[somspaple]

On one fine day I backed my car into a tree.. just like that! It was a closed road and absolutely no traffic or people around. Luckily nothing happened to the occupants or the tree apart from my bruised ego. And of course bruises and deep gouges on the car's bumper!!

Damage is much worse than it looks on this pic.


Later that day I visited Hyundai Service Center for getting a quote for the repair. They promptly asked me to claim insurance for entire bumper repair/replacement [a small side bumper clip is also broken but it's not too bad]. Since it was already evening, I returned home thinking will drop the car next day for repairs.

But I also started exploring DIY options - specifically matching paint options online and on Youtube. Luckily chanced upon Com-Paint website : https://www.com-paint.com/. They provide you with a spray paint kit which includes matching paint for your car - one would have to specify the exact color code as mentioned on car's RC Card. I placed order for my car and got the kit delivered after a week.

Prior Experience: I've experimented with wet sanding on my previous car with good results. Apart from that only experience I've is that of preparing wooden fascias for my DIY amps which included surface preparation with sanding and spraying clear coat etc.




Painting in itself is a simple task but the steps before and after painting are crucial to get the good results. Overall steps involved in painting any surface more of less remain same but intensity/repetition of each step would vary based on each scenario. Before starting the process - I tested the paint on 3 different panels: Inside the dicky which has bare paint, part of the plastic bumper and on door sill. On all places - paint was a good match. Only after confirming this I went ahead with next steps.


I also captured most of the steps in a video. Since there are so many steps involved the video length was running into 30+ mins! I ended up editing out many of the clips to keep the length sane at around 15+ mins. Probably I should've made it into 2 part video.

https://youtu.be/lZAX-Jo0HAw

Surface Preparation:

1. Cleaning the surface: Clear the debris if any stuck to the bumper/surface.

In my case I had to take care of rough and jagged edges with the help of a blade:


After removing most of the jagged edges of plastic:


2. Wet Sanding: Wet sand the area with 180 or 320 grit wet sandpaper. You would've to decide on the grit grade based on the amount of damage. This is the step where you take care of any bulges on the surface. Also need to be careful not to sand down too much so that it doesn't make the panel thin or even make a hole in it. Drying : Need to wait for the surface to be bone dry before starting with body fill.






3. Body Fill:In this step you would have to take care of deep gouges and scratches. In my case, body fill was ready paste from Com-Paint - all I had to do was apply it with supplied applicator. While filling into deep groves make sure every piece debris is removed which otherwise make your fill unstable. Drying: Body fill need to dry before you can sand it - I waited for about 2 hours.



4. Sanding:Body fill can be dry sanded or wet sanded [Com-Paint suggested wet sanding] with 400 grit paper. Body filled surfaces must merge and flow into adjacent surfaces - should follow the original contours of the panel. If we don't get it right at this stage - no amount of Primer or Paint can correct this mistake.




Painting Steps:

1. Masking tape: Masking is very important if we are painting a part of the car. Though invisible - atomized particles of primer/paint can fly all over and stick to other surfaces making it difficult to clean. In my case - I used masking tape along with multiple layers of newspapers. Also I used car cover to shield the car.





2. Plastic Primer: Plastic primer is an additional step I added [not suggested in Com-Paint's workflow]. Since I was sanding down panels to bare plastic at few places this was required. Places with bare plastic and body fillers were covered with Primer. Primer also acts micro scratch filler [more on this on next wet sanding]. Drying: Usually primer dries within couple of hours. In my case I let it dry for overnight.






3. Wet Sanding: Next day I wet sanded with 1000 Grit sand paper. Again similar to wet sanding body filler, we need to make sure the surface with Primer merges seamlessly with the surrounding areas. Also need to take care of any hard lines caused due to masking - I had to move the masking tapes away by few inches for this. Drying:We need to clean the surface thoroughly after wet sanding and let it dry.



4. Spray Paint: This is where I use the color matched paint from Com-Paint. Color was a perfect match and I added around 4 coats with 10 mins gap between each coat.

Com-Paint kit:


After 4 coats of paint:


5. Masking tape : At this point I had move the masking tape and open up the entire three quarter of the bumper - so that when I use Solvent Spray it merges with the existing paint uniformly.


6. Wet Sanding : Wet sanding with 2000 grit paper is required if you are using clear coat. In my case Com-Paint did not suggest this step probably the kit comes with a a Finishing Solvent instead of Clear Coat.



7. Clear Coat [Finishing Solvent in my case]: This felt a lot lighter compared to regular clear coats I've used. Felt like a combination of clear coat and paint thinner[!?] . I added good 4+ sweeping coats covering larger areas. But I ran out of solvent - I would've like to give one more coat as area to cover in my case was much larger. At each step [from filler to clear coat] area we work up on gets increasingly bigger. This is not the case if you are painting a complete panel in full.

After Finishing Solvent:




8. Wet Sanding : Final round of wet sanding starting with 2000 grit and ending with 2500 grit. Uniform wet sanding helps in achieving that fine gloss after polishing.





Polishing and Protection:

1. Polishing: I let the clear coat dry overnight [rather couple of nights as I got busy with some other work]. For polishing, I had options of TurtleWax Finishing Compound, 3M 1 Step Compound and Com-Paint's compound. After trying all 3 on different areas - felt that the TurtleWax was giving the best and quick result. But you need one more major ingredient in doing this - loads of elbow grease. This is also the most satisfying step of the entire workflow - you get to see the fruits of the hard labor!!

PS: I did try with polishing pad attachment for my hand grill - it resulted in harsh scuff marks on the paint just below the rear lights. Definitely not recommended. They are hard to get rid of.






2. Car Wash : It had been almost 4+ days that car was weathering intermittent showers and dust. I gave a proper wash and dried the entire car including newly painted panels.



3. Paint Protection and Waxing: Applied TurtleWax Seal and Shine. I couldn't follow this step up with Waxing as it started raining soon after that.












I'm happy with the results!! If planned properly entire process can be completed over a weekend including the drying time. I started the process on a Saturday late afternoon, spent most of Sunday afternoon and roughly around an hour each on next couple of days. If anybody wishes to embark on similar journey, make sure you watch enough videos on Youtube and experiment on a small panel before taking up the big task.

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[Ashtoncastelino]

Beautifully DIY somspaple , very well written can't wait to try the same on my swift 2006. It's got a bit of scratches and dents from the previous owner and I've been wanting to fix them and boom ! Your thread pops up. Thankyou so much for sharing this.

Regards
Ashton Castelino

[Rajjay]

It seems you have done some extensive research and this DIY will be helpful to our forum members as well as visitors to our forum.

[parathmaniraja]

Originally Posted by somspaple

Attachment 2202272

Wow great results you did an excellent job, more than the professional service people in Hyundai my friend had similar issue in his white verna and gave car to service center. They did very poor job and did overspray in all black inserts in the bumper

[Gansan]

That looks very good. Can you share the total cost of this DIY?

[viXit]

ordered a com paint DIY kit for my Taffeta white city to repair a rust spot. I will be scraping it down to bare metal at the rusted spot. So I might need primer. Any suggestions for primers?

[somspaple]

Originally Posted by Gansan

That looks very good. Can you share the total cost of this DIY?

Thanks! The kit from Com-Paint costs 1,000/- INR. I bought plastic primer for around 300/- INR. And I used few additional wet sandpapers which I already with me [leftover from my amplifier wood work] - 180/320 grits for base surface prep and 1500/2000 grits for finer finish. These might cost around 100/- INR in total.

Originally Posted by viXit

ordered a com paint DIY kit for my Taffeta white city to repair a rust spot. I will be scraping it down to bare metal at the rusted spot. So I might need primer. Any suggestions for primers?

You get something called as 2K primer. Supposedly much better and fast drying one. In the hindsight I would have used this. But there are couple of cons: this primer costs twice the amount at around 700/- and it is a single use primer - i.e. once activated you need to use it within 3-7 days max.

You might also have to use rust converter depending on the areas affected by rust.

Originally Posted by parathmaniraja

Wow great results you did an excellent job, more than the professional service people in Hyundai my friend had similar issue in his white verna and gave car to service center. They did very poor job and did overspray in all black inserts in the bumper

Thanks!
Yep overspray is a concern and another issue I've seen with workshop work is they use just too much putty/filler. As it is 'easy' give the shape to soft putty as opposed to tinkering/shaping a metal or plastic surface. This might look just fine initially but you'll start seeing the putty/filler crack over a period of time. So it is imperative that underlying surface is prepared first before getting to filler stage. Filler is required to take care finer issues which otherwise are very hard to correct.

[coolmind]

My Grand I10 in golden orange has sparkling shade.
So how can i ensure the same while making touch-ups or will it gel up well with the existing paint? Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks for the thread.

[goandude]

Very lucid explanation of a delicate procedure. Just noted down the steps and it ran into 15 of them, of which sanding was 5. Great end result you achieved.

What is the color of your car? And in the costing you missed out on the Turtle wax Finishing compound.
Do you get wet sanding paper in the local hardware store?

[somspaple]

Originally Posted by coolmind

My Grand I10 in golden orange has sparkling shade.
So how can i ensure the same while making touch-ups or will it gel up well with the existing paint? Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks for the thread.

Metallic paints are slightly more difficult. Usually old panels would've faded and newly painted area stands out. How old is your car or how is the condition of the paint now. Based on that you might have to polish the panel around the damaged area after painting. That should help in matching the paint.

Originally Posted by goandude

Very lucid explanation of a delicate procedure. Just noted down the steps and it ran into 15 of them, of which sanding was 5. Great end result you achieved.

What is the color of your car? And in the costing you missed out on the Turtle wax Finishing compound.
Do you get wet sanding paper in the local hardware store?

Thanks! Steps might differ based on each situation. But overall it pretty much remains same: surface preparation-> paint/clear coat -> polishing.
Color of my car as in Color Code? : Hyundai calls it Thunder Black. There is bit more explanation in the video.

You get finishing compound in the kit. I had few of other options with me [part of my detailing arsenal ] hence I experimented with them and found TurtleWax to be better. You can definitely try with supplied compound - it's not bad.

And yes you do get sand papers in local hardware stores. But the finer grit ones like 2000/2500 may not be available commonly. Make sure you get wet sandpaper.

[goandude]

Ordered a kit of com paint in my car's color, fiery red. And a can of primer, SAMURAI KUROBUSHI Spray Paint 1K Primer Undercoat #UCH210*- Surfacer Grey (D-I-Y)- 400ml https://www.amazon.in/dp/B08B859518/...Y4WE3F22QFM24J
Now going through the various reviews only downside I found is the fading of CP after some time.

Another issue is the use of com merge. What is the use of this? Is it a clear coat? Is it a sprayable thinner to merge the edges of CP with original paint?

[dragntailonfire]

Originally Posted by somspaple

You get something called as 2K primer. Supposedly much better and fast drying one.

Originally Posted by goandude

And a can of primer, SAMURAI KUROBUSHI Spray Paint 1K Primer Undercoat #UCH210*- Surfacer Grey (D-I-Y)- 400ml

How about this one? Will this work? It is cheaper, and also, from Asian Paints.

https://www.amazon.in/Asian-Paints-R...34&sr=8-3&th=1

I ordered a Smoke Grey kit. Wondering which primer to go for.

[somspaple]

Originally Posted by goandude

Ordered a kit of com paint in my car's color, fiery red. And a can of primer, SAMURAI KUROBUSHI Spray Paint 1K Primer Undercoat #UCH210*- Surfacer Grey (D-I-Y)- 400ml https://www.amazon.in/dp/B08B859518/...Y4WE3F22QFM24J
Now going through the various reviews only downside I found is the fading of CP after some time.

Another issue is the use of com merge. What is the use of this? Is it a clear coat? Is it a sprayable thinner to merge the edges of CP with original paint?

That's the exact primer that I had ordered.

And exactly the doubt I had about Solvent spray. In the end it worked out just fine. I pretty much used it like clear coat and in fact I ran out of the spray. Need to see how it'll hold up in long term. Worst case will order a good quality clear coat and spray over it. Only issue with Clear Coat would be that we might have to cover the entire panel with the spray. Merging the paint on partially painted panel might be difficult. Or at least I've not come across any such video.

Originally Posted by dragntailonfire

How about this one? Will this work? It is cheaper, and also, from Asian Paints.

https://www.amazon.in/Asian-Paints-R...34&sr=8-3&th=1

I ordered a Smoke Grey kit. Wondering which primer to go for.

This is clear coat. What you are looking for is Primer - step before the base coat of paint. I would suggest you stick to automotive primers/paints and clear coats. Also I would suggest watching loads of videos on Youtube. If you need examples from In India there is this channel called Brotomotive. though they are a professional detailer/painter - their explanation lays out clear workflow.

[goandude]

Not to hijack this great thread but to inform members of the nuances of bumper repair. I had interacted with the thread starter to get tips and help for my attempt to repair a deep scratch on rear Rt side bumper when it got touched by a bumper of a dump truck, and several deep scratches on the Left front bumper when I inadvertently scraped it along a very rough wall. This is what it looked like:-



Not a very pretty sight especially on a newish car.

Anyway I followed all the steps so well tabulated by Somspaple above except for (a) I didn't use primer and (b) I didn't use the Com Merge. Instead I got a can of SAMURAI KURUBUSHI 1K clear coat off Amazon. Here are the pictures of the work in progress. I took my sweet time in surface preparation as this I found, was crucial to a smooth finish. I found the Com fill to be very thin and liquid so filling up the defects took 4/5 iterations especially on the rear. But eventually I got an extremely smooth finish in the front but rear had a small residual defect. My test was to close my eyes and feel, pass being no difference with surrounding paintwork.

I masked the edges of the adjacent panel to avoid my sandpaper going over and marring the paint.
Masking for the paint job was next and here I used the joint between two body panels/ tail light assembly/ body creases. However, this was not available for me towards the center of the rear bumper and towards the side of the front. To reduce the hard boundaries I folded the masking paper to make a C shape so I wouldn't get the sbrupt change in texture/color. It helped to some extent but not completely.


In the next pictures you can see the difference in color where I have tried to reduce the hard boundaries. Now before the clear coat I moved the masking paper further away. You can see the matt finish of the paint and the difference in color. One more thing is that after spraying the paint I found a lot of rough patches of paint on the edges of my target area. I removed it with clay which did a great job and smoothed the area and surroundings quite a bit.



After spraying the clear coat the job looked much better. BUt you can see the orange peel effect of the clear. This proved to be the most daunting part of the task as I had to use sandpaper on the shiny new coat of paint and it became dull. Had to be careful too as too much of sanding could go thru the clear and too little would mean a lot more polishing effort. As it is, I erred on the safer side and did as little sanding as possible and used a ton of elbow grease.



These pics are the sanding polishing work in progress.



Then after I was as satisfied as I could be with my work, I washed and polished the entire car, wiped it down with IPA and waxed it for the nice wet look. Took her out and met a few friends and they were had pressed to find the flaws which I had to point out.



I tested the Com Paint supplied with the value pack on an inside panel and found the color to be matching. BUT when I finished painting I realised that my car paint was metallic and com paint was not. Moreover the color did not match 100%.

To practice my spray painting skills, I painted my mud flaps, but here I used primer followed by com paint and then clear coat.