I was stupid saw a bucket rolling in the street and was going 70mph on the freeway and I could have moved over but I thought it is only a plastic bucket I might hit it I might not. So anyway I hit it and didn't think I would do any damage to the car. next time wont' run over anything. Anyway I took the car to 3 places. Toyota dealer said $550 to fix. Others said $1400 or more. My question is the toyota dealer didn't look at it very well and wrote me a quote for that. the others looked at it throughly. IF it is $1400 to fix I think I am better off getting a bodykit and stick it on there. Any thoughts?

 

I suggest get a new bumper and have It painted and installed. New bumper i think is around 300 paint and labor. Shoudn't be more then $700

 

If nothing is broken or cracked, $500 to $600 is ususally what an above average body shop will charge for refinishing the bumper cover. I am not sure why a shop would quote 1400. if nothing is broken even if they replaced the bumper cover.

 

they want to replace the enitre bumper (the fog light or whatever that is bottom right corner is knocked to the side and all brackets are pulled out. I think they want to replace the bumper restricter thing and then the massive charge to pain the thing because of the special red flakey paint.

 

i think one of them even said I needed a new fog light

 

I once ran into a piece of cardboard on the freeway when I had a 2GS thinking the same thing you did (the car was only a week old). Turns out hitting anything at 65+ mph is pretty damaging and it ripped a 6 inch hole in my front bumper.

Needless to say, I don't run into anything intentionally anymore -- no matter how small it may seem.

 

Better a bucket than a moose.

The foglight can probably be creatively reattached without muchfuss. Kind of looks like it would be worth trying to me, then have it painted. Get behind there by peeling back the fender liner.

 

i suggest u get a brand new OEM bumper and make friends with a mech savy clublexus guy here who could help u remove your bumper now and put the new one on.

but repainting and repairing the brackets arent that hard also.

 

cheaper to just fix it. they will repaint the bumper anyway so have them fill in those ugly holes for the front plate too.

 

^^^Agree with^^^^

 

Hit a piece of cardboard last week on the Autobahn. I didn't think it would do any damage either but it broke the foglight on my 5 Series.

 

just add a front lip, it looks like it will cover up where the paint flaked off

 

Your bumper appears to have suffered badly from following too close on gravel roads anyway.

 

that was fast

 

get a front lip