Anyone knows how much roughly it will cost to replace my Skoda Octavia VRS rear bumper? I have just been quoted £622.58 + VAT for strip & refit, replace, and paint...

I think you've answered your own question although £600+ sounds quite steep to me. Was this from a Skoda dealer/bodyshop?

Shop around and gather a number of different quotes but remember the cheapest won't always the best!

I think £600 + is probably about right. The bumper will be a few £££ then the labour to fit and colour match to your car.

This quote is from Brian Robson Coachworks (http://www.brobson.co.uk/), who is local... as I also find it a bit steep (£747 inc VAT), I though in consulting the people here for advice and suggestions...

From experience, its probably a half hour to remove a rear bumper. If you were up for it, you could price a bumper at Skoda, get a price for painting and then fire it on yourself.

Failing that, you will just have to go with whatever quote suits you.

The thing is I have no experience doing such replacements - no idea if it is an easy job or not for someone who have never done such things... I also forgot to mention that light reflectors need to be inserted in that rear bumper and hole drills need to be done in order to insert the existing and well functioning parking sensors... so the quote for that comes as: £246 labour + £135 materials + £231.58 parts (plus VAT on top of all that)... what do you think? what do you recommend?

As with the other responses, the quote is about right for a new bumper, paint and fitment of other parts listed.

How bad is the damage and does the bumper actually need to be replaced?  If it is just paint or minor damage (cracks, dents or small holes) you may be able to have a smart repair (plastic weld, composite repair or filler plus respray).  With reagrds to paint, if the damage is localised many body shops may offer to just respray the damaged area - from personal experience I would recommend getting the whole bumper resprayed as the blending is not usually that good due to the numer of curves and creases on the bumper - although this obviously costs a little more.  If you remove the bumper yourself, this will probably cost £150 - 300 depending on the severity of damage.

With regards to removing the bumper removal and replacement, this is a relatively simple task; refitting is usually a little more tricky though as the bumper may need some manipulation to fit.  In addition the new paint will be soft and therefore more prone to damage (it is usually best to get someone else to assist whilst refitting in order to prevent a bout of touretts when you scrath that newly painted bumper!).

Finally, if you do require a new bumper, pay the extra cash for a genuine one - many of the copies claiming to be OEM spec and quality do not always fit without modification.

Plenty of them on Ebay at the moment.

They're trivial to remove and refit yourself.