2000 Rear bumper

pic of damage?

Not damaged, just needs new paint.

Screw it, just get it painted... I bet if you drive to every shop in town eventually you'll have a hand full of quotes each one outdoing the previous shop till they pay you to work on the car.

lol don't think they will pay me. Also no guarantee it will match.

..

For what it is worth, you could go to an automotive paint store and buy the supplies you need to prep and paint it yourself just using rattle cans.  You would need to scuff the old paint (easy to do) and then prime and paint.  You might also consider sanding all the way down to the plastic, spray with an adhesion promoter, then prime, then paint.  That 2nd approach is a lot more work, but if your bumper ever gets nicked or scratched you won't have red paint showing through.  The automotive paint store can sell you everything you need to do the job.  Based on prices here in Central California, you could probably do the whole job yourself for around $150.  I recently prepped and painted a cosmetic trunk-lid "spoiler" and mud flaps for my 2018 Corolla and they came out great.  In that case, I just ordered 040 Super White (Toyota paint code for 3 of my 4 vehicles) in single stage paint rattle cans (about $20 each) and took care of it myself.  But . . . that was a fairly new car, so the paint was not faded, which made the match pretty simple.

If your car's paint is faded, that is another story and it is going to be a problem for anyone to match.  Some automotive paint stores are able to scan your old paint and formulate paint to match your old car's paint, but that can sometimes be hit and miss because some parts of the car will likely be more faded than other parts of the car, so no matter what you do to try to make it match -- outside of a fully respray -- it may or may not match.

Several years ago on my Spyder, there was some paint flaking-off of the plastic lip of the rear bumper where the engine lid fits down into the engine bay.  No one else would see it (if I never showed the car) but it bugged the heck out of me, so I went to the automotive paint store and they told me how to prep and paint it.  This was my first foray into automotive painting, so I asked for a bunch of help.  I ended-up only painting one section of the bumper where intersecting faces would help hide (fool the eye) the new paint.  040 Super White is pretty easy to match - even when it is a little faded, still when looking at that bumper, most people won't see where the old and new paint begin and end.  I can see it (and yes, it still bugs me), but most people don't -- including judges at all of the car shows we have entered the spyder.  That time, I used a 2-stage paint system (water based base coat and then clear coat using a spray gun) and I think what really happened is that the clear coat (second stage) has yellowed over time changing the hue a bit.  Knowing what I know now and if I had to do it all over again, I'd take the bumper off the car, prep it and respray the whole bumper with a single stage paint using rattle cans.  Again, if I were to do that, I'd take the old bumper (prior to prepping it) into the automotive paint store and have them scan the paint on the bumper (not where I did the previous touch-up) in order to get the paint to more accurately match the rest of the car.

I'm clearly no expert.  I've never painted a whole car.  Doing the kind of touch-up work I just described used to be fairly anxiety producing for me because I was fearful that I'd screw things up.  To be sure, I have made some painting mistakes that I had to go back and re-prep and paint, but what I have found is that it is really not all that hard or expensive to get pretty good results.  I am grateful to the folks at Patterson Paints (local automotive paint store) who have been very kind to me -- teaching me how to make these paint repairs and corrections.  

One last thing . . . if you have never used rattle can automotive paint, it is very different from the kind of paint in a rattle can from the hardware store.  It sprays differently and behaves differently from the kind of paint from a hardware store sells that you might be used to using.  It is a much higher quality of paint and I think it is much easier to work with -- maybe even more forgiving than hardware store paint.  I'm not saying you would ever use hardware store paint to paint your car, I'm just saying, the paint is different. 

Posted by: NottaMiata

A decent shop will match the paint. You should expect to pay for a quality job. Besides, a different car's bumper isnt guaranteed to match either.

Right but at that point, I can just get new OEM from dealer for same/cheaper. If different you mean faded, that's fine. Mine's all peeled off.

Posted by: Uncle Mush

For what it is worth, you could go to an automotive paint store and buy the supplies you need to prep and paint it yourself just using rattle cans.  You would need to scuff the old paint (easy to do) and then prime and paint.  You might also consider sanding all the way down to the plastic, spray with an adhesion promoter, then prime, then paint.  That 2nd approach is a lot more work, but if your bumper ever gets nicked or scratched you won't have red paint showing through.  The automotive paint store can sell you everything you need to do the job.  Based on prices here in Central California, you could probably do the whole job yourself for around $150.  I recently prepped and painted a cosmetic trunk-lid "spoiler" and mud flaps for my 2018 Corolla and they came out great.  In that case, I just ordered 040 Super White (Toyota paint code for 3 of my 4 vehicles) in single stage paint rattle cans (about $20 each) and took care of it myself.  But . . . that was a fairly new car, so the paint was not faded, which made the match pretty simple.

If your car's paint is faded, that is another story and it is going to be a problem for anyone to match.  Some automotive paint stores are able to scan your old paint and formulate paint to match your old car's paint, but that can sometimes be hit and miss because some parts of the car will likely be more faded than other parts of the car, so no matter what you do to try to make it match -- outside of a fully respray -- it may or may not match.

Several years ago on my Spyder, there was some paint flaking-off of the plastic lip of the rear bumper where the engine lid fits down into the engine bay.  No one else would see it (if I never showed the car) but it bugged the heck out of me, so I went to the automotive paint store and they told me how to prep and paint it.  This was my first foray into automotive painting, so I asked for a bunch of help.  I ended-up only painting one section of the bumper where intersecting faces would help hide (fool the eye) the new paint.  040 Super White is pretty easy to match - even when it is a little faded, still when looking at that bumper, most people won't see where the old and new paint begin and end.  I can see it (and yes, it still bugs me), but most people don't -- including judges at all of the car shows we have entered the spyder.  That time, I used a 2-stage paint system (water based base coat and then clear coat using a spray gun) and I think what really happened is that the clear coat (second stage) has yellowed over time changing the hue a bit.  Knowing what I know now and if I had to do it all over again, I'd take the bumper off the car, prep it and respray the whole bumper with a single stage paint using rattle cans.  Again, if I were to do that, I'd take the old bumper (prior to prepping it) into the automotive paint store and have them scan the paint on the bumper (not where I did the previous touch-up) in order to get the paint to more accurately match the rest of the car.

I'm clearly no expert.  I've never painted a whole car.  Doing the kind of touch-up work I just described used to be fairly anxiety producing for me because I was fearful that I'd screw things up.  To be sure, I have made some painting mistakes that I had to go back and re-prep and paint, but what I have found is that it is really not all that hard or expensive to get pretty good results.  I am grateful to the folks at Patterson Paints (local automotive paint store) who have been very kind to me -- teaching me how to make these paint repairs and corrections.  

One last thing . . . if you have never used rattle can automotive paint, it is very different from the kind of paint in a rattle can from the hardware store.  It sprays differently and behaves differently from the kind of paint from a hardware store sells that you might be used to using.  It is a much higher quality of paint and I think it is much easier to work with -- maybe even more forgiving than hardware store paint.  I'm not saying you would ever use hardware store paint to paint your car, I'm just saying, the paint is different. 

First, I am likely going to mess this up given I have never painted a car, not to mention my car is exposed to the elements so I can't prime then paint. Second, I am looking to get a used bumper for the same price and that will save all the labor involved. I would totally DIY this if I could.

Always become friends with bodyshop guys. It pays off in the end. My first Spyder I had a friend who was a painter. I had all kinds of things painted as well as my Spyder repainted.

I picked up a 03+ front and rear bumper for my 2000 but the front was toast and the rear wouldn't be worth shipping either.

I never had a reason to befriend body shop guys before now XD