A car owner picked up their vehicle after a $7,000 body shop repair and immediately spotted something wrong. A dent appeared in the rear bumper, even though the shop had supposedly replaced the entire thing.
When the owner asked about the dent, a worker gave an odd answer. He said it was normal because the bumper was made of plastic.
The owner shared the story in an October 26 Reddit post, along with a photo of the bumper. People in the comments wondered if the dent was even part of the original crash damage.
The pickup hadn’t gone well, either. Nobody walked the owner around the car or went over the repairs. The shop simply handed over the keys. After spotting the dent, the driver called a worker back into the parking lot.
Looks Fine to Me
I just picked up my car from the body shop, and I noticed there’s still a dent on the bumper. I pointed it out to him, but he just said it’s a plastic bumper. What can I do about this?
by
u/Timely_East_1688 in
caraccidents
Standing beside the car, the worker still saw nothing wrong with the bumper. The owner wasn’t buying it.
“I’m sure you know more about cars than I do, but this definitely doesn’t look normal,” the driver recalled telling him.
Plastic bumpers can get dents, but that doesn’t mean the damage can’t be fixed. In fact, 3M, a company that makes car repair products, offers guides on fixing dents and other damage to plastic bumpers.
Of course, that doesn’t prove this bumper was installed poorly. The owner hasn’t shared enough details to show what caused the dent. Still, saying a bumper is plastic doesn’t explain why a dent should be there after a repair.
A Different Dent?
One Reddit user looked through the driver’s older posts and noticed something strange. The crash damage seemed to be near the middle of the rear bumper, a little to the left. But the dent in the new photo was farther to the right.
Could the shop have fixed one area while leaving another alone?
The owner first pointed to the $7,000 repair bill, but a high bill doesn’t mean they fixed every bit of damage. What matters is the work the shop agreed to do.
But the shop had replaced the whole rear bumper, not just fixed the damaged area.
Another commenter wondered whether the shop had really installed a different bumper. The owner pointed to a difference in the paint as a sign that it had been replaced.
That raised another question: If the whole bumper was replaced, where did the dent come from?
What’s on the Invoice?
The repair bill could offer some answers. The Federal Trade Commission advises drivers to get a written record of the work done, the parts used, and the cost of each repair.
Those details matter here. The bumper could have been new, made by another company, or a used part from another car. However, the owner hasn’t shared which type the shop installed.
Without the paperwork, there’s no way to tell whether the dent was already there when the replacement bumper arrived, or if something happened while the shop had the car.
And that brings us back to the owner’s complaint. They paid $7,000 to get their car fixed, only to find a dent in a part they say was replaced. The shop’s answer? It’s plastic.
That still doesn’t explain the dent.