Winter project - bumper respray.

I'm thinking of getting my front bumper cover resprayed. It's got quite a few stone chips and a couple stress cracks. A couple questions. Will the paintwork be something I'll have to explain when I sell the car? I'm assuming this cosmetic repair would not show up on the Carfax. Will a paint meter detect the repair? Thinking of saving a few bucks by removing the bumper myself. I believe that's pretty easy, but is there any issues removing the trim/air vent pieces?

I had mine done last year - it was cracked pretty badly and beat up. Looks like new now. The body shop owner said that he preferred to pull the bumper off himself - so easy that there was no price difference if i just brought only the bumper in. My car is a driver, so can't help on the value issue re: it being a respray. At 10+ years old, i would think a bumper cover respray is not a big deal though.

I really wouldn't worry about the value of the car as a result of the respray. Everyone knows that the bumpers (and hood) can take a beating when these cars are actually used. Given the fact that the bumper is in need of attention, your car has already gone beyond the potential of being a garage queen, so the difference in future value is negligible. -Jon

I think that it makes the most sense to have your bumper cover removed and "panel painted" as opposed to blended into the fenders and hood. It's difficult for a body shop to perfectly match color on a plastic part compared to a metal part. Make sure your shop uses a flex agent in the paint (any good shop will know this). I had my C4S done years ago and it made a huge difference.

take 'before' pictures to show the repaint was for cosmetic improvement and not accident damage.

The cars aren't worth much anyway. I doubt a bumper respray will do much either which way as far as value is concerned. If it has less or no rock chips it will look better and the better it looks the easier it is to sell. Buyers tend to buy cars more for the looks than for the mechanical aspects, maybe thats not the way it should be but its the way it is.

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Some buyers look for authentic paint, some don't care as much. I would prefer a newly painted bumper over an authentic bumper, but to each his own. I plan to do the same thing though. I was also considering installing a clear bra on it to keep the newly painted bumper looking nice.

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+996

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Clear bra and non-factory paint are not a good combination. Typically if it ever needs to be removed because it is scraped or something similar, it will take just enough of the paint with it that another respray will be in order.

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I did the same to my car last winter. Removing the bumper is pretty easy. There are YouTube videos to reference, and a very helpful pictorial on Pelican Parts as well. The trim pieces remove easily from the inside of the bumper. You should be able to see the tabs when you have the bumper removed. Since the trim pieces are recessed in the bumper and located down low, I rattle can painted them myself in a matte finish. This produced a result seemingly as good or better than the original finish on the trims. I brought my bumper in to the body shop. They custom matched a color to the bumper before they sanded it down to repaint it. It came out very very well despite metallic blue being a difficult color to match. I too wondered about any loss in value, but I decided to do the repaint because the condition of the original bumper's paint was so much worse than the rest of the car's paint that it looked out-of-place. I too took photos for the record. Especially if you bring the bumper cover in to the shop, I don't think your bumper repaint will ever show up on CarFax.