This is the front driver side corner of my 7th gen ES. I hit a deer last night. He actually ran away from the road, so I maintained a reasonable speed, then he changed his ****ing mind and tried to cross in front of my car with less than a car length of space! I hit the brakes, ABS going off, and avoided a major accident. I was doing about 20ish when he bounced off the bumper and took off.

The corner of the bumper was smeared with dirt. But the weird thing is right at this corner there are these vertical lines or scratches. You can’t feel them; it’s perfectly smooth. They were not visible under the mud smear, which was horizontal (you can see a little on the right, mostly wiped off).

Any idea what these marks are? I suspect the paint got stressed a bit and these are tiny deformation cracks. 🤦‍♂️

 

Yes, these are paint cracks.

 

That sucks. Is it fixable by any way other than a repaint? Can it be touched up?

 

That's hard to fix, if you sand and paint the cracks like to show through I've tried. Ideally the bumper cover should be replaced.

 

The bumper is perfectly fine in this case, so repaint only.

 

is it even possible to get an oem-level repaint on a part like this? I feel like the pearl paints would be near impossible to match. Would it have to be through Lexus, or a dealer?

 

I think it is impossible to match outside of Lexus shop.

 

This is only a guess, but a detailer might be able to correct and cover the entire bumper with a premium PPF.

 

I recently had a door repainted by an independent shop, but they were contracted through my dealer. Looks flawless.

 

I think an excellent independent body shop can match a color as well as a franchised one. Look for a shop that specializes in expensive cars. Those owners don't tolerate crap.