Hey folks!

I recently had the pleasure of being rear-ended at a gas station. I am working on fixing the body work and tail light damage, but I have questions about my bumper paint damage:

• There are 3 separate cracks, super small
• There is one big area that no longer holds a shine

On the cracks, I was wondering if I could treat them like rock chip repair: touch-up paint, wet sand with 1000, 2000, 3000 grit, and then hit it with a 7424XP DA and Meguiar's Ultimate Compound and hope for the best?

On the lack of shine, I rubbed some alcohol on a rag and did not get any yellow paint on it, so I'm assuming the clearcoat is still intact (is that trick... accurate?), and that it just needs to be buffed out? I tried hand-buffing with some compound and it did not help.

I'd appreciate any meaningful tips/advice, or let me know if this is crazy and a full repaint of the bumper is indeed required.

Thanks!

 

paint is cracked, repaint is the only 100% way of it fixing it. you may get by with the wet sand approach but your results will depend on the prep. the cracks will typically spread on the bumpers due to air pressure. or at least thats my experience.

 

Thank you for your response!

Any particular suggestions on the prep, if I wanted to give the wet-sanding approach a test?

My issue is that unlike a nice rock chip, I still can't get any paint "inside" the crack, it just sits on top (and if I wipe it off, it all comes off). Wondering if I should sand and scrape the scratch to be a little wider to make a canyon for the paint to sit in?