Necessary to paint entire bumper to fix small spot of paint peeling?

[Dronyn]

Hi!

I've never painted a car before so I'm a little unclear about how to go about fixing a small section of paint where the pearlescent and clear coats are cracking and coming off. The color code for my car is 077 Starfire Pearl Tri-Coat.

I was wondering if it was necessary to sand down the entire bumper so that I could spray the very small damaged section with maybe some base coat, and then pearlescent and clear coat. Could I just sand down only the small damaged area and then somehow blend the clear coat into the rest of the bumper or something? I've attached some pictures, the damage is pretty small, just about 2x1 inches in size.

Thank you for any responses!

PS: The car is pretty dirty right now, it's been raining constantly and I haven't had the time to give it a full detail yet

View attachment 68875View attachment 68876

 

[Thomkirby]

I have a similar problem on my GS350. Problem is you hit something so you either live with it or else have the body shop remove the lower section and repaint. The problem is the 'pearl' is in the clear coat not the paint. So getting it to match is going to be the challenge even if you do it yourself. Contact your local body shop or the Lexus dealer's shop. Just my opinion.

 

[2black1s]

Wet sand the entire bumper with 800-1,000 grit...
Then wet sand and featheredge the damage area with 220/320/400 grit...
Primer the repair area using a flexible primer surfacer…
Wet sand the primer with 320/400/600 grit...
Repeat the primer and sanding steps as required...
Apply base coat blending into surrounding area...
Apply pearl coat blending into surrounding area (be sure to go slightly farther than the previous base coat)…
Clear coat the entire bumper...
Done!

You can try blending the clear coat if you don't want to clear coat the entire bumper but it will show. If your satisfied though that will make the job easier. If you're not satisfied with the blend you can always go back and clear coat the entire bumper (after sanding with 800-1,000 grit).

The sanding grits are only recommendations and you can deviate a little from these recommendations.