Hi all. So I have been walking through small projects with my 2009 C4S, and just got around to removing the yellowing clear-bra from the front bumper. One area near the air intake front lip had impacted something along the way, and a pretty large paint chip came off with the bra. I was thinking about re-spraying the area after some sanding prep, and primer with color match aerosol paint. Has anyone used the spray paint and clear coat in the past, and what were your opinions? Pic below.

 

I used some touch-up paint for my minor paint issues on my 911 and it turned out fine (not perfect but you need to look for the imperfections). On the flip side, I tried to respray on my winter beater and it turned out awful. My advice would be to get the 30$ touch-up paint and brush it on.

 

I'm going to go with the opposite suggestion, and suggest using a color matched spray can. I sanded, primed, and painted the bottom of mine and it looks fine. I've done the same thing on my last car as well, and had good results. Using a brush, I've only messed things up to the point where I had to take it in to get professionally painted (aside from tiny chips) because I sanded too much off when blending. Watch a few videos, and make sure things are sanded, clean, and you tape everything off you don't want painted.

 

bje, I should mention my issue was color correction. The areas I sprayed look fine but do not blend with the rest of the car. In that location I think you are more likely to notice a shift in color rather than brush strokes. Either method would like fine done correctly imo.

 

My thought process for this was: 1 - It is in a pretty good area to not show imperfections, and 2 - It is a quarter sized chip, and the edges are still a bit unstable, so sanding and hitting a bigger area would be easier to blend, and potentially stick better.

 

Sounds like you have it thought out. Good luck and post some pictures of the result please.

 

I've been spray painting and airbrushing since I was a kid. I've painted bicycles and cars, but I do not do it professionally. It appears this is black, not basalt black, so that is good news. However, black is not as easy to color match as it would seem, just on the base coat between fading and ensuring the correct pigments.

You've got to deal with two issues.

1) This is big enough that you can't get a good result with a touch up brush. You can't totally prevent over spray.
2) As you sand this out, you're going to end up with areas where you are painting base over clear. It's pretty hard to get this to look perfect. Black is probably the least bad for this issue, but you can get a look of a shadow under the new base coat. Very hard to describe this and I can't even think of a way that it could be photographed.

If this is a metallic, add this challenge

3) Align metal flake with the original spray direction

Repainting the entire panel/bumper is the best way to combat the issue with the clear/base overlap as long as you've got a very good match to the other panels. Barring that.

Try to keep the base coat over spray as close to possible to the area that requires color. Limit the over spray of the base coat as much as possible. Then blend in the clear by over spraying the clear coat a fair amount. You'll have to wet sand that, possibly apply another layer of clear, and then polish.

The cost of having a bumper professionally resprayed is usually not too much. You might want to consider that.

 

Painting a front bumper that you've removed shouldn't be more than $600, assuming no other dent issues. It will look far better than a DIY, ESPECIALLY IF IT IS METALLIC. In addition any other stone chips/defects will be removed so the whole bumper will look correct, IMO.