I have some damage to the front-right corner of my 02 WRX; some a$$hat painted the parking blocks in his lot BLACK and I ran into one of them at night while parking. Anyway it is a pretty nasty scratch, all the way down to the plastic as you can see:

http://homepage.mac.com/meilers/.Pictures/Photo%20Album%20Pictures/2004-07-19%2011.27.22%20-0700/Image-34761C1CD9B111D8.jpg

So, here's my dilemma. I went to a few shops, and they all quoted me $700 to $1000+, and insisted that I had to replace the entire front bumper. The problem is, my bumper is already chewed up in many places by gravel hits on the highway, and I will most likely be making that commute every day for a long time to come -- if I spend $1000 on this now, it will just get chewed up again.

So I am looking for a cheaper solution; one option might be to purchase a lip and get that painted ($479 vs $700), like the STI Limited V2 lip they have at V1 performance, but I'm not certain that the lip would totally cover the damage. The second option would be to go to one of the cheaper or mass-market body shops (like Maaco) and just get a touch-up, but in my experience that tends to look like crap. Opinions? Suggestions?

Get the lip, test fit it to see how much it would cover, and do touch up of the small area that it doesn't.

STI v1 or v2 lip should cover that perfectly. Usually cost under $500 factory painted. :D

my sti looks just like that. For the same reason too, i just tell people they are battle wounds :)

I can't find the V1 lip anywhere anymore; I found the V2 lip painted for around $475 at two or three places (one of them has only $20 shipping, which seals that deal vs. the $120 the others wanted). Any other lips you might suggest? There used to be a replica carbon-fiber lip at Gruppe for less than $300 that would just cover the damaged area and not stick down further, but now I can't find it.

Still looking for comments on whether a touch-up would do it (now that I think about it, it isn't exactly an area of the car that people are going to bend over to look at often.)