Completely outrageous paint repair bills!

[mdsalemi]

The photo below shows a scratched area on my daughters car, A 2020 Ford Escape  in Oxford White. The entire damaged area fits in a box no bigger than 3“ x 3“; basically the paint is scratched off, but there is no damage to the underlying bumper piece. Not wanting to be caught being dinged by the inspector when the car gets sold to CarMax (we stand to turn an enormous profit after we buy out the lease and then sell it to CarMax) we decided to get a couple of estimates on getting this painted.

Remember now, that this is about a plain vanilla daily driver as you can get. So for those that complain about how much it cost to do anything on our Pagodas…

The first quote was from Maaco, and was $550. We about had a heart attack when we saw that. We then took the car to another independent body shop with multiple outlets in the Charlotte area. Their estimate was over $1300! In both cases the estimates are quite detailed. They involve multiple billings for labor, hazardous waste service charges, and well over $100 for paint materials. In the case of the expensive quote, there was a lot of mechanical labor as well because they remove the piece and paint it off the car and then reinstall it.

I do not have the paint skills or experience of our friend Cees Klumper, but I bought a 12 ounce spray can of matched paint from Automotive Touchup, and their clearcoat. I suspect I will be able to do a reasonable enough job that this will not be noticed during an inspection which is the goal…

[Norm]

Michael,
Welcome to today's world of auto body repair.

I would have my doubts about a spray can repair not being noticed but your not risking much trying.

Most auto dealers will use a service that will repaint front bumpers and other "touch up" work when preparing used cars for resale.  Since they are usually mobile they don't have the overhead costs to contend with and may provide the service you need at a significantly lower cost.  Might be worth a little searching for a mobil service provider and quote.

Here's a place to start  https://colorsonparade.com/

Let us know how you do with the "rattle can" approach. 

Norm

[Vander]

Taking the bumper off to paint is the correct way to paint a bumper, shop that quoted that way is a good shop. Obviously Maaco is just mask and shoot, probably minimal prep work as well.

I had less paint damage than your daughter's Escape on a 2011 E class, (decided to have insurance pay for it) it was about $2,000. Same case as yours, just paint, not replace.

[Cees Klumper]

I repainted my wife's BMW Z4 complete rear bumper, in a similar white color (Alpine White), with two spray cans. I think it totalled maybe $60 in paint cost and came out looking good as factory. So, Michael, go for it. Need to sand with 320 grit, feather the damaged area. Degrease then spray according to the paint manufacturer's instructions.

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Michael -

Check around in your area to see who are the mobile services that do bumper repairs for dealer used car lots.  Generally, Car Max and others who appraise trades will deduct bumper damage from the trade value at body shop rates and then get the damage fixed by mobile repair services for much less before putting them on the lot for sale.

[mdsalemi]

I repainted my wife's BMW Z4 complete rear bumper, in a similar white color (Alpine White), with two spray cans. I think it totalled maybe $60 in paint cost and came out looking good as factory. So, Michael, go for it. Need to sand with 320 grit, feather the damaged area. Degrease then spray according to the paint manufacturer's instructions.

I have sandpaper up to 2000 grit, and ordered both the base coat Oxford White and the Clear Coat for finish. I chose one of my former advertisers, Automotive Touchup. I probably could have saved a few $$$ by choosing Dupli-Color or even some other, but I suspect a spray is the way. Good masking and after a week's worth of hardening or so, some polishing compound.

I didn't want to spend any more time finding mobile people or lower cost body shops, it was already a number of hours making appointments and driving to these places. Just has to be good enough...

I was a bit alarmed at the price. My Flex was damaged to the point of being un-drivable, with a page full of parts and refinishing basically the entire driver's side of the car. That was $12K and took a month. A 3" x 3" repair didn't make sense at $550, and surely the labor of 7 hours mechanical and 7 hours paint, and over $100 in paint material for the $1,300 quote (did I mention the area is 3" x 3"?) made significantly less sense.

It will take me more time to do than the more experienced Cees, but I bet he could do this is a fraction of those quoted times.

[wwheeler]

I did a spot repair on my son's older Escape and was bright red. I used the color matched rattle can paint and it came out pretty well. Normally you can use body lines to hide the tape lines if you are not doing the entire panel. I don't see any convenient body lines in the picture though. The other thing you can do on a flat panel to hide the tape line is to roll back the tape for each coat. This tapers the paint and clear coating and masks the repair boundary. Hard to do with metallic, but this looks like a solid color.

The paint they use now is amazing and will turn out just fine if your prep work is good. After you scuff the paint and degrease, you can spray a thin, transparent coat of adhesion promoter. No need for primer and the promoter is also great for flexible surfaces. First color coat is thin and enough to get a good bite. Don't do a heavy first coat! After that you are good to go.

You won't win a concours with this repair but with the savings, you can go out and by more parts for your Pagoda!     

[mdsalemi]

Red is one of the hardest colors to do; metallics as well. The metallics never look the same, and red fades easily. I'm suggesting white is one of the easier colors to paint.

Not attempting to win a concours, just not have it stand out when they inspect the car. A certain amount of wear and tear is permitted of course. These hybrids are in exceedingly high demand, so much so that we'll net nearly $10K in the spread between lease buyout and sale price. That goes right to buy down the lease on the replacement...which is on the scheduled to be manufactured first week of August.

So my daughter buys her 2 year old Escape; turns around immediately and sells it to CarMax, puts the cash into the new lease, gets a 2023 model and her payment is $99/month. It's a crazy world we live in today.

[Pinder]

Before doing the paint did you try using a compound to see if that black area is really the buper or its bits of rubber from whatever hit the car. it maybe you can in this case buff out a lot of it.

[mdsalemi]

Before doing the paint did you try using a compound to see if that black area is really the buper or its bits of rubber from whatever hit the car. it maybe you can in this case buff out a lot of it.

Yeah, it's either the bumper or some coating on the bumper. Paint is missing...a good scrape.

[Pinder]

I sold my car to algonation and made a profit on it rather than return to lease company. Now what they did was had me upload picture's and they take into consideration any defects before they make the offer. If you did something similar maybe they already factored in this scrape?

[mdsalemi]

No, this was based on the VIN and mileage mostly, and the service history which Ford keeps online. (no major accidents, etc.) If not CarMax there are a few others waiting in the wings with cash in hand including dealers dying for inventory, Carvana and others. It's a Hybrid, low miles, and only two years old. A winning combination. For many it's a right-sized vehicle and gets 48MPG around town. (Line forms to the left  ) Such a nice car that my daughter's getting the identical car, but a 2023 in Black. Ford won't allow a lease to be less than $99/month else the profit from the sale of the white one would defray the new lease price even more. So, she'll pocket the difference. I'm just the Dad...

Her first Escape was not a hybrid. It was a low mileage lease, about $200/month. With new, she never worried about having a car so far from home while at college, while her friends were driving old beaters (that still cost between $5K and $10K) and were constant sources of trouble, always needing some kind of repair.

[Mike Hughes]

. . . It's a Hybrid, low miles, and only two years old. A winning combination. For many it's a right-sized vehicle and gets 48MPG around town. (Line forms to the left  ) Such a nice car that my daughter's getting the identical car, but a 2023 in Black . . .

I've got a red one on a 39 month lease, so it's not up 'til next summer.  One hopes that the incentives to roll over into a new lease at a crazy low payment will be as good next year!

As good as one expects Hybrid mileage to be in the city, it is amazing how great it is in the mountains.  I use "Eco" mode which kicks in more aggressive regenerative braking on downhill stretches.  I can get to the bottom of a mountain or long hill and keep running on electricity only for several miles before the engine kicks in.  When driving in town my total electric mileage showing on the trip odometer might be 1/5 - 1/4 of the total mileage for the tank.  When driving in the mountains my total electric mileage is never less than 1/3 of the total.

[mdsalemi]

I've got a red one on a 39 month lease, so it's not up 'til next summer.  One hopes that the incentives to roll over into a new lease at a crazy low payment will be as good next year!

Aside from our A plan, there are no incentives or deals on any hybrids at Ford at the moment. They are woefully behind on fulfilling orders. When we initiated the lease in 2020, there was simply a lease-buyout amount fixed at the time of leasing. What's happened of course is that the retail price of many good used cars has gone up, and those in high demand have gone up spectacularly. So, we have a buyout at a price fixed in 2020. We have less miles on the car than the lease specified, thus it's "low mileage". Market price for this hybrid has gone through the roof, and more so with high gas prices (although gas here has dropped about USD $0.70 per gallon in the past month). The new 2023 will be standard A plan lease terms, our dealer doesn't charge any premiums for us, just the discounted A plan. We'll put down the maximum amount allowed (lease buy down) to drop the new lease payment to $99.00/month and my daughter pockets the rest.

This Covid thing may be a great business lesson that will be written about for many years. The first thing all the auto companies did when there was indication of a slight slowdown in sales with Covid was cancel orders for the chips needed for cars. The chip manufacturers were going on reduced production anyway because of the pandemic rules. They shifted their production and sales  to other higher profit utilization such as display adapters and the like. When the auto companies reversed direction when sales quickly rebounded, sadly there was little production for them, and no incentive for the chip manufacturers to shift sales away from the lower volume higher profit but sustainable computer use, to the higher volume but lower profit they cannot fulfill automotive use. Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan are rolling in their graves. Used to be about a 6 week wait at Ford for any custom order. It's now 6 months to a year. They've even cut off ordering (turning away customers!) for some models like the hybrid Maverick pickup truck. Our friends waited 9 months for theirs, and a number of accepted orders (thankfully not them) were cancelled. Dealers can no longer order inventory; only firm customer orders are accepted. Our dealer has no problem taking an order or multiple orders from us, the "extra" car will be quickly sold. My daughter ordered both a Bronco Sport and an Escape Hybrid. The Bronco Sport came in first, but the lease price was out of sight, so she rejected it. The Escape hybrid (Kuga for our non-USA friends) is being made in the first week of August. Thankfully only coming from Kansas City and not Mexico. Huge difference in transit time.