Front bumper damage, fix or wait till lease end?

Minor fender bender yesterday… Waiting at a T intersection, cross traffic with no stop, traffic clears and I pull forward and hit the vehicle in front of me. Assumed he went, of course all my fault… The question is should I get it fixed? It cracked the chrome grill surround and dented the middle part of the bumper. No damage to the sensor. It’s noticeable but not that noticeable. I hear it’s typically cheaper to have the mfg fix it at lease end but not sure.

Of note, the guy was really nice and it did no damage to his car, he didn’t want my info.

Post a phone pic of the bumper?

For me, I’d get it repaired immediately. You’re going to have to fix it, regardless without getting charged. Might as well fix it now and not drive around with a cracked grill.

If it’s just the grill that’s cracked, they’re very easy to change yourself. Few screws and a few clips etc

1 Like

How far off is your lease end date, and can you live with the damage?

If you can live with it, then you’ve got nothing to lose to just wait and see what the inspection comes back with. For minor dents and such its almost always cheaper to just pay the lease end charges vs. getting it fixed (IME).

Pics posted, yes can live with the damage. Will probably be more noticeable once it’s clean. Of note, says the sonar isn’t working this morning. The only difference is now it’s saying it’s not functional, as it didn’t work yesterday - alert or auto brake which it’s supposed to…

Wow. I had damage like damn near exactly like this on an Altima a few years ago. At 500 miles somebody hit my car with a cart. I also rear-ended somebody in a Toyota on the highway and, miraculously, my damage was also pretty much exactly like this (actually less–I only had scuffing, but no actual indentation).

In both cases the cars were leases. In both cases I went to the dealership, bought some branded color-match paint, went to autozone, bought some scuff pads, and some ScratchX 2.0, and got to work. That’s what I’d do here. You can’t fix the dent, but with scratchx you can basically “sand” down the roughness. You can then put on multiple coats of the color match paint and with a few coats and smoothing them down you’d be surprised what you can achieve.

I returned the cars and never heard a word about it. If you try this the worst case is you’re no better off. There’s realistically no way you make it worse, and you can at least get the paint to the point where it’s only noticeable under weird lighting (since you won’t be putting a top coat on like they do at the manufacturer).

No joke I’ve actually fixed on four cars a surprising amount of paint damage by just using color match paint and multiple coats of it sponged on and then smoothed over with Scratch x.

1 Like

By hand or with an orbital?

I buff by hand. Those little buff pads for a couple bucks with scratchx are extremely gentle. This is why it is difficult to mess it up IMO. As for the touch up paint I’ve found there is a sweet spot with applying it. It dries very quickly–dries to touch in like 20 seconds. But if you then rub anything excess off within a minute or so it’s very easy to do.

I once took a white car that had severe road rash down to the black plastic bumper over probably a 3X6" area and using this technique got it surprisingly good. You will notice it under lighting but only if you’re really looking for it.

But if these things are now impaired, you might want to get it checked out. Otherwise, it’s the same thing - can you live without it and for how long? :slight_smile:

I had bmw look at $1800 of damage (appraised at repair shop) and found out that bmw charges max 400 per panel at lease end. It’s cheaper to return it unrepaired.

Get it pre inspected and pick the lesser option

May get an estimate from a local shop, don’t have to turn it in until the end of August. I really don’t think buffing it out myself will have much effect as it’s dented in fairly deep.

If it was alittle further to the left, you could’ve easily covered it with a $5 dollar plate bracket :joy:

Doesn’t really look that bad. I initially assumed the entire grill was cracked but it seems just a hairline around the grill.

Like others have said, give it a good wash then just rub alittle scratch x or light compound to buff it out.

It’ll prob be cheaper to just pay at lease end.

Last resort, you can always stop at a reputable PDR shop and see if he can “pull out” that dent. You’d be surprised what they can do with those glue suction cup pullers

Touch up the paint and don’t worry about it unless you can hide it behind a license plate mount.

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.