Rant: Stop using body filler over paint on plastic bumpers

I keep seeing cars come into my shop in Phoenix where someone slathered body filler right over the paint on a plastic bumper repair. The filler just cracks and falls off after a few heat cycles in the sun. I had a customer last week who paid $300 for a repair that peeled off in three months. The right way is to strip it down to bare plastic first, then use a flexible filler made for bumpers. Has anyone else been running into these shoddy quick fixes?

3 comments

3 Comments

murray.cora1mo ago

@the_susan no for real though, $300 gets you a proper job if you find the right shop. But here's the thing, you gotta ask them what kind of filler they're using and if they're stripping the paint first. Ive fixed a few of these peel jobs myself, sand down to the bare plastic, hit it with adhesion promoter, then a flexible bumper filler. Takes maybe an extra hour but it actually stays on.

the_susan1mo ago

$300 for a sun-snack bumper peel, what a deal.

logan_mitchell1mo ago

Honestly, reminds me of the time my buddy paid $50 for a used water bottle at a vintage popup because it had a "rare" scratch pattern on it. Ngl, we still roast him about it to this day.