I have called around and most of the people want to charge me around this much. Am I geting ripped off? One place is telling me that he has to paint than sand than paint again, he also told me that it coulf cost up to 400.00 to re-install the bumper. Can anyone help me out on honest pricing? I havereplaced the stock rear bumper before and it was a piece of cake.

 

Why don't you test fit the bumper on the car first? If it fits fine and no modifications are necessary, just take it to a shop to get painted. Paint should run you about $200 to $400 depending on how prepped it is from Marga Hills. Then install it yourself.

 

the $1200 price seems to me as if the shop plans to blend all of the neighboring panels(hood, front left and right fender)

I had the door skin replaced on my driver side and it ran me 850.

they had to remove fron and rear bumper, remove left head light and tailight, remove all moldings on the left side, paint entire door, half of front fender and half of the rear fender and then clear coat the entire left side.

once it was complete, the car looked as if no work was done at all. It was absolutely gorgeous. The 400 dollalr qoute you recieved sounds like they just plan to paint bumper only, which in turn will not match 100%. It may be close but you will be able to see a diffrence if you look closely. With mine, i tried for ten minutes looking for a problem and i couldn;t find one.

 

Ok, let's clarify. Paint matches depend on the color and the shop. A very good shop will take the time and match, even if they need to do it 3+ times. Don't just assume because yours shop went through all that trouble that's the only way to do it correctly. You just paid a higher bill. Believe me, I've gotten into more then my fair share of auto body repair bills. Now, some colors are going to be harder to match, so a shop will take the easier way out, bill you more and paint as much as they can. What does that do in the long run? You pay more $, they make more $. It's less headache for them. Does that seem like the easier and more beneficial solution for the shop?

It sure is a hell of a lot easier to match black then spa yellow.