Damage to my baby...... Repair Rip off (in my opinion)!

Can you see it???  One of the people who drive my car but is not me hit a chuck of ice and cracked my front bumper cover.  Its like a piece got totally cracked off but is still hanging on by the guard underneath.  As soon as I opened the garage it jumped out at me, it is painful but I didn't get upset with unnamed driver who damaged the vehicle.  In behind the bumped cover the guard was cracked also but it didn't seem to be bothering anything so I left it.  

And then we got LOTS of snow.  Some of said snow managed to build up under the crack n the guard and then an entire section broke and started hanging down.  This caused my car to start shaking wildly as the wind caught the guard under the bumper co-incidentally enough while unnamed driver was driving it.

Duct Tape Repair

I used duct tape to keep the guard in place and went to Kia to get a repair estimate.  Kia sent me on to Collision Experts who looks after body work for them, I took that to mean this would be the most expensive place they could send me and they would get a kick back.  But since I figured it might be good for some post material which I have been severely lacking lately so I gave it a shot.

When I showed up there were two other customers waiting which they told me was strange since usually there is no wait.  I figured it was just as well to wait and my wait time was only about 15 minutes.  The guy looked at the car and said I would need a new guard but wasn't sure if they could just fix the bumper or if it had to be replaced.  

He went back in and came out in 10 minutes with my estimate.... right away my eyes shot to the bottom line $1,593!  Did you see the picture at the top..... $1,600 for a once inch bumper crack.  After he saw the wild look in my eyes he immediately pointed out I could get a new guard for about $150 but the bumper guard needed to be replaced and would cost $1,450.  The freakin bumper guard piece costs almost $500, then there was $172 for paint and 7 hours labour.  7 hours labour to  replace a bumper cover and paint it...... 3 hours to replace and 4 hours to paint.  

I passed on the bumper cover.

See the gory details below.  Also to note I called around a couple other places and while expensive they were more in the $1,100 range to replace the bumper cover...... still too rich for my blood.  I am going to try to get someone to patch it up, there must be a way.