I purchased my '02 Civic DX used with the Honda Certified Used Car deal with the dealership. They did some parts work before I got it (tires, brakes, alternator, etc) but they don't apparently touch the body/paint. I noticed some small black spots on the front bumper when I first checked it out, but I thought bug guts or something. Well over the winter, I noticed that these black spots were getting bigger and more noticable. After the winter I washed my car in a high powered touchless carwash, and what do I see when I get out, but a huge chunk of paint missing. Apparently those black spots were chips in the paint caused by rocks or whatever, but through the winter some water had gotten in them and froze and pushed the paint away from the bumper(?) Now there is paint chipping off all over the place whenever I wash my car or touch the bumper. The biggest is the first hole I mentioned that is probably a good 2 inch diameter circle on the passenger side -- extremely noticable and annoying. Talking to a friend, he said that he thinks this might be a common problem with Civics, because he knew a kid that did the same thing and didn't have the money to fix it right away so he power washed the paint right off the entire bumper and drove around with a black bumper for a while till he could get it painted.

I talked to the dealer and they said that it's not covered under the Certified Used Car deal, and that the chips are too big for them to touch up and that I have to bring it to a body shop near town. Do you think this will cost a small chunk of change to fix (Upstate NY)? Also, can they fix just the spots or do they have to do the entire bumper? And is this true about Civics, and/or will this keep happening?

Thanks...

 

If they try to fix the 'chunks' then the problem will probably persist. It sounds like maybe someone didn't use the right primer that has a flex agent in it for the plastic parts of your car. Get the bad stuff off and have someone repaint the entire bumper.

its not happening in other areas of the car is it?

 

Primer with flex agent? How can I tell if there was anything like that on it? Looking at the chunk that is missing, the paint is super thin, like paper thin, and there is nothing between it and the black plastic of the bumper.... Could something of happened and the person before me brought it to a paint shop and had it painted, and they didn't mark it on anything so it wouldn't show up on a Carfax?

Nope, only happening on the front bumper...

 

well...you cant tell if theres any flex or anything like that on it, the only thing that you can really do is try to fix it yourself with some color match spray paint, or bring your car into a body shop and get them to paint the bumper over again, this will be the best solution..iv never heard anything like this happining..what probably happend was they hit something and took a big chuck of paint off the front bumper, within time it got worse..then when they brought it back into the dealership..the dealership got some touch up paint and coverd it up, so no matter what you do they wont fix it, like they sead..body is not coverd, bring it to a couple body shops and get a quote

 

So, today, while at Autozone talking to a buddy about my front bumper we had someone who works at a body shop look at my bumper to see how much it would cost to have it painted. He came back into the store after looking at it and told me that my bumper has been painted before and that they didn't do it correctly. He told me that to do it is a three-step process where they do two layers of an adhesive and then the layers of paint/clearcoat.. and that they didn't do that, they just painted it. Then he informed me that in order to fix it they would have to chemically strip it and that would weaken the plastic pretty much ruining the bumper.. and that my best bet would be to just get a new bumper, meaning $$$$.. which I don't have.

Now, my question, I bought the car Honda Certified with a CarFax report. There was nothing on the CarFax report about being in an accident or anything.. but why would the bumper have been painted previously? Also, can I do something about it with Honda because it was a Honda Certified / Carfax guarantee??