Actually, I've given a good deal of thought to a "home" repair. The hole is low and surrounded by solid material. But the bumper has 14 years worth of small pits and paint chips as well. It becomes a choice of doing a "get by" repair at home or having it done right by a professional. I went to a "high end" independant body shop for an estimate. They want to repair the bumper skin, sand out "pits" on the front of the hood and grill area, then repaint everything back to the doors. Cost, about $2K They have examples of some very nice workmanship at their "studio". But, the car is only worth about $10K on a summer day. Spending $2K on these cosmetic repairs would not increase the value to $12K. It doesn't look bad until you get up close. I'm not sure what I should do. But I think I'm going to see if I can find a body shop willing to just repaint the bumper if I patch the hole and sand it out myself. New bumper skins for just about every other Mercedes model are less than $500. Why the heck does the SL bumper cost so much? That's rhetoric.

__________________
Resistance is Futile.