[sheakimbrough]

I'm wordy, so towards the bottom, there will be a TL;DR

In November I purchased an 2014 435 from a dealership. According to the Carfax, in 2019, the previous owner backed into a pole and needed the bumper replaced. I knew this going in, so, when I went to the dealership to check everything out, I didn't pay attention the the bumper because I knew it was new.

When I got home, I realized that the body shop that replaced the bumper used a base, non-M Sport bumper instead.
I mean, I only paid 16,500 for it with 52k miles, so I felt like I got a great deal regardless.

Ever since, I've been on the hunt for a replacement M-Sport bumper; looking on eBay, Car-Part and was considering buying aftermarket and having it painted.

Everything that I've came across on eBay has been too banged up to justify buying it when, after repair costs, was the same as an aftermarket bumper and a paint job.

Last week, a bumper in my color (Mineral Grey Metallic) popped up and seemed to be in great condition.

I looked closely at all the photos provided and couldn't see any scratches, gouges, or dents. It did, however, show that one of the... not sure of the name... the long piece on the inside where the wheel liner screw into... was hanging halfway off.

I figured I could easily plastic-weld it and be good to go. So, I bought it and waited on it to come in.

It came in yesterday. It was packaged tremendously and I was impressed.
However, when I got it out of the packaging, I saw a bunch of swirls, scuffs and scratches that were either disguised really well with lighting in the photos, or happened while stored at the supplier after the photos were taken. Nothing extremely bad, but enough to where it bothers me since the rest of the car in near immaculate.

Also, I noticed that the earlier mentioned wheel liner thingy had been completely removed.

TL;DR

I bought a used OEM bumper from a salvage yard, there are some scratches, swirls, scuffs, and is also missing the part where the wheel liner attaches.

I'm looking for recommendations for a good scratch remover

I'm also looking for recommendations for what to do about where the wheel liner attaches.
I thought about just cutting the one off of my current bumper and plastic welding or epoxying it on to the "new" bumper. But, I was going to just post that on here for a minimal price since it's in great condition and surely someone could use it.

Help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Ennoch]

As you're asking, I'm assuming you don't have a machine polisher like a DAS-6 etc, although if you have someone you can borrow one from it would make your life a lot easier. If you are able to borrow one then my basic outline would be a cutting pad (such as meguiars burgundy) being used with a cutting compound such as Meguiars Ultimate Compound or 105 (the bodyshop version so a bit more aggressive, and no silicones in it), followed up by a finishing pad (such as Meguiars Yellow) and a finishing polish such as Meguiars Ultimate Polish or 205 (the bodyshop version again). The cutting stuff will take out the surface marks, and then the finishing polishes will remove the haze of micro marks that the cutting polish leaves behind to leave a deep gloss. I used Meguiars for these examples as it's an easy to track down set of materials, not particularly expensive, very effective and also the combinations a lot of other things are compared against so you should be able to find an alternative.

Now, if that's not an option you're left with doing it by hand. Over a bumper sized area I'd probably split it into a few areas and do one at a time over a few days otherwise you'll just give yourself an RSI from all the pressure you have to put in! I see you're in the states but if you look for something like this Lake Country German Applicator which has a cutting side and a finishing side it'll really help. The alternative is a microfibre pad which will give similar cutting at the expense of marginally more marring (in my experience). Because you're doing it by hand in this scenario I'd stick with the Megs UC/UP combo as they break down well which just makes life easier for you. I'd start at say a 6" square and work it in with pressure until the residue goes clear. It's a lot of effort but without a machine it's about the only way to do it unless you just go for a filler heavy product which'll need repeated regularly as the fillers get washed out. Do it right, do it once and it'll match the rest of your car, and last.

As you can see, I'm reasonably wordy too