CalMike

So I'm parking my two week old 2011 IS350 tonight and a friend decides to creep up and try to park right behind me with all his lights off while I'm in the middle of backing up to straighten out. My bumper hit his front license plate a little left of center, probably at about 1 MPH. Not even a scratch on his car, but I've posted pictures of my bumper below.

Curious about your opinion -- should I even bother taking it to a body shop, seeing as the bumper is bound to get scratched again? Does it look like something that can be compounded out, repaired, and touched up relatively inexpensively? Or am I looking at an expensive job of repainting the entire bumper?

brociouz

iTrader: (65)

That looks like it'll have to be professionally repainted since the scratch is so deep. I know if it was me, I'd have it fixed. Depends how **** you are I guess.

I think you should pick a nice rear lip kit then mold it on and repaint the whole thing.

IS250TW

iTrader: (3)

I had one like this

the person who hit my cars' insurance gave me about $420
and the body shop did it well and it turned out like nothing happened

Fizzboy7

Same thing happened to me, but the speed was more around 3 mph. Interestingly, my damage was far less than yours. I only have one very slight divet where the screw rubbed and no scratches. Can't notice it unless you were told and got down close to inspect. I'm letting it go. Yours I would get repairs, especially since the car is so new.
Good luck.

CalMike

I should add that the camera flash makes the scratches look far worse than they are, but I know it's impossible to judge unless you see it in reality. The mark from the license plate screw is probably the worst, and even that is barely etched into the plastic. The long horizontal mark is slightly wider than a hairline scratch, and non of the scratches are as deep as they might appear. Still, I'm prepared that I'm probably going to have to waste some cash to get it fixed properly, otherwise it's going to bother me just knowing that it's there. I've got a good body shop and the manager is very knowledgeable and creative. Maybe a spot repair with feathering will work. I don't want to skimp but we'll see, since it's so new I'm bummed.

felixsc300

iTrader: (5)

Seeing how you're in CA, you're probably bound to do some parallel parking. There are some people who aren't very bright, and will probably tap your car, and will probably run off without leaving a note. Even if you won't, IMHO you should just buff it out, touch it up with touch-up paint (black touch-up is super easy to 'blend' in, did this myself last week), and call it day. It won't be a 'perfect' fix, but it would definitely be a lot less noticable not to mention much cheaper.

Wait, go punch your friend for dawdling behind you with no lights on, then call it a day.