[BM235iW]

Originally Posted by p912guy

Metallic paints, especially silvers, can be tough to match perfectly but most quality shops can do the job so no one would be able to tell the repair has been done.

My 6 years old silver metallic car was hit in the back. The rear bumper was replaced. The repair shop was able too and successfully painted the bumper to an exact match. Not all auto body repair shops are equal, luckily I located one of the best.

[aaaaah]

Originally Posted by CP911

Yeah, why not? From my experience, they are very accommodating and willing to make money on pretty much anything you need painted. If the logistics of shipping a bumper cover don't cause any problems, I'm sure they'd provide a quote for the work. Never hurts to try, I suppose.

Given it has a hole in it you could probably buy a new bumper from IND instead of shipping both ways.

To the OP, my car has been hit twice while parked (at very low speed luckily). Once on the front corner and once on the rear, both required paint repair but no replacement parts and the independent shop I took it to matched MG and you can't even tell.

[EuroDude]

I would suggest trading your mom her M2 for your M235 and do the sticker trick like Bryan said.

[overcoil]

Originally Posted by BM235iW

My 6 years old silver metallic car was hit in the back. The rear bumper was replaced. The repair shop was able too and successfully painted the bumper to an exact match. Not all auto body repair shops are equal, luckily I located one of the best.

Ordered a new bumper fascia and the bodyshop owned by the BMW dealer was able to match the metallic flake of the paint perfectly and I went over that bumper particularly the edges very closely and there was not a spec of dirt, a drip or flaw that I could find.
Went to thank the painter and it was a young guy in his early twenties.

[RoundelM3]

It's not all that complicated. A BMW-certified body shop is the best place, as they will perform repairs, including paint, to BMW standards.

A good painter will create several "sprayout" sheets using the same factory color with different settings for the spray gun (pressure and volume) and minor pigment adjustments. The metallic content of the paint has to be laid down a certain way to get the "sparkle" to match as well as the color. The sprayout sheets are then held against the same part of the car that is going to be painted (ideally in bright sunlight) until the closest possible match is found.

Interestingly enough, according to a BMW body shop manager I spoke with a few years back, BMW bumpers and bodies are painted in different shops at the factory prior to final assembly, so there may be just a very very very fine difference between the body panels and bumper covers. You could probably get the painter to use the sprayout that matched the adjacent body panel if you are painting the entire cover, but the process is not hit-or-miss. They'll know beforehand whether or not the match is good, unlike "volume" body shops.

I've had two front bumper covers on two different cars repainted by BMW body shops with ZERO discernible difference in appearance.