Hello. I have a 2014 Dodge Grand Caravan. A few weeks back I was going in reverse out of my garage where I hit the gas pedal a bit more powerful than usual. I had to pass by my truck and since my tail was too close to it I made a right turn and in no time I hit the bumper of my truck (no damage to the truck) with my van’s front bumper and kinda “kicked it out” of place.
I used some Gorilla tape until today when I decided to fix it but the problem seems to be bigger than I had though. It won’t click back in and while I drove with the tape on it the whole bumper seemed kinda loose.
Then I noticed the edge point of the bumper to be broken (picture 2).
Does anyone have any suggestion or is this thing going to cost me (replacing the whole bumper)?
Also, I wanted to ask, this cheap bumper liner (pic 3) is also broken but would it be safe to just use tape to keep it in place?
Go to a body shop and get an accurate free estimate instead of asking folks on the internet with pictures and then decide if you want to fix this out of pocket or actually use the insurance you’ve been paying for for all your driving life.
The DIY fix is to buy a bag of zip-ties, a 1/4 inch drill bit, and drill a series of holes in each part and lace them together with the zip-ties. The kids think it is cool when they do it on 20 year old beater Civics and Subarus. You are left to draw your own conclusions on the image of this on your min-van.
All I can tell from the pictures is this is just not repair but a replacement . You ask if tape can fix this , not a chance. Also you need to clean your garage.
Did you ever get the front plate mounted on your truck ?
most bumper covers have clips on them. usually on the car side the clips can be replaced. the clips on the bumper cover side is part of the bumper cover. if those clips break then the whole cover needs to be replaced.
The eyelet for the screw is torn. The screw is at the rear edge of the bumper cover and is pointed straight up. There are plastic bumper repair products and hot plastic welders available to repair this.
When a vehicle comes in for maintenance and has a loose bumper cover, I remove the screw, snap the bumper cover back into place and install the screw. The cover will stay in place until they hit something.
It can be repaired, decently enough, doing some fabrication. Drill some holes, use some screws or plastic rivets, etc. I can’t tell exactly how it attaches from the pics, so I can’t tell you exactly how to do it. Would be a hands on, trial and error type deal. I think it’d be better to at least try to find that fender liner used rather than trying to repair that piece though, like Purebred said.
The inner fender liner or inner fender shield runs about $13 to $60+ on RockAuto depending on if you want aftermarket or Mopar. The Bumper cover, reman and primed runs about $250-$330. You will need to get it painted and that can run another $300+.
There are repair parts for the bumper cover as well but your pictures aren’t clear enough to see if that route is possible. You will have to go to get a rockauto.com and determine for yourself what can be done and what you can do.
BTW, be sure to get a supply of those pushpins, it’s well worth the small cost vs. trying to salvage the old ones.
Body shops have some powerful glues for “structural repair” of plastics which mine has used to repair broken attachment mountings for ~ an hour’s labor when I’ve done things like this. The torn liner probably is best replaced, but they’re relatively inexpensive, but as they’re not structurally important you might get away with stitching and splicing it. You might not need to replace the outer cover, depends on cosmetics and what you can tolerate. When one of my kids does this on an older car I just re-glue and hand paint where needed. If a detailed inspection finds damaged structural parts that affect collision protection, these should be replaced.
I think I’m with Scrapyard. After being hit about three times, my son’s Acura attachment points were kinda torn. I managed to get it together again, not remembering exactly what I did, but I did say one more time and the cover would need to be replaced. Someone whether you or a friend is just going to have to study the torn attachment points and see if it can be reattached without them. There is rubber bumper putty available to maybe adhere a new tab. Don’t mess with other adhesives though since likely won’t work on the rubber. At any rate a body shop is not going to mess with repairing unless a moonlighting guy. They would just replace. As far as the honeycomb foam insert, no need to worry about that as long as it is still there. Bottom line, there are DIYers and non-DIYers, and one ends up having to simply pay someone.
I used Gorilla glue on the backside to hold the bumper back in place. Be sure to prop the bumper tightly in place until the glue cures or it will expand and open a gap.
