the scratch. and then sanded it down with some worn out 1200 grit wet/dry paper, then buffed it out with my Griot's machine polish to restore the shine.

You can still lightly see where the scratch is....but you really have to look hard for it.

Flo-ridaZ33

iTrader: (60)

Yea.. I see what your saying but the reason he's going to make you sign a waiver is b/c he's not going to make the scratch worse being too aggresive with a buffer will burn the paint. You'll be able to blend it... If he wet sands the scratches he's going to level the paint around the scratch to make it seem like its not there. I've done it a million times (buffed not burned), in fact I clay barred(sorry if the spelling is incorrect) and machined buffed my whole car when I got it. How much is he going to charge? I'd get an estimate for both paint and polishing personally... Your going to pay for Labor, Time, and materials any which way.

Entaille

iTrader: (16)

lol Walt you should see the previous touch up jobs I attempted on the Z. looks so terrible. not my kind of work at all : (

you on the other hand, have skills.

Entaille

iTrader: (16)

wow. the place that sprayed it originally wants 600$ to respray it. my deductible is 500$.

I would have thought they would hook me up, after all, a referred friend got his kit done through them as well.

what a pain in the dick. I'm going to look around to see if a skilled painter may be able to just paint and blend the center / top area of the bumper, save a little bit of $ in the process.

shaun123

try wetsanding it with like 2000 grit then polishing it out. Will make it look considerably better. May be worth trying before you get resprayed.

Entaille

iTrader: (16)

I would prefer to learn how to properly wetsand on something other then my car! lol. knowing me it would end up looking a lot worse. : P

if I'm getting it resprayed, it's worth a shot though, it's going to get fixed either way. good call.

Boba

iTrader: (21)

350LowLife has got the basics down and many times the results can be astonishing if done properly by an experienced detailer. Here, I won't type out an entire essay on the specific subject. Check out this thread that someone made on how to repair rock chips. Don't forget that you need a variety of products to complete the work, and the total can sometimes come up to be as much as $40 , and if you don't detail your own car, it really isn't worth having the detailing products in your cabinets only to become moldy.

If you don't feel like you could tackle it down yourself, what I would recommend is to take your car to a reputable, professional detailer first if they can offer a free estimate. Meguiars forum is a good place to find detailers, Autogeek as well. Perhaps fixing it will be cheaper than you DIYing yourself. Also, the damages really need to be seen by a professional detailer in person as a scratch, hairline crack, etc all appear to look the same on the internet.

Entaille

iTrader: (16)

its definitely a crack. I've had two local reputable detail shops both tell me there is no way they can fix it : (

shaun123

if I lived nearby, I would knock it out for you. Wet sanding isn't that hard once you get it down, but you can royally screw up your paint if you dont know how to do it correctly.

Good luck man.