campagnolo_1

Just finished replacing the rear bumper cover on my 1999 Audi A6 Avant. I decided to do a little write-up to give back to the community. Hope this will help someone attempting the same work.

Cheers,

Chris

SloopJohnB@mac.com

Excellent that you painted it first. FWIW, it cost me $170 to have my S6 rear bumper repaired probably much eas damage. I'll keep in mind this.

campagnolo_1

SloopJohnB, I wish I had an inexpensive body shop like that around here. Good on you for getting it fixed so cheap!

SloopJohnB@mac.com

Strangely enough it was/is a detailing shop in Columbia, MD...Performance Tinting.
http://www.performancewindowtinting.com

The guy is very good with relatively small panels, blending, etc. Doesn't have a spray booth so doesn't do entire cars...I asked! Friend's wife has a cherry 90s Lincoln Town Car with bad paint (didn't they all?) with low 70Ks mileage and it just isn't worth it to put a $4-5K paint job on it.
LOL, Me, I'd paint it with a roller..it couldn't look any worse!

campagnolo_1

Good to have someone like that handy. I will actually go ahead and attempt a repair on my old bumper cover and paint it. I will certainly do a write-up on that, but only if it comes out good!

SloopJohnB@mac.com

There's all kinds of info on repairing urethane bumpers on the web; best thing to remember is the bumper and repair and paint need to be flexible. There are flexible additives to paint you'll need and flexible urethane repair materials/putty.

The real problem is paint/color matching. Over time all colors change on the car and urethane bumper covers have other issues such as what material/primer/color you're painting over to get the color you want. Essentially the same paint will give a slightly different color over different surfaces/colors/primer!! Worse, the WAY you paint, i.e., HVLP or pressure/volume mix (if you have spray guns with two *****), the day you paint (sun, shade, humidity) will color your paint. Some people like to paint with a wet edge and see the whole panel wet before it flashes dry, others like a more or less flashed surface that is then wet sanded and buffed. It's experimental especially with blending....I don't mind painting an entire car (did a VW and an MG midget years ago) but individual panels are an art project I leave to pros. I can blame them if it doesn't turn out right...

You might find an auto body paint store that can computer-age your paint and suggest a slight tint change to reflect the age of your paint on the car and/or one with a color meter or spectrophotometer to accurately detect the correct color.