They would usually blend it, meaning paint the bumper cover along with part of the adjoining panels.

The pre-painted one will match fine. It isn't like the car is 25 years old

 

I’ve replaced the bumper cover on my crystal white XC90 and I’m very happy with it, I did it with the help of my 15 year old son. I followed the video directions for installing a trailer hitch.

 

Thanks much for the replies! I'll go ahead and take advantage of the current discounts to order the parts.

 

Was your lower valence damaged or is it okay? If it needs replaced, holes may need to be drilled for [rear] parking assist if you have that option. The primed color is actual paint with clear coat - just depends on your trim. The replacement valence was much cheaper than repair and repair - similar to what you found with the bumper cover.

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Actually on second thoughts, and on closer inspection, I think there is some warping of the valence from pressure it received from the deformed bumper cover above. I'll replace it too. It wasn't very obvious because the shape of the bumper cover is pretty messed up right now (covered by white duct tape, hah) so it was hiding the imperfection of the valence. I pushed the cover a bit out of the way to notice the valence issue.

 

Been there, did that. The body shop likely has a template for precisely drilling the holes. Mine did. Maybe you could get your body shop to drill out the holes at a minimal cost. Just a thought.

BTW, I think the valence was around $200. I will check my invoice if you would like.

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Definitely go with Volvo’s pre-painted parts. I’ve done it a number of times as it turns out. The first time was with our 2010 XC90 just as it arrived at the dealer stateside they noticed the Factory Delivery Center had gone a little overboard with the clear coat when they added the front park assist sensors after we dropped it off in Torlsanda for home shipment. They proactively got approval from Volvo to replace the front bumper cover and sensors with new ones (cover they ordered was prepainted) and they did all of the work themselves and showed me the parts when they arrived. It’s a perfect match from Volvo with the additional upside it won’t peel or discolor at different rate than a local body shop’s work.

fast forward to our 2017 and 2 summers ago I’d dropped it off for the 20k service but then I had a trip to go on and couldn’t pick it up right away. A couple of weeks later I dropped in to return the loaner and get our red car and my service advisor said he was glad I came in so he could show me something in person rather than over the phone that happened just the day before I showed up. One of their new lot attendants had driven one of their cars across the front of ours and he showed me the damage. He asked me how I wanted it fixed and I asked them to do the work themselves without sending it to the local Volvo certified body shop. They ordered the new front covers and replaced everything in house - simple parts swaps that I was confident they’d do correctly. Again a great match and no tone or hue difference.

And then a few months later I was rear ended by someone that used my tow bar to stop them from 40mph to 0 in a matter of inches. My seat belt needed replacing, tow bar, cover, etc totaling $17k in repairs but thankfully it was all just parts swaps and labor. I asked the body shop to only use pre-painted rear bumper cover parts. It took longer since cover pieces weren’t available stateside. It looks good - the rear cover does have an ever so slight color tone variation that is noticeable by me when it’s dirty. When clean its close match. Still I prefer it as I’ve never had lasting quality results from body shops painting plastic bits. They inevitably peel or scrape far too easily vs. factory painted parts.

 

After some flailing around for the right part numbers, the Riley Auto representative here came through to help me out by connecting me to their parts department. With 9 minutes to spare on their 15% parts discount, I just got my order in for factory painted replacements
Thank you all, as always! I'll update here when they arrive and I have installed them, and will leave a note on the part numbers for anyone that chances upon this thread in the future.

 

Great success. First of all @rileyvolvo shipped these huge pieces to me in 2 days which was just fantastic.

I swapped them out tonight and they look great!

I kind of messed up the valence holes. I practiced quite a bit and made a clean cut that I was very happy with, but they turned out to be too small. Used a 5/8 bit when I should have used 3/4. It was pretty late so I reassembled without attaching the two parking sensors on the valence. Will need to practice a clean way to make the holes bigger and try again.

But, happy with the new parts!

Before and after:

Pardon the dirt. It drizzled in LA today somehow.

 

The bumper portion that you had broken a hole into, it came prepainted and with holes for the park sensors? How hard was it to move the sensors from the old bumper to the new one? Can you please share what part number you ordered?

 

It's probably obvious but just for the sake of completion:
1 - Upper Bumper Cover (body painted)
2 - Lower Bumper Cover (body painted)
3 - Lower Gray Valence

Different websites call these different things (eg. protector plate, cover, spoiler, etc, etc.).

 

I love that Volvo sells pre-painted parts. It makes for better repairs especially in situations where a body shop isn’t required and maintains the original quality.

 

I love that Volvo sells pre-painted parts. It makes for better repairs especially in situations where a body shop isn't required and maintains the original quality.

Yeah! So great. I easily saved about $2k+ from the body shop quotes I got by doing this myself and ordering during the labor day discount. I think total out of pocket was about $550-$600 which is really good.

Of course I then spent that saving on a new telescope but that's another story..

 

Alright all done.
Decided to use the 3/4 bit to make small marks by hand and gently sand it with a Dremel until the hole expanded enough to reach the marks. Pushing the sensor in was easy by reaching behind the bumper from below.

Making marks

Sanding in progress. Used a low rpm so as to not heat up the plastic, and continuously eyeballed a circular shape.

Close to final. Used a high grit sander to smooth it out after this.

Sensor then fit in there.

Some of my practice runs for fun.

Hopefully no one has to do these steps!

 

@mxms533, congrats on a successful outcome and thanks for experiential learnings where practice makes perfect.

Off-topic: Celestron? Model? …[emoji280]

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Thanks!

Off-topic: Celestron? Model?

Picked up an 80mm StellarVue, focal length 480mm, with a bunch of ZWO accessories (guide scope, guide camera, etc.). Really excited to use this hand crafted piece of equipment when it arrives on Tuesday! It's a used scope btw - there was quite a wait-list for a new StellarVue.

I have been researching good BLM land to tow a trailer to with the Volvo and spend a weekend at a dark site with all my astrophotography gear. Perfect union of two hobbies

 

And, an update.
All this was for naught because of this person who started driving with his eyes on the phone on the passenger seat
(click below for gif)

Animated Gif

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Sigh.

EDIT, better quality gif posted below.

 

And, an update.
All this was for naught because of this person who started driving with his eyes on the phone on the passenger seat
(click below for gif)

Animated Gif

FreeGifMaker.me. Create GIFs with us!

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Sigh.

That is very frustrating. Nice that you had the rear dash cam though. Where do you have it mounted at?

 

Slightly better quality video gif: - GIF - Imgur and front view too: - GIF - Imgur
Sorry, the service I used previously was pretty bad quality. Refraining from sharing the full resolution youtube video to protect privacy from other parts of the video that were recorded (like us getting out of the car etc.)

Thanks for the notes @VolvoUhu ! I'm getting things checked out now and those comments are super helpful. Fortunately it was much lower speed than what you went through but the jolt was still quite jarring because he was literally accelerating into the car. I strongly suspect as well that the tow bar took damage and bent. Cosmetically it isn't much more than scrapes, though I'm pretty sure it'll all get replaced.

It's pretty clear in the video, maybe this updated gif will show it too, that he was looking at the passenger seat until a fraction of a second before impact when he looked up to actually see where he was going. Glad to have the dashcam setup (it's a Blackvue 750S dual channel for those curious - I'll post some pictures later in the day, @ptownmike ). I realized after this incident that my front camera had inadvertently flipped down a little, so I'm correcting it now. I have the front mounted away from the city safety block, and the rear is as high as possible inside the boot.