Kerbed Front Wing and Bumper, Repaired on the Driveway in Manchester

A single kerb can take the corner off a front bumper and drag a scrape right along the wing. This is one we put right at the customer's home in Manchester: a black Audi SUV with a deep scuff across the front wing and bumper corner, refinished to the factory colour on the driveway. Here is exactly what the job involved, start to finish.

The damage

The car had caught a kerb hard enough to scrape across two parts at once: the front wing and the corner of the front bumper. That is a common one. The front corners are the first thing to find a kerb when you are parking or pulling in tight, and because the damage runs across the join between a metal panel (the wing) and a plastic one (the bumper), it needs handling slightly differently on each.

Why a kerb scrape is not a "touch-up" job

It is tempting to think a scuff like this can be brushed over with a touch-up stick. On a deep kerb scrape it almost never looks right, because the scrape has gone through the lacquer and the colour and left an uneven edge. Paint sitting on top of that just follows the damage underneath.

Doing it properly means taking the damaged area back, rebuilding the surface so it is flat and smooth again, and then refinishing it so the repair blends into the panel around it. That is the difference between a repair you can still see and one you cannot. A kerb scuff like this is cosmetic rather than structural, so most people simply have it put right directly rather than going through insurance.

The repair, step by step

Every panel is different, but a wing-and-bumper scrape like this one follows a clear order:

1. Mask off. The damaged area is masked and the surrounding panels are covered with paper and tape so nothing else picks up overspray or dust.
2. Fill and flat. The scrape is filled where it needs it, then flatted back by hand until the surface is level and smooth with the panel around it.
3. Prime and prep. The area is primed and prepared ready to take colour, so the new paint has a sound, even base.
4. Refinish. The colour is sprayed to match the rest of the car, then lacquered.
5. Machine-polish. Once it has cured, the repair is machine-polished so it blends into the original paint and the whole corner reads as one surface again.

All of it is done where the car is parked. There is no bodyshop visit and no leaving the car anywhere overnight. Steve does every job himself, with 30 years in the trade, so the person who assesses the damage is the person who does the work. All we need is somewhere off the road to work, a driveway or a workplace car park, and a plug to run from. If the weather turns, the work is done under a cover.

Matching the factory colour

The part people worry about most is the colour, and fairly. A black like this one shows every flaw in the light. We refinish to the car's factory colour so the repaired corner matches the panels either side of it, which is what lets a repair disappear rather than sit there as a slightly different shade. We work to manufacturer paint standards on every job.

The result

Masked, filled, refinished and polished, the front corner came back to a clean, even finish that matches the rest of the car.

Should you claim on insurance, or pay directly?

A question we get asked a lot on cosmetic damage like this is whether to put it through insurance. For most kerb scuffs the answer people land on is to pay directly, and it is worth understanding why.

Car insurance carries an excess: the amount you pay towards any claim yourself. If a repair costs less than your excess, you end up paying the whole bill anyway.¹ On top of that, making a claim usually reduces your no-claims discount, which can push up what you pay at renewal, so the claim can end up costing more than the repair itself.² For minor, cosmetic damage, the consumer group Which? says it is often not worth claiming at all.¹

That is why a lot of our customers simply have a kerb scuff put right directly. We do not handle insurance or claim work, so you deal with us, not an insurer, and we quote the repair from a photo first so you can see where you stand before deciding anything.

How a repair like this is priced

Every repair is different, so we price each one from a photo rather than guess. The size of the damage, the panels involved and the colour all move the price, so the honest answer is that we quote it once we have seen it. Send a clear photo of the damage and you get a free, no-obligation quote for your exact car, with no surprises later. If you want a sense of what moves the cost on car body work generally, there is a plain-English walk-through in our car body repair cost guide.

Is the work guaranteed?

Yes. Bodywork and paint repairs carry a 3-year guarantee. That covers a job like this one. Alloy and wheel work is the one thing that guarantee does not cover, and we always say so up front.

What our customers say

We are rated 5.0 from 141 Google reviews, shown with a link straight to our Google profile. Those are real reviews from real customers, shown exactly as Google holds them.

Services we used

• Scratch and dent repairs
• Mobile bumper repairs
• Mobile car body repairs in Manchester
• Related reading: Paintless dent removal: what it fixes and what it can't

Areas we cover

We come to you across Greater Manchester and Cheshire, anywhere within about an hour of Stockport, for mobile car body, bumper, scratch and alloy repair. See the areas we cover.

About Mobile Accident Repairs

Mobile Accident Repairs is Steve, a mobile car body repair specialist based in Stockport with 30 years in the trade. Every job is done on your driveway or at your workplace, to manufacturer paint standards, with bodywork and paint repairs guaranteed for 3 years. You keep your car, you get an honest assessment first, and the person who quotes the job is the person who does it.

Sources

1. Which?, "3 reasons not to claim on your car insurance, and when it's worth it" (which.co.uk)
2. MoneySavingExpert, "No Claims Discount / Bonus Protection" (moneysavingexpert.com)