Scraped black plastic above wheel arch! Any fixes?

[omodos]

Oh man was backing out of the drive and my mind was on the bloody cats that foul the fron’t of the x5, and I managed to scrape an area near the turn light that I will have to touch up and also the matt black plastic that goes over the wheel arch…

Any ideas without having to totally replace the arch that I can remedy this ?if I sand it down it will get rid of the scratches, but the fact that the plastic is a matt rough surface will mean it won’t match the rest of the car fittings…

[Bimmerfan4life]

[jaybo12]

Pickup truck gave me a little brush by and the body shop says it all has to be replaced. They said the texture can't be returned to "like new" condition through repair. They even said the entire front bumper has to be replaced because of the "damage" to the bumper arch. I don't know if this is fact or just the body shop trying to make some money, but that's what they said.

[WolfX5]

This sounds weird, but I've actually managed to fix similar gouges in my X5's black plastic parts by using matte-black crayons to fill them in. Warm up the crayon with a hair dryer and just rub it HARD across the gouge (perpendicular, not parallel to) and you'll get some crayon to stick in the "valley" of the gouge. Let it cool and repeat the process a few times until the gouge is completely filled in.

Now your fix WILL LOOK BAD for a week or two because it will be much more shiny than the surrounding plastic. But after a few weeks little flecks of dirt get embedded in the surface and the shine goes away and it actually starts to look alright.

I'm sure there are much more professional ways to fix this types of damage but it's worked for me a few times on even larger damage spots.

[nra0707]

There's a company called SEMS that makes trim color paint as well as flexible bumper coatings. I would try filling in wth some sort of flexible filler, sand, and then try to blend with SEMS paint.

Sem trim and bumper aerosols auto matched.

[omodos]

Well I had time to kill, couldn't stand the look of it and took to the arch with wet n dry sandpaper, the gauge went for sure but the surface was smooth not rough....and it was a gray colour, having said that I used a bit of auto glym bumper/rubber care on it and it looks as good as new, you really have to look closely at the wheel arch to notice it has a smooth texture rather than the original rough....thanks for all the tips...next time will try the crayon too

[omodos]

Will include pics too

[Last5oh]

Originally Posted by omodos

Will include pics too

Yes please post the pics... I'm interested to know how this turned out. I have the same issue with mine.... driving me nuts but the wife will freak if I replace the whole arch trim.

[omodos]

I will , gonna take the pics now, and post tomorrow, came out ok, scratches gone but area of the arch I 'treated' is smoothish compared to the rough of the rest of the arch...and also needed as I said a bumper care cream to get back to the original black as it went slightly gray....but I prefer it to the way it was with a big gash in it...sorry I didnt take pics after the incident, was too annoyed

[omodos]

Ok here is the pic of the after I rubbed down the area with wet and dry sandpaper and then some t-cut and then some bumper care stuff, it is smoother looking but only on close inspection (the little silver line is some 'stray'touch up paint)there is no way I was going to go through the bumper removal process again to get a re-spray, last time they took it off they never put it properly and it is slightly lwer on one side by about 5mm (see pic)they are crap out here......