anyone else painted their front bumper? (instead of vinyl)

[Stalker]

I know a lot of people use vinyl or something to cover the middle section of their front bumper, i did this when i first got the car. nearly a year ago now i had a prang and shattered my front bumper. had to get a new one. only damage to the car was the little protective bar right down the bottom of the front of the car just behind the bumper, and a dent in the hood.

while i was getting those things fixed, i got the body shop to paint the mid section of my bumper matte black. the advantage of this is its permanent, and you still have full access to the tow hook without having to remove or cut the vinyl. i cant say exactly how much the painting cost only that fixing the protective bar and painting the bumper totaled $100.

Just wondering if anyone else has gone this way and painted their bumper? it was a fair bit cheaper than i expected it to be.

[tadz0rz]

For body shops to mix up a generic matte/satin finish paint would cost them next to nothing. Plus, all replacement parts from mitsubishi come painted white (same as your car) and for them not to have to paint the whole bar one specific could say blue, then paint the section back significantly reduces their labor time which is probably why you only got charged $100 for it.

When my car got smashed into, they had to replace my bumper, I had my rear skirt which I got from PMR sitting around for a while and since they had to paint match my new bumper, i asked them to paint the new skirt as well. Since I wasnt the happiest with the last repair they did on my car I asked them to do it at no charge, which they did. They painted it blue around the sides and a satin black in the middle. However they did tell me it would take an extra day or so. For drying etc

[Stalker]

Well actually when I bought the bar off Mitsubishi they said it would be unpainted. But when I picked it up to my surprise it was already painted white. So when the shop painted the black section they woulda just painted over the white paint.

The other work they were doing involved getting the dent out of my hood and respraying that, and fixing the metal bar

[tadz0rz]

Yeah exactly right. It would of taken them less than 5 minutes to mask off the middle bumper and probably about 30 seconds to shoot it. Let it sit there It cure while they fix the rest of the car, clear coat and install. $100 is probably what I'd expect from a panel shop to paint the middle section.

[13EZY]

i had mine painted and was quite happy with it (some of it had cracked, prolly due to sun)
then i mounted my plate on the side which left the 2 screwholes exposed, so i had the bar wrapped in vinyl to cover em

[Bags]

The tow hook cover can be covered seperately so you dont cut any vinyl if it needs to be used.