So, I hit some flying road debris today... (update: fixed w/ pics!)
 

While I am not entirely sure what exactly it was... it appeared to be a very thin, metallic sheet or something. It almost looked like those paint roller trays.. but squished flat (with no paint in it). It flew up on the highway from under another car and I had very little room to try and dodge it before it hit my front bumper. It sure sounded horrible and I really hoped that it was just clanging around under the skid plate.

Unfortunately, it did incur a little bit of damage:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net...34690093_o.jpg

You can see the black gash and where the paint peeled up. I also noticed that the grill mesh plastic had popped back into the bumper on the left (driver's right) side. I believe the mesh can be popped back into place using those little notches that you can see. The yellow stuff is just dirt and wiped off.

Needless to say I was a mixture of disappointed and angered. The dealership I bought the car from said that their "Ding Shield" program only covers dings and dents that are popped out, but they do have a body/paint guy that comes every Thursday, so I'll come take it to him tomorrow. They said he does a great job for very very reasonable (probably $100). Then again, the guy hasn't seen the damage yet.

So yeah, don't hit stuff on the road.

i feel like the plastic on these cars are very fragile. makes me really consider a clear bra.

:eyebulge: My eyes!!! Damn man, that sucks. What a bad luck. Hopefully it won't be too much to repair.

Lol.

http://static.fjcdn.com/comments/373...02fd01e629.jpg

Is it bad that i react with more recoil from seeing a car i like being damaged than physical violence?

I remembered that my uncle used to work in auto body for years and years, so he volunteered to help me out if it was too expensive otherwise. The only problem is finding the paint now...

Ouch that's even worse than my road debris hit! Sorry to see that man :(

It happens.. sigh.. though far sooner than I had hoped!

Is Firestorm Red identical in paint code to Subaru's Lightning Red (C7P)? I want to say it is.. but if someone knows that'd be nice to know for certain! :D

i doubt a clear bra would help with an impact like that.

maybe i over estimate the power of the clear bra.

ouch shitty deal

I have been avoiding getting behind anything that isn't a car

Yeah, the most frustrating part was thinking, "oh come on.. I could so easily avoid this even at 65mph if I had somewhere to go!"

A clear bra aint gonna stop that kind of damage.
It only stops rock chips from chipping the paint off the bumper.

Whatever he hit cut the bumper up, the clear bra would have just been another victim on top of it. Well its possible a clear bra could have reduced the dmg the bumper took....

Yes.

sucks bro =/

I feel your pain. I hit something in the road last week, thanks to VDOTs construction crews. I have no idea what it was, but it kicked up and slammed into the passenger side rocker panel. The paint was scored down to the metal and all but two locations. Luckily those two are above the rock strip, so I will be able to buff them out. I was able to use touch up paint on the rock strip area to blend it somewhat, but I still know its there and it bothers me way too much.

Hopefully yours is easy/cheap to fix. Looks like it nicked a bit of the grill as well. :(

Physical violence is sometimes warranted. Damage to an FR-S/BRZ never is!

Yeah I was driving home tonight and a truck a few lanes over had some wood just fly off of it. I swerved to avoid it (great reaction with this car). I was able to dodge most of it, I think the only parts that I couldn't avoid I just ran over. But I was inspecting my car like crazy as soon as I got into my parking lot. I hate to be the guy babying my car, but she still smells new! Haha I took her on the track after a week of having her, but road debris is way scarier.

Yikes! But then again, things do happen... Doubt the clear bra would have helped significantly. I do think it would have prevented the bumper from that crack though. Either way I think there would still be damage, then you'd have to remove the clear bra and fix it, and reapply a new bra. You saved some money ;)

Stop by and see me. I will get you back to new :thumbsup:

just saw this now and man i would be seriously pissed if something like that happened on my car, i can feel the pain, hopefully the guy doesn't charge you much to fix this, i would fix it just to not see it at all and eventually forget about it and be able to live the rest of my life in peace... i'm exaggerating a bit but you know we work hard to get a nice car and then some random stuff on the road ruins the fun its depressing really..

Alright, back in business! My uncle who's done auto body work for over 30 years helped me out! :D All I had to do was pick up some paint (C7P mixed at CarQuest's paint center) and medium reducer to thin it out for spraying.

The crack on the right side is actually a good tear in the plastic all the way through. Lifting it up, we saw nothing behind it, just a hole.. so there was no cutting and resurfacing that. Using a heat gun to soften it up, we put it back into place and used crazy glue to hold it together.

Once the tear was reseated, a little sanding and some Bondo putty and more sanding down. We filled in the gouge on the left as well and it looked worse for a bit until we got it sanded down and primed. After that it was some more sanding, another primer layer, more sanding, and then the red paint sprayed through a paint gun. The paint I got was pretty thick, we had to reduce it quite a bit.

Since it was sanded down so fine, the paint stuck to it real nice. It doesn't even need a clear-coat layer, but we'll sand it down a little and put clear on next weekend for good measure.

Some pics of the final:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net...16163956_o.jpg

https://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos...05273981_o.jpg

https://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos...47101803_o.jpg

You can only tell because of the slight 'wave' in the light reflection off the bumper, but the color is spot on. I plan on putting the flat black vinyl over the bumper lip there anyways, so I don't mind the end result one bit! :D

tbh I really can't tell!
Great job!

Very nice

Ya on the frs i think the black strip of vinyl looks sick...wish the brz had a similar front end.

At first I saw the little scraped plastic from the vent and was like "oh its not TOO bad, things wear over time.." scrolled down a little further and I was like DAMN!!! hahaha pretty funny actually if you think about it. Atleast you did a good job on the repair! I approve!

superb job, back to new imo