Bumper cover replacement difficulty?
10-15-2010, 11:37 PM
#1
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Join Date: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,431
Bumper cover replacement difficulty?
Hi guys,
My mom has accumulated a number of dings and dents and such on both her front and rear bumper covers. They've been repainted before, but this time they need to simply be replaced. The body shops around here want to charge an arm and a leg for this, and a large part of the bill is taking off the old covers and putting the new ones on.
How hard is this really? If I source myself some aftermarket covers or some covers from a junkyard (or other org members (?)), do you think it's worth my time and effort to try and do the replacement myself and then just take it somewhere to get painted (or just blended if I can find some KT3 covers)?
Interested in your thoughts!
Thanks
Jon
My mom has accumulated a number of dings and dents and such on both her front and rear bumper covers. They've been repainted before, but this time they need to simply be replaced. The body shops around here want to charge an arm and a leg for this, and a large part of the bill is taking off the old covers and putting the new ones on.
How hard is this really? If I source myself some aftermarket covers or some covers from a junkyard (or other org members (?)), do you think it's worth my time and effort to try and do the replacement myself and then just take it somewhere to get painted (or just blended if I can find some KT3 covers)?
Interested in your thoughts!
Thanks
Jon
10-17-2010, 07:26 AM
#2
taking of and replacingmthe front bumper cover is so easy. 3 tabs above the grill, 6 under ther atttached to the splash guards then some 10mm bolts just above the sidemarkers attached to the fender and bumper cover on the inside. The rear i have no experience with but it cant be that hard.
10-17-2010, 03:57 PM
#5
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Join Date: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,431
Cool, thanks guys. After some searching around, I decided to go with some bumper covers from D&H Auto Parts (http://www.dnhautoparts.com) - they will paint them prior to shipping. The paint on this car is already pretty jacked up, so I don't think any minor mismatch will be that big of a deal. Their pricing is:
Front:
Unpainted - 94.90
Painted - 239.90
Rear:
Unpainted - 219.90
Painted - 374.90
I've seen a number of people on the forums asking about them, but nobody followed up if they ever purchased and set it up. I'll try to do that.
- Jon
Front:
Unpainted - 94.90
Painted - 239.90
Rear:
Unpainted - 219.90
Painted - 374.90
I've seen a number of people on the forums asking about them, but nobody followed up if they ever purchased and set it up. I'll try to do that.
- Jon
10-18-2010, 07:10 AM
#7
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Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Atlanta
Posts: 1,222
11-15-2010, 10:13 PM
#8
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2001
Posts: 1,431
Ok, time for an update here...
Bumpers arrived fairly quick - maybe a week or so after order. We managed to get the rear bumper on yesterday, and I have to say, it was definitely more difficult than anticipated.
As described in the FSM, you have to take off a number of external bolts, mostly under the fender, and then take out a good chunk of the trunk lining to access a number of interior bolts. One of the bolts is behind the jack and jack holder. It's a little tough to reach, but doable. The clips on the trunk liner were kind of annoying as well. The hardest part of taking off the old bumper cover was getting the top out of the 4 clips where it meets the rear support - in the end, it just took a lot of pulling.
Once the old bumper fascia came off, we had to take a bunch of pieces off of it - namely the side lights and a number of overcomplicated brackets. While working on the side lights, it became clear that this aftermarket bumper was, as expected, not quite the fitment of the stock bumper. On one side, the side light bracket, trim piece and light went in just fine. On the other side, the "groove" for the light was not deep enough, causing it to stick out (not flush with the outside of the bumper) and made attaching the clips and bolts on the inside of the bumper nearly impossible. We drilled out the screw hole to get a little more wiggle room and that ended up getting us 95% of the way there so we moved on.
Getting the new bumper back on the car was also much more complicated than expected. On either corner of the car, there is a screw that goes from the bumper fascia into the trunk. Then, there are two brackets (that we had to swap from the old bumper cover to the new one) on the left and right side of the bumper cover. These brackets have 2 screws each which protrude into the trunk. *These were nearly impossible to line up and get into place.* It took us literally hours, but after twisting, squeezing, and prodding the screws from beneath the car using a bar, and finally drilling one hole out, we managed to get them into the car and bolted. If you're doing this, watch for screw threads getting jammed on thin metal openings in the body.
In the end, we managed to seat the bumper fascia into the clips on the rear support that were so hard to dislodge when removing the original cover. However, the bumper never really seemed to fully sit in the clips. With the trunk lid closed, you can't tell the difference. However, with the trunk open, there's definitely a little more gap than there was before. Could just be fitment of the aftermarket part, or could be we didn't know what we were doing
One other thought - the paint is pretty much what I expected - looks ok, but pretty thin and easy to scratch, not real flexible. I don't expect it to hold up well to minor abrasions. We scratched it a few times just jostling it around as we put it on the car.
Bottom line - if you have the tools, don't deeply care about the long term quality of the paint, and have the patience to drill out plastic and/or metal if need be, this is a good way to save some money. On the other hand, if you're thinking that you can order these cheap and ask a body shop to put them on for you, you're probably not going to save any money.
I haven't attempted the front bumper yet. I feel like it may be a little easier, but I have to try that one another day.
Bumpers arrived fairly quick - maybe a week or so after order. We managed to get the rear bumper on yesterday, and I have to say, it was definitely more difficult than anticipated.
As described in the FSM, you have to take off a number of external bolts, mostly under the fender, and then take out a good chunk of the trunk lining to access a number of interior bolts. One of the bolts is behind the jack and jack holder. It's a little tough to reach, but doable. The clips on the trunk liner were kind of annoying as well. The hardest part of taking off the old bumper cover was getting the top out of the 4 clips where it meets the rear support - in the end, it just took a lot of pulling.
Once the old bumper fascia came off, we had to take a bunch of pieces off of it - namely the side lights and a number of overcomplicated brackets. While working on the side lights, it became clear that this aftermarket bumper was, as expected, not quite the fitment of the stock bumper. On one side, the side light bracket, trim piece and light went in just fine. On the other side, the "groove" for the light was not deep enough, causing it to stick out (not flush with the outside of the bumper) and made attaching the clips and bolts on the inside of the bumper nearly impossible. We drilled out the screw hole to get a little more wiggle room and that ended up getting us 95% of the way there so we moved on.
Getting the new bumper back on the car was also much more complicated than expected. On either corner of the car, there is a screw that goes from the bumper fascia into the trunk. Then, there are two brackets (that we had to swap from the old bumper cover to the new one) on the left and right side of the bumper cover. These brackets have 2 screws each which protrude into the trunk. *These were nearly impossible to line up and get into place.* It took us literally hours, but after twisting, squeezing, and prodding the screws from beneath the car using a bar, and finally drilling one hole out, we managed to get them into the car and bolted. If you're doing this, watch for screw threads getting jammed on thin metal openings in the body.
In the end, we managed to seat the bumper fascia into the clips on the rear support that were so hard to dislodge when removing the original cover. However, the bumper never really seemed to fully sit in the clips. With the trunk lid closed, you can't tell the difference. However, with the trunk open, there's definitely a little more gap than there was before. Could just be fitment of the aftermarket part, or could be we didn't know what we were doing
One other thought - the paint is pretty much what I expected - looks ok, but pretty thin and easy to scratch, not real flexible. I don't expect it to hold up well to minor abrasions. We scratched it a few times just jostling it around as we put it on the car.
Bottom line - if you have the tools, don't deeply care about the long term quality of the paint, and have the patience to drill out plastic and/or metal if need be, this is a good way to save some money. On the other hand, if you're thinking that you can order these cheap and ask a body shop to put them on for you, you're probably not going to save any money.
I haven't attempted the front bumper yet. I feel like it may be a little easier, but I have to try that one another day.
Last edited by hakk97se; 11-15-2010 at 10:19 PM.
11-15-2010, 10:34 PM
#9
Of course the paint's going to scratch easy if the bumpers arrived a week after ordering...it probably hasn't fully hardened yet. Automotive paint takes quite a while to fully cure.
The paint quality doesn't sound too far off of the OEM paint quality, honestly.
The paint quality doesn't sound too far off of the OEM paint quality, honestly.
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