I have had my F250 SD Platinum ultra package about 3 weeks and 1100 miles. Fortunately all the systems so far are working great (knocking on wood).And I absolutely love the truck. I upgraded from a 2012 Ram 1500.
This past Tuesday 6am I am backing into a parking spot away from everyone else only to bump into a brown painted post. Why the heck is it painted brown for instead of yellow or other bright color. Sorry I am getting off topic. Any way at the time I am still not fully alert and did not react fast enough to the beeper from the parking assist sensor. The passenger side back bumper is crushed so I stop in at dealerships body shop for an estimate. The quote to replace the bumper is $1,400 and I would have guessed around that. The service technician also pointed out that the paint of the rear corner panel has two tiny chips on the side edge next to the bumper apparently when the bumper went forward it made contact and hence the tiny (say 1/8 of an inch each. The chips are would not even be visible behind the repaired bumper.Barely see the aluminum panel beneath the paint.
The technician and the claims adjuster agree that the side body panel should be repainted to avoid future rusting problems. I was thinking they should just do a touch up on the two spots. With replacement of the FX sticker it doubles the estimate and would be covered by insurance company.

Finally my question to the forum. Have any of you had to have the Platinum White paint worked on? And was it a perfect match to the neighboring panel? My concern is that the side panel will not be a perfect match to the panel next to it. I respect and trust the ability of the dealership's body shop they appear to be darn near state of the art. Would you allow them to repaint the panel? Aluminum will not rust but maybe that white oxidation may occur. Would touch up paint protect the chipped area. The area is concealed by the bumper once it is repaired.

 

I’m in a similar situation. A 3 inch long dent behind the rear tire from when someone ran over something on the highway during a test drive and it flew up and hit right above the protective plastic piece behind the rear tire. When I purchased the truck the dealership said they would have their paintless dent removal guy take care of it. Now the dent guy is saying it’s right on a crease and he can’t pop it out. They are offering to Have the body shop fix the dent but it would require repainting the entire bedside.

 

i don't know if this helps, but it appears the sides of the bumper can be replaced individually. they come wither chrome or paint to match for a just under $300.

 

Being aluminum it wont rust, but could eventually start corroding if the protective clad under the paint has bee scratched. Most aluminum sheet has a clad coating the prevents corrosion as long as its not scratched, when I worked at Lockheed any scratched material was immediately scrapped. But it still should be atleast touched up to prevent future corrosion especially if they use salt on your roads.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alclad

 

Looking very close at the two chips, the protective coating does not appear to been damaged. Since it is basically brand new and the body shop has an excellent reputation I am told locally that the match will be perfect and the shop will provide a lifetime warranty on the work. I wonder what the life time warranty is? Probably as long as I own the truck. Will have to investigate that further.

Thank you for the link to wikipedia on alclad.

I will have to decide by Monday how to proceed.

 

I recommend keeping as much original paint as possible. If the chips won’t be visible and you’re concerned with corrosion just touch them up with factory available motorcraft touch up paint from the parts dept. No way would I let them tap into the good more durable perfectly matching factory paint for two tiny chips that are invisible once the bumper is replaced.

 

What F2502011 said...x1000!

 

This is exactly what I would do. I have not had good experiences with body shops.

 

You have about a 99.9% chance that a repaint on the White Platinum will NOT match the truck. With this color, and a few others, it's nearly impossible.

 

Over the weekend I received there revised estimate that was approved by adjuster. Today I am going to show damage to another expert and inspect those two chips further. My original feeling is the same as F2502011.

The original estimate was $1,374. and the revised is $1,407.00.

 

Finally uploaded a couple pics of the two area
s that are chipped. the body shop is really stressing the importance of fixing it right, which means re painting the entire box panel. Myself, several of my friends in the area and on this site advice to just touch it up.

Now that you can see the small damage what advice. Since the insurance company has agreed to pay for the additional repair its a wash for me. Just concerned with the quality of repair compared to the factory finish on the high tech platinum white paint. Wonder if the insurance company would just give me a cash settlement on the extra. That would buy lots of bottles of ford touch up paint over the year.

 

Personally, I'd hit it with touch up paint to protect from corrosion, and be done with it. Why take a chance on body shop repair that may or may not work out when a $6 bottle of touch up paint protects from corrosion, and the repair won't be visible anyway?

 

I had my flares painted by a local shop...they're a near perfect match to the factory white pearl metallic paint. But agree, because its a multi-step process...it can be hard to match. Unfortunately for me, my dealer scratched the passenger side of the rear bumper before I even picked up the truck (factory order). They painted it, the one side only...and I can't tell.