Moi,👋 Finns and expats living in Finland! 🇫🇮

I'm a foreigner living in Finland and recently rented a car (VW) through a car-sharing service. After returning the car, I was charged €841.68 for a scratch on the front bumper.

The damage seems quite minor and purely cosmetic — no cracks or dents, just surface-level scratches (photo attached: that's the only damage they reported). However, it looks like the repair invoice includes over 7 hours of labor, paint, materials, and even a fog light grille replacement, which surprised me.

Since I’m not familiar with how car repairs are priced here, I’d really appreciate your input:

– Does this charge seem reasonable in Finland? If not, how's the average cost approximately?
– Have you experienced similar costs for this kind of minor damage?
– Any advice on how to dispute or follow up on this?

Thanks a lot in advance for your help and perspectives! 🙏

by Hungry_Custard_1886

21 comments

  2. Well, to make this look like a new again is not going to be cheap. Mostly these kind of things might be covered by insurance, but I dont know how those things work on rental cars and what the contract states on these cases.

    So in short, you might have had the short end of a stick in here

  3. That is unfortunately the real cost of fixing the bumper to the original level. I’d say 600-800e is the average.

  4. Yeah, looks like what one would expect.

    Automotive work is expensive, and they basically have to repaint rather large part of the bumper to blend it in.

    As you can see, most of the cost comes from work, I challenge you to remove a bumper from a modern car in less than two hours without damaging it more. Shits complex.

    LPT: Always take the extra insurance when taking rentals.

  8. If you don’t want to pay anything for damages you cause, you need to have waiver-type insurance. And this applies to all countries.

    Automotive labor is extremely expensive in Finland.

  9. Some of the scratches are quite deep that they burnt thru the gloss / paint coating. Thats why you see the grey / primer finish however: its not too bad, a good detailer can buff out most of those scratches for around 300€.

  10. Seems about right but it’s on the high end. “Peltipaja”, ie. cheap hobbyist would probably be able to fix it at half the price and achieve almost the same results but the rental company wouldn’t accept them to do the work.

  11. To those saying it’s totally off I’d like to hear what they think it should be down to each item on the estimate. The bulk of the cost is on labor, which to me seems like a reasonable estimate and reasonable rate. It takes time to make it look new again and blend to the old paint.

  12. Absolutely not could sand an paint that for next to nothing with a bit of time and effort and you’d never know the difference if you were careful and color matched the paint. You’re being taken for a ride there.

  14. Painting is always expensive, as they probably have to remove the part, sand away any roughness and paint the whole part. 841€ sounds quite normal to me. I’ve ordered repairs like this for hundreds of cars back in the day when I worked for car rental company in Finland.

  15. They charged you too much , 200 euro its ok but over 800 euro you fix a bentley or a new mercedes with this price.

  16. Well, I would not have it fixed, not worth it, and the rental car companies often don’t get it fixed either. But they can bill you for the price it would cost to actually fix it and it’s up to them if they do or not. Or just put it towards a new car when this one is written off in 3 years. They often don’t do maintenance either apart from a bit of oil and keeping an eye on the brakes and tyres. One thing I see a lot is that they will bill all damage with a fixed fee, like 1500. Doesn’t matter if you wrap it around a tree or get a small scratch on a bumper. But you can lower your risk with extra insurance. Smart eh? Damage on vans above the window usually can’t be bought off.

  17. Sounds about right, even a little bit on a lower end. Been working at a car body shop past 15y.

  18. Seems about right. Only way to get it cheaper is doing it yourself or having a friend do it. Then it would be around 2-300

  19. i would look online for new bumpers from scrap yards , make sure you get the model correct , although installation probably cost just as much if not more, if i where you and not so bothered by it, get someone to sand and paint just the area. if you go to a professional shop , you cant expect them to do a mediocre job. the bumper is likely to not have any rustable material in it !

  20. Live with it…. Chances are you’ll go the market the day after it is repaired and someone will hit you in the same spot.

  21. I had a little bit of rust, pretty much like 3cmx3cm which cost me 200€ in a professional car painting place, that was most likely super cheap because it was such a little spot.

    This is plastic. 850€ seems reasonable for the whole bumper, but you can probably paint this shit on our own if you just get the original paint based on the code in your car for ~30 euros.

    Will you see the very minor change in certain light? Probably. Is it worth to pay 800€ more for plastic that nobody looks at? No.

    Edit: looking at the receipt, 291€ for painting work and 135€ for paint seems reasonable. I don’t ever see it being reasonable to replace or re-paint the whole thing for such a small scratch, on plastic.

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