respraying yourself.....is the result any good...is it hard to do??
Can of matched spray paint - $30
Few sheets of wet & dry - $4
Getting the dent out with Hairdryer - Priceless
So yeh, give it a go spray painting it yourself
If you succeed, you've fixed it for $34, if you fail, you will have it at least mostly, if not completely dent free & just have to pay the repairer to paint it so max $434 ... probably cheaper.
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you can prpbably pop the front bar back into shape with a hair dryer if it was the stock plastic one
would the smash repairer be doing this for me including in the $400...
Yeh, thats basically all he will be doing ... if he's a bit dodgy he will pop it out with heat gun & then he'll bog it, sand it back & spray over the top.. You may end up needing to use some bog as well if you do it yourself, depending on how smooth you can get it with the hair dryer & popping it back out..
If you spray it yourself, I would just try spraying the damaged area & blending in to the unpainted area.. if it sticks out like a sore thumb on the small area that you've painted, it would do even moreso if you resprayed the whole bumper... & you have nothing to lose, if it looks crap, get someone to do it professionally, or wait for a full respray.
so just prep the part that needs painting, sand, sand sand working you're way from heavy grade sandpaper to light grade, clean up the area with some prep sol or wax & grease remover, feather sand it out gradually around the edges of the area to be painted, do a couple of coats & then before clear coating it, maybe even sand lightly again with 2000 grade wet & dry
then give it a cut & polish & blend the edges into each other ... after that, clean it up again with some prepsol & clear coat it..
And if you have to use bog, make sure you roughen up the plastic surface when you're applying it, so that it has plenty of grooves to sink into & hold onto the surface better
may be should save up till i can get a full respray....(think someone said $3000 could afford a full respray??)