TerpsRED

I was pulling into my garage and found myself up against the corner of my refrigerator door. After I considered hari kari on the spot I looked at the damage. I got pretty lucky. I only have a small vertical line about 3 inches long in the plastic bumper near the passenger corner under the tail light.


Any ideas on how to get this out besides a pulloff/fill/sand/paint job?

It is really not worth doing all that for this little love scar. It is on the surface only and only about 1/8 inch deep at most. Barely noticeable unless you are looking at it. I might just wait until the inevitable parking lot ding and do the entire bumper at once, but I'd love to hear of solutions. (No bumper sticker jokes needed please)

TommyV44

How about getting those big tires that they use on tugboats and hanging them off both sides of the car?! couldn't resist!

I did this not too long ago myself with the wide rear end. My detailer was able to buff it out....any chance of that?

Good Luck.

Tom

points

I got tapped in the rear bumper at a stoplight a few years ago...I did not fix it because the fix could be worse than the ding. The scatch is about 2" long and not very noticeable so I left it alone.

_Nathan

My father-in-law did a nice job removing a big dent in the plastic bumper of his Subaru by inflating a volleyball behind the bumper, which popped the bumper back into shape. All that's left is a small scratch.

JMaples

If the plastic is pushed in, use a hair dryer (heat gun is too hot unless adjustable) to gently heat the plastic up and gently put pressure on it from the back side.

LlBr

Can also do it with a light bulb in one of those aluminum bell-type reflectors. Gotta babysit it and get the timing right.

I like this method because it ensures very even heating (or, perhaps more accurately: heating that is uniformly gradual).

Trouble is getting BEHIND it without taking the whole thing off. Get a large diameter dowel and impale a golf ball on it to use a pressing tool (may not even be possible things are pretty cramped back there).

Best thing is to remove it: more control on the pressing out and good chance of achieving near-perfection.

brt3

With a dent that is smaller and fairly distinct, this may not work -- but here goes. Two years back my wife's DD was a Lexus LS460L. Someone tagged her in a parking lot and she was really upset. There was a huge dent in the rear bumper right on the corner.

We parked it outside the next day; it was hot and sunny and we left the corner facing into the sun. After a couple of hours the dent released and you'd never have guessed anything had happened.

Given that we're out of summer, however, you may want to use the hair-dryer method...

points

Shades of OCBen...

Leader

We've "dimpled" the front of our Boxster a couple of times (don't ask). It's popped out on its own in both cases...after being left in the sun. Heat is the key.

jakes dad

AGREE...Heat gun will soften up the plastic but you have to be able to push from the reverse side... Just make sure you keep the gun moving and watch how hot it gets.... Doesn't take much...

TerpsRED

Thanks for all the advise. The dent is not really an indentation that would protrude to the back side. it is more like the plastic itself is compressed in that section, not deformed out of shape if that makes some sense. I'll try the heat methods to see if I can't expand the plastic itself.

I've messed more than a few things up trying to fix just little things. I'll take one pass at it, then just leave it as a reminder to go into my garage forward.