Am I being too OCD?

B

blinkme323

New member
Hey guys, I currently own a 2008 350Z. I take very good care of the car, but recently I was coming up a steep driveway and scraped the bottom of my bumper. The damage to the actual bumper was minimal, with only a little bit of paint being scraped off. Most of the damage was incurred on the bumper guard, which is a black lip that is molded to the bottom of the bumper.



Even though it could of been much worse, I can't stop thinking about replacing the whole front bumper. Have any of you had similar situations or have I just lost my mind? ;)
 
It's a car that you use, and that means you're gonna get some dings, chips from rocks, etc. It's the first one that hurts the most. :)
 
you are being to ocd. if its a daily driver you're never going to keep it perfect. however if you've got the money that scrape is a perfect excuse for you to get an aftermarket bumper.
 
you're going to get scratches, dings, stone chips, etc. as long as there is dirt, gravel, rocks, inconsiderate people, etc., it's going to happen sooner or later. just try your best to prevent some of it...
 
Yeah, if you are considering repainting the bumper over this, your baby is going to spend more time in the shop then driven..



Drive it, accept that the bumper will get scraped, chipped, etc... Just do your best to avoid it. Maybe every 30k miles or so you can get it resprayed (and it will give you time to save for a body kit/aftermarket bumper if thats your thing). Just my take, enjoy it man and just do your best.
 
It's normal, of course, but on a daily driver you're going to spend a lot of money if you fix every little scrape on the undercarriage. Lift it up and touch up the area to make it less obvious (imo).
 
My beloved '01 S8 (pretty much of a garage-queen, only ~15K since new) is too low to avoid occasional scraping (of the black plastic under the bumper) no matter *how* careful I am. Yeah the damage bugs me, but I just live with it.



I'm pretty confident that anything *I* live with on *that* car is something anybody oughta live with on any car, especially on a driver ;)
 
I feel a little bit better now, thanks. Anytime I mention this to someone who's not really into cars, they just look at me like I'm crazy, lol.
 
Same thing happend to me with my first 350z scraped the same part and i lost sleep at night thinking about it. happend again with my new nismo scapred the bottom of the bumber underneath on a parking curb was upset for weeks. but it happens youll get over it.
 
you are just as crazy OCD as me. i fret over the same stuff. the good thing is that you can't see it unless you bend over the front. i have 3M on all my cars. my DD CTS front bumper cover was bumped by someone in a parking lot and torn about a 3/8" piece. you have to really get up close to see it. it did its job and saved the paint. so crazy me is thinking that i should have the freeking $650 job redone. it bothered me for about a week and i got over it. now THAT'S ocd. :soscared:
 
You are far from OCD! The front spoiler on my sled is VERY close to the road. I'm quite a nut about protecting it from scrapes ... alas ... it still happens.

Since the lowest part of the spoiler (chin) is black plastic, you can file/sand/Dremel the rough bits and gouges and make them less noticeable. It's a steady hand and a lot of patience, but go with the lightest grade sandpaper or Dremel bit and work it very, very slowly until the knurled plastic bumps are smoothed out. Then feather out the gouges in as small a space as possible.

I know a lot of the people I respect on this site will chastise me for this, but when you're done, but, wipe the area's you just sanded with a film of WD-40 or light oil. This will take the 'white' off the plastic if you sanded too hard. It works for me and it hides the damage pretty well.

As for the paint, I'm sure you know how to touch that up.



Hope this helps.
 
Saintlysins said:
The front spoiler on my sled is VERY close to the road. I'm quite a nut about protecting it from scrapes ... alas ... it still happens. .
Click to expand...



Heh heh, back when I had the Mallett 'vette, Chuck M. told me I oughta just plan to replace the rubber chin spoiler at about every other oil change :D
 
jimmie jam said:
you are just as crazy OCD as me. i fret over the same stuff. the good thing is that you can't see it unless you bend over the front. i have 3M on all my cars. my DD CTS front bumper cover was bumped by someone in a parking lot and torn about a 3/8" piece. you have to really get up close to see it. it did its job and saved the paint. so crazy me is thinking that i should have the freeking $650 job redone. it bothered me for about a week and i got over it. now THAT'S ocd. :soscared:
Click to expand...



Haha, that's what it's coming to for me - do I buy a $20 touchup pen or spend $500 on a new bumper + paint. Kind of ridiculous when I look at it in writing, I guess I can deal with the scrapes to the plastic bumper guard :laugh:
 
ACCUMULATOR has a very funny line! :chuckle:

I'm aware of how many times I replaced the chin spoiler on my 'regular Porsche' that sits 2 inches higher than the new one. So after negotiating the price, I said they had to 'throw-in' three more spoilers and the deal is done. Funny how they wouldn't move another dime on price, but had no problem giving away extra parts on the sled. :woot2:

They got me good when they gave me the extra spoilers "in the raw" - unpainted plastic which I'd have to paint-to-match on my own dime. :(
 
Saintlysins- Heh heh, I got a good :chuckle: out of your spoiler negotiations!



My experience with the Mallett is better as a story from the past than it was as a reality in the present; I had to drive a *long* way just for a gas station with curbs low enough to pull into..the whole thing was actually quite a PIA and Chuck had the car set up as *high* as he'd go with that suspension. "Race cars with license plates" aren't always as fun as one might think ;)
 
I think we could easily hijack this thread just swapping stories.

I've got a few good car-too-low-for-anything-other-than-the-track stories too.

Tales for another time. :hifive:
 
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