To paint or not to paint..

Looking for advice, my 01 360 Spider had its front and rear bumpers resprayed sometime in its life and it’s not really a great paint match (the cars never been hit or involved in an accident). Also there are paint chips and road rash scattered about the car in addition to a deep gouge in the front bumper that’s been touched up as well as a small crack.

What have others done to address cosmetic issues? Repair and touch up or repair and respray the car? If have no intentions of changing the color or selling the car.

Thoughtful guidance is appreciated.


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I’d say touch up would never look as good as painting it over . If you have no intention to sell the car, I’d paint it to give it fresh look. Your other option I think is to vinyl wrap the car same color, since you don’t want to change color. 3M is the best film but limited on colors. Other brands may have colors closer to OEM. In order to vinyl wrap to look clean you’d still have to do some body work to get rid of paint chips , etc , otherwise they will show with the wrap. The cheapest option is Liquid wrap, this will last for good 3 years...but that will not have OEM colors and no gloss options only Satin.
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just respray it and it is done then. Looks a lot better than a load of stone chips.

 

As a bare minimum re-paint the front and rear bumpers. It is not very expensive, will make a huge difference to the look, and if documented will not affect resale value. In fact bumpers almost always do not match the car by a very tiny amount so if you get a really good painter they can get the match as good or better than factory.

Regarding the other stone chips that is very much a personal decision. Realistically to get a seamless job you will be painting the whole nose of the car and blending into the doors. After that you would be well advised to have the whole paint detailed and corrected so now your bill is starting to get up there. In addition even well documented you are starting to scare some future buyers away with this much paintwork. It is a slippery slope because everything you fix makes the next untouched thing next to it look bad.

 

For $1K I had my front and rear bumpers repainted because of stone chips and a few scratches on the rear.
Looks great again.

Here's some advice. Do it just before you park the car for hibernation.
As soon as spring comes along have it 3M clear wrapped.
I repainted mine in the summer, and by the winter it had some new stone chips and I couldn't wrap it anymore. Duh!

 

I was / am in a similar situation as the OP. Didn’t like the mismatch in colour even though it was really hard to tell unless one was standing in the correct angle with the sunlight coming from (well you get the picture)...

Anyhow; I’m currently stripping the car for respray. The side windows was a PITA to remove. I have the wind shield and bonnet / hood and headlights left after that.

So I guess I vote for a respray. Advice to the OP: Go with Bradan. Even though I’m on the other side of the pond I can tell they know their s..t!
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