Short of a repaint, does anyone have any good recommendations on ways to bring life back to the finish on my front bumper? 75k miles of bug splatters and road grit haven't left it too pretty, and I'd like to somewhat improve that.

I'm not expecting a perfect, like new finish...but noticeable results would be nice. I know there are a plethora of products out there, but I'd like to hear some of your opinions of what to buy and what processes to use before I invest in products that might turn out to be useless.

Thanks all for your suggestions!

 

bump this topic up, I was just thinking about this last night....i'm sure someone has some advice....

 

i suffer from a few rock chips as well as damn girls driving their daddy's cars around at high school and putting a puncture wound in my bumper. I think I should put a 97 on there. ohh, but then I need new fogs. maybe a new 96

 

Hey Meta --- couple of suggestions for ya

Bringing back paint from a staggered state I would recommend Menzema.. For bugs that have been beating the front up and might still be ingrained I recommend Harley Davidson Bug remover (noone suffers more from that than bikers) and it works.....

You may instead wish to try a highend polish. Prior to that use a scratch remover to get rid of any fine scratches that may exist. Then proceed with a good waxing. Finally, either route you go I would also buy a bottle of oem touch up paint and lightly dabbed any areas that the paint has chipped or scratched beyond repair...

On a side note having the front bumper sprayed shouldn't cost you more than a couple hundred bucks. Ever since I started driving I would bring my cars in when the front & back bumpers were getting roughed up and have them sprayed. If you can find a body shop to do it in the 3-400 dollar range you may want to consider it. Rather see you get fresh paint than spend 50-100 in products and a whole weekend for you not to get picture perfect results like you would with a respray

 

Thank you for the response!

Now, I have a couple follow up questions

What exactly is Menzema? Additionally, when you say scratch remover, are you talking about a rubbing compound, or something totally different (kinda new to this here)?

Also, when doing any of the suggestions above, can these be performed by hand, or is something like a PC absolutely necessary to see (good) results?

Finally, I considered a repaint, talked with my body shop (they quoted about $400), but they said that while they'd be able to match the paint, the finish of the bumper would be noticeably newer from the rest of the car. While that doesn't bother me too much, I'm worried that somewhere down the line when I go to sell this thing that the repainted bumper will hurt me in that any prospective buyers will suspect there was some sort of body damage. Am I correct in assuming this?

I also got a quote from another shop for $150 for a repaint, but I'm a little wary of the quality of the paint job at that price.

Thanks once again!

 

I'll say one thing. Buy a Porter Cable 7424 and the necessary pads and then go out and buy some 3M Perfect-it II Rubbing compound and 3m Perfect-it III Machine Glaze. This duo has brought the life back to alot of paint Ive worked with. Heres an example:

This was a 1998 Toyota Avalon I worked on for my last client, was VERY abused on the outside, owner didnt take care of the simple things like keeping it washed in the winter:

Before:




After:




I used both of those 3M products with the PC. No wetsanding was done. Beleive me, Anyone would have though that trunk was repainted from what it looked like afterwards, same with the rest of the car.

 

Holy crap, nice work! I'd say the 3M products work pretty damn well.