What is a gouge in car paint?
A scratch takes off paint. A gouge takes off the thing the paint was on. It cuts a channel into the bumper plastic or the panel metal. Paint cannot fill a hole. Spray colour into a gouge and you get a gouge in the right colour. So the missing material is rebuilt first, and that is most of the work.
What kind of repair does it need?
Filling and shaping first, then painting. On plastic, that is plastic welding or a flexible filler. On metal, it is body filler over clean metal. Then it is sanded flat, primed, and the panel is painted and blended into the panels beside it.
Paint cannot fill a hole. The missing material is built back and shaped first, and that is most of the work. On plastic, ask for a flexible filler.
What to do next
Ask if they are filling it or replacing the part, and get both prices, especially on a deep gouge in a bumper. Ask what filler they use on plastic. Hard filler on a flexible bumper cracks at the edges. If the gouge is on an edge or a body line, say so.
Sources
- PPG GBpaint maker
feather the edges of the chips, restore the level with stopper and repaint
- I-CAR RTSindustry training body
Body filler and glaze is not meant to flex the way that plastic does, therefore the material would crack
- BASFpaint maker
BASF recommends blending into an adjacent undamaged panel whenever the panel…
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