I was looking through a few posts on Realoldspower (as requested by a member here) and noticed that when the suject of replacement bumpers came up they talked about sending your core out for rechroming. Has anyone bought "new" from these online sites or through ebay? They advertise a rear bumper for my '70 cutlass for about $350 including shipping. Are these any good?

 

Some outfits like Bumper Boyz have a bad reputation although I can't say from experience that is true. Supposedly what happens is they take old bumpers (cores) and re-plate them. The problem is that there is no gaurantee that the old core was in any better shape than the one you send in for re-chroming so you may end up with a nice chromed bumper but it may not be as straight as the one you started with that had bad chrome. About the "new" bumpers, if the really are new I guess you don't have a problem but remember that chroming is a plating process and the beauty comes from the polishiing as much as it comes from the plating. Many people report poor chrome not becuase of the plating or "number of times it was plated" but from the low number of man-hours put into polishing the newly plated product. The general consensus I have observed is that using a local shop that you can see their work and get a feel for the level of trust they have with their customers is better. If that isn't possible I would think doing as much research on a particular company, i.e. asking about company XYZ and what people think of them and their service and workmanship would be the next best thing. Good luck.

 

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate the input. My bumpers are straight and solid so to keep it original and knowing they would fit perfect, rechroming is probably best. But if I'm not assured of getting mine back - what's the point. If anyone has had good luck with a company in the northeast please let me know. I heard mention of a place in Pa. but I don't have a name, anybody know of it?

 

I bought a rear bumper from Fusick, and it looks good to me, especially for a driver. It's straight, no visible defects, and the chrome looks pretty good. It would cost 350 to get one rechromed, so, you could get one, save the original for rechroming.