Howdy_pard

My C5's front bumper is pretty hammered from stones and debris. I'm gonna cut & polish it, but I think long-term I'm looking at a respray. I know most of the cost & effort of a good paint job is in the prep, what does that look like to respray the same color? Does it need to be sanded all the way down to the fiberglass? Or is roughed up clear coat good enough to spray on? Something in between? Nothing really needs filler, maybe some hi-fill primer. It'd be sweet if I could prep it myself and bring it to the body shop just to be painted to save some cash.

Feels like the answers to these questions are "It depends! You can spend $500 on a paintjob, or $5000000000!" which I'm sure is true, but also not super helpful. This is a driver quality car so I'm not looking for show paint, just trying to go from "sandblasted rock chips" to something close to factory quality.

I'm sure another very valid response is "Well, what did the body shop say?" I know very little about automotive finishing, so I'm hoping to get my ducks in a row here so I kind of have my **** together talking to body shops.

71 Vert LS1

Could you send some pics? And do the rock chips go farther than the front bumper?

Howdy_pard

I can take some good ones tomorrow. I'd say 90% of the rock chips are on the front bumper. The car has been in WY and CO for years, and the road grit has semi-sandblasted the front end.

Spraying the whole front end would be better, but I think just redoing the bumper would be the best bang for my buck. I've heard they have to blend paint on a respray, but the car is black (which I've heard ages pretty well) and has been in a garage most of it's life so I'm anticipating a pretty easy color match.