Scratches in Black Plastic Bumpers

[Doofus]

I have a Volvo XC70, and it has unpainted, textured black plastic wheel arches and bumper sections.

Somebody (I know who, I'm just waiting for him to admit it) reversed his van along the front of my car, leaving some scratches in the black plastic. He's also scratched the paintwork and damaged a headlamp washer, but I can deal with those.

Is there a good method for repairing or reducing the appearance of the scratches in the black plastic? Probably no more than 3mm deep at most. If i use a fine sandpaper I feel I'm at risk of removing the texturing.

Some Back To Black or whatever it's called will help, because the scratches are slightly lighter in colour than the unaffected bits, but can I remove the gouges somehow?

[Belle427]

We had some on the front of ours, I took the high spots off with fine sandpaper and then applied a decent trim dressing.
Looks much better but can still be seen, I did start to look at retexturing/repair but didn’t come up with much, maybe a company like chipsaway can do them.

[Doofus]

Thank you. I suspected that might be the answer.

[paintman]

There are various aerosols that supposedly let you give a texture to that type of plastic trim.
Supposedly being the operative word.
Replacement is the way to go.

[Scrump]

Belle427 said:

We had some on the front of ours, I took the high spots off with fine sandpaper and then applied a decent trim dressing.
Looks much better but can still be seen, I did start to look at retexturing/repair but didn’t come up with much, maybe a company like chipsaway can do them.

I did the same with Mrs Scrump’s previous car. Although I first used a sharp craft knife to remove some of the high spots. A lot less noticeable once the hard edges to the gouges were removed and the back to black had evened out the colour.

[SeeFive]

Saw this a little while ago when I was looking at repairing some scratches on plastic inside a boot. Seemed a bit of a faff and preferred the scratches so I haven’t tried it.

The concept was you take this thing you made and heat the surface of the damage with a heat gun to make it soft, then use the stamp you made to re-imprint the texture.

Once again, I can’t suggest anything towards its efficacy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85FYd9TjLSI

[Doofus]

SeeFive said:

Saw this a little while ago when I was looking at repairing some scratches on plastic inside a boot. Seemed a bit of a faff and preferred the scratches so I haven’t tried it.

The concept was you take this thing you made and heat the surface of the damage with a heat gun to make it soft, then use the stamp you made to re-imprint the texture.

Once again, I can’t suggest anything towards its efficacy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85FYd9TjLSI

Sounds straightforward . I might have a go...