Tanner05

Thanks.
We are going to try filler primer instead of bondo. When you feel the cracks they feel smooth you can just see them. If that doesn't work, my fiance is pretty good with fiber glass, so he wouldn't mind having a go at it. I'll post a picture later of the complete sanding that we did yesterday.

This weekend or possibly next weekend we will be dropping the bumper to get to the cracked paint on the edge of the bumper.

kgrun4

The body shop didn't do a half *** job by not going down to the factory plastic. If there was no reason to sand down that far than you don't need to; you can run into more problems like having the paint raise by going down to bare plastic and not sealing it properly.

That said good luck with the paint job hope it turns out well. Make sure you get out any where the cracks spread in the paint. If you don't completely get rid of them then paint over them they can show up again.

alkemist

Interested to see how you are going to paint the bumper. Props on trying to do yourself though. I couldn't bear putting sandpaper on my car lol.

Shadow7874

Ehh, its a v6 bumper that already looked damaged. Worse case scenario you put up with a color that doesnt match or something like that for a few months then get a sexy bumper later on. It should all be fine, the only potential problem i see is the paint not being a perfect match. If it turns out great i might take a shot at my hood! It has some intense key scratches on it from the previous owned that drive me crazy.

Vader GT

Subscribed!

Tanner05

Ok guys I have been running around with my bumper looking like a trailer park car for the last 3 weeks. She has earned the new nick name spot, because she is so pretty everywhere else, but that one spot.

Anyway, since this is my week off from college classes we will continue the bumper repair on Friday and hopefully it will be finished the same day. We were going to do it the other day, but we couldn't figure out how to drop the bumper. Any help?

danzcool

http://iihs.net/fsm/?dir=479&viewfil...ew,%20Rear.pdf

Alec

Remove the plastic trunk trim piece. You will see four holes with long bolts/nuts in the holes. Take the nuts off with a 7/16 deep well socket. Outside the car in the wheel wells just behind the tires there are two screws on each side - remove these. Disconnect the wiring harness for the side markers/license plate light.Slowly remove the bumper from this point - it "snaps" in place - and pull it back, pulling the harness out as you go. Piece of cake - maybe 10 minutes tops.

Tanner05

Ahh I see now. When we did it we removed the four that were in the trunk, but we didn't get the two in the fender well. I think I'm going to tackle this today while I'm waiting for UPS to come.

Alec

I also found it helpful to pop out the taillights a little so I could get a hand on the bumper cover and wiggle it off