VikingJoe
Well-Known Member
- Thread starter
- #1
I thought I would post this up to help out anyone looking for a bumper replacement on the cheap.
Long story short, I tried to pull off my bumper to do a grill change and discovered the previous owner had JB Welded the passenger side bumper corner where it mates to the fender. My bumper was destroyed in the process and I was not having any luck finding one that was my color locally.
I started searching the internet since my only other options were to spend an absurd amount of money at the dealership or spend $300ish for one on craigslist and then another $400ish to have it painted.
I found a company on Amazon named MBI Auto selling replacement bumpers painted to match for $350 shipped. It sounded too good to be true but after spending all of my fun money on go-fast mods not too long ago I decided to give it a shot based on the generally positive reviews they have received.
After purchasing the bumper and emailing them my paint code, I received the bumper 6 days later. When it arrived I was shocked thinking that this couldn't be my bumper because it was packaged in a box that did not correlate dimensionally with what the bumper should have been. They ended up folding the edges inward and wrapping it. My first thought was there is no way the paint is okay and the bumper is going to be warped. After unfolding it and quickly inspecting it everything looked okay.
I started stripping my factory bumper parts and moving them over to the new one. It took a little finesse to get everything to mate up but everything did mate up eventually and correctly without damaging anything (take your time and make sure you are doing it right).
After getting the bumper on I inspected everything again. Shockingly the bumper lined up perfectly everywhere. I will say that the bumper does appear thinner and slightly more flimsy compared to the factory one but once everything was transferred over and bolted back on the car you can not tell anymore, it feels solid.
As for the paint, there were a few runs in the fog light areas but thankfully they are not within sight unless you laid on the ground and looked up in to the cavity. There was slight orange peel but no worse than the rest of the factory paint on the car. The color matches perfectly with the rest of my car. I feel like the paint job was probably in line with what you would get from a local painter for $300 based on some of the work I have seen locally.
I have two gripes. The first is that they coated the bumper in some kind of dust/powder and I don't know if that was to protect the clear coat during shipping or if it was just dust from sitting in their painting area but it left a very slight haze on the paint that is going to have to be cut and buffed out. Not a big deal and it isn't terribly noticeable, in fact I could not get it to capture on camera but me being as anal as I am I will definitely be buffing it out. I will follow up on that after I get time to do it. The second is that for some reason there are two slight indentions where you would screw your license plate bracket in which I am obviously not going to drill in to my bumper. Again, not a big deal but it is noticeable when you are up close.
Hopefully this helps some of you guys out needing a bumper on the cheap! If you have any questions I will try to answer them if I can.
Long story short, I tried to pull off my bumper to do a grill change and discovered the previous owner had JB Welded the passenger side bumper corner where it mates to the fender. My bumper was destroyed in the process and I was not having any luck finding one that was my color locally.
I started searching the internet since my only other options were to spend an absurd amount of money at the dealership or spend $300ish for one on craigslist and then another $400ish to have it painted.
I found a company on Amazon named MBI Auto selling replacement bumpers painted to match for $350 shipped. It sounded too good to be true but after spending all of my fun money on go-fast mods not too long ago I decided to give it a shot based on the generally positive reviews they have received.
After purchasing the bumper and emailing them my paint code, I received the bumper 6 days later. When it arrived I was shocked thinking that this couldn't be my bumper because it was packaged in a box that did not correlate dimensionally with what the bumper should have been. They ended up folding the edges inward and wrapping it. My first thought was there is no way the paint is okay and the bumper is going to be warped. After unfolding it and quickly inspecting it everything looked okay.
I started stripping my factory bumper parts and moving them over to the new one. It took a little finesse to get everything to mate up but everything did mate up eventually and correctly without damaging anything (take your time and make sure you are doing it right).
After getting the bumper on I inspected everything again. Shockingly the bumper lined up perfectly everywhere. I will say that the bumper does appear thinner and slightly more flimsy compared to the factory one but once everything was transferred over and bolted back on the car you can not tell anymore, it feels solid.
As for the paint, there were a few runs in the fog light areas but thankfully they are not within sight unless you laid on the ground and looked up in to the cavity. There was slight orange peel but no worse than the rest of the factory paint on the car. The color matches perfectly with the rest of my car. I feel like the paint job was probably in line with what you would get from a local painter for $300 based on some of the work I have seen locally.
I have two gripes. The first is that they coated the bumper in some kind of dust/powder and I don't know if that was to protect the clear coat during shipping or if it was just dust from sitting in their painting area but it left a very slight haze on the paint that is going to have to be cut and buffed out. Not a big deal and it isn't terribly noticeable, in fact I could not get it to capture on camera but me being as anal as I am I will definitely be buffing it out. I will follow up on that after I get time to do it. The second is that for some reason there are two slight indentions where you would screw your license plate bracket in which I am obviously not going to drill in to my bumper. Again, not a big deal but it is noticeable when you are up close.
Hopefully this helps some of you guys out needing a bumper on the cheap! If you have any questions I will try to answer them if I can.
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