this actually relates to my wife's Dodge stratus- it has those moulded plastic body panels that double as bumbers fore & aft, and over the years living in the city she's scraped & scratched them, so there's now black marks in the metallic silver paint she has. none of the scratches are particularly deep, it's more superficial damage but looks ugly.

Anyone know what the best way to touch them up is?

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1993 320TE M104
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past:

1983 230E W123 M102
1994 E300D S124 OM606 (x2)
1967 250SE W108 M129
1972 280se 3.5 W108 M116
1980 280SE W116 M110
1980 350SE W116 M116
1992 300E W124 M103
1994 E280 W124 M104
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"music and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business" -Pepys

If the scractches are on the painted part of the bumper and not too deep, you can remove them by hand with with some polishing compound or rubbing compound.

I did it on my Camry with very good results.

I (sigh) have had to buff out the SL front bumpers regularly...my wife seems to have a bit of trouble maneuvering the front end around when negotiating the garage or gate entrance...so either she takes the paint off the garage threshold, or the paint from the wrought iron!

Since most of these swipes are at slow speed and generally corrective steering occurs before the bumper gets too intimate with the object being encountered, the resulting paint marks don't get a chance to "burn" into the finish.

So as John Plut aptly stated, polishing compund will do the trick. Rubbing compound will remove the most stubborn of these, but it's more abrasive and will make the treated area hazy. So you need to follow up with polishing compound and a good wax.

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2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

thanks for the info. once the weather warms up i'll have a go.

i think i'd get your wife to stick to the ML! my wife is scared of driving my benz 'cause I'm so anal about it, although it currently looks like it's been to ice-station zebra and back.

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1993 320TE M104
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past:

1983 230E W123 M102
1994 E300D S124 OM606 (x2)
1967 250SE W108 M129
1972 280se 3.5 W108 M116
1980 280SE W116 M110
1980 350SE W116 M116
1992 300E W124 M103
1994 E280 W124 M104
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"music and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business" -Pepys

Uh...just a few weeks ago, she did the same to the ML bumper...and the telltale red paint indicated that the object struck was the W124 in the garage!!!

So I had to fix two vehicles that day!!!

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2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car

Hmmmm. My wife doesn't have any trouble parking her...... broom.

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2007 C 230 Sport.

If you check out an auto body supply store, you'll see they actually have spray cans of "bumper paint." I found some which was a very close match for the gray on the plastic air dam on my front bumper. In addition to coming in colors which match many bumpers (lots of different shades of gray), this paint is designed to be more flexible so it won't crack off when plastic bumper parts flex.

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Steve
'93 400E

Yeah, that works great for bumper mouldings, but a lot of vehicles have body-color bumpers. So if the damage isn't superficial, repairs required are similar to sheet metal repair...

...break out the spray gun and buffer...

__________________
2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car