I hit a car while parking (awesome turn radius, Nissan, thanks!) and dented up the front bumper cover. I called my local body shop and got a quote for a new front bumper and fog light lenses (mine are cracked). With an aftermarket bumper....$650

That seems kinda high for a bumper cover right? The car is metallic white. Should I be alarmed by that?

 

Sounds about right if painted. Bumper alone can be had for $50 or so without paint.

 

Yep, sounds about right. I had to get quotes to replace the rear bumper cover for my wifes Pathfinder and it was around $400-600 painted.

Luckily, a helpful member of the forums had a friend that worked at a collision repair company and hooked me up great.

 

I had some quotes for getting my front skin painted and/or replaced.

That price is about right. Pretty low, actually, since you're getting new fogs, too.

 

About right.

 

new cover OEM painted up here is 1k not including the fogs

 

I think we have a carpenter blaming his tools

 

Compared to what? Have you gotton any other quotes?

 

Oh definitely my fault, but the turning radius is notoriously horrific. I'm going to call a couple other places. Seems like bumpers are under $100...I just did not expect $550 to paint and install. Either way, looks like it has to get done unless I want to keep looking ghetto.

 

totally normal price, and why cant they fix the bumper u have it cant me that gnarly??

 

I'd say that's an insane quote in a good way, that sounds better than what I would expect for that kind of work. I backed into someone in my school's parking lot in my old SUV at maybe 2 mph last year and ended up messing up the other kid's rear bumper pretty bad but all it was on my end was some traded paint on the corner of the bumper. All they did was fix a 3 inch crack on the underside of the corner of the bumper and repaint the spot where there was white paint and I ended up being out $575. Paint work is what kills you on body repair costs.

 

i say hit a junkyard see if you can find a bumper,and prep it yourself that way it'll save a couple of bucks and possibly fab up your own lip kit out of your old bumper<< just a thought

 

ditto, get a clean junkyard bumper, do the prep yourself and let someone else paint it. Maaco does sh1tty paint jobs because they do horrible prep (why theyre so cheap), but i would try them if you do all the prep yourself and let them just paint.

a junkyard bumper is under $50 and it shouldnt be more than a couple hundred for a place to just paint

 

lets see:

new cover - check
new fogs - check
tri stage paint - check
remove/instal - check

$650 total = good deal

 

Buy yourself an aftermarket bumper that is already primered and all you will need to do is scuff it with a gray scotch pad and bring it to them to get painted. Just take the old one off and put the new one on yourself. Prepping & assembly/disassembly is a huge part of the work. My guess is you'll save 100-150 bucks by doing this. I had my car repainted and used aftermarket bumper covers from autopartswarehouse without any problems.

I have heard that the pearl white is much tougher to work with than other colors, and it may cost slightly more. My guess is the paint is around 50-100 bucks and the rest of the costs will come from booth time, spraying, baking, etc. I'm sure you could find someone to do some side work for you too for much less if you really search around.

 

I bought a painted bumper cover on ebay, with 3 stage paint (glacial white pearl). I think its was like $300 shipped.

 

thanks for the input guys, just wanted to be sure. I was going maybe like 3-5 mph when the corner of the passenger side hit the tire of an SUV. Totally buckled my bumper cover, sucks.

My fogs are fine, but the plastic lenses are cracked from rocks or whatever (not the parking lot incident).

 

How in the world did they ship something like this? I would think it's too big for FedEx/UPS. The freight alone would cost a good portion of that $300 I'd think. I'd also be worried about it getting bent during shipping and the paint flaking. That seems like a really good deal though. How did the bumper look when you got it?

EDIT: Ok, so I just answered most of my questions, though I'd still like to know what you thought of the paint job. It turns out that the Ebay guys ship via the Post Office amazingly enough. I found a new, painted to any color you want bumper cover on their for around $250.00 shipped. The feedback looks good too. I might try this myself in the future since my front bumper has seen better days.

 

Good deal

 

sounds good to me

 

Link?

 

It looked very good. The paint was perfect. The cover was wrapped in a giant cloth "sock", then bubble wrap, and plastic.

2002-03 Nissan Maxima Front Bumper Painted
Item # NI1000192 $255.00 1 $255.00
Fee for Nissan QX1
Item # Tricoat $75.00 1 $75.00
Subtotal $330.00
Total $330.00 USD Delivered.

 

Check out car-part.com. You can probably find one already painted the right color from the factory.

 

^^ Yeah your definitely right, but the only problem with that is if your paint is somewhat faded it wont match at all and silver is especially hard to match.

 

Here's the one I saw:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2002-...Q5fAccessories

You can make offers on it so the price should be lower as well. His feedback looks good.

 

Thanks for the info. I'm going to go this route when I eventually replace my jacked up front bumper.

 

I don't know about ordering any part that comes painted from the interwebs. It's always best to get the bumper cover and bring it and your vehicle to the sprayer so they can ensure the proper paint shade.

 

I just took it to another shop, they think they can repair it and re-paint instead of needing a new bumper...quoted me $350, which is much easier to swallow. Just dropped $350 in a new radiator this week too....doh

 

Trust me on this, do not price shop body work, especially when you hear "we think we can".

Been detailing cars as my own business for 16 years. Believe me, I can easily spot who cheaps out on paint and body.