It’s been one of those mornings today. Owing to parked cars and a skip to navigate I caught my front bumper on a wooden fence post and this has caused an approx. 400mm split on the LH corner. Can the repairers weld this and make good or is it a mend it with a new one?
Richard
I don't know anything about car repairs but surely it depends on the composition of the material and nature of the damage. 400 mm is nearly 16 inches - a huge split - and I thought only metal could be welded anyway.
Sounds like a good excuse for them to sell you a new car!
If your model is fairly common, have you tried a scrap yard? Perhaps another car was written off with a "rear-ender" and the front bumper is fine and can be used to replace yours. If it's a different colour, it would just require respraying. Might be a possible DIY job if you're up to it.
Much the way I built my first car. :-)
Tricky Dicky snipped-for-privacy@sky.com wrote in news:ugtg48$vug6$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
There are loads of bumper repair outfits out there as the cost of replacements is eye watering.
Try a search for:
plastic bumper welding or plastic bumper repair
The examples I have seen have seen are very good, it's often something a body shop will farm out to a specialist repairer.
They are ABS(?) and yes they can be plastic welded, then resprayed, but often cheaper to just get one from a scrap yard, then have that resprayed if necessary, to match.
the 400mm just shows that the Uk, like ROI, is still not really comfortable with metric. Quickly, what is 400mm in Imperial.
15.748". Like the man said - c. 16"
Easy. 100mm is near enough 4".
There are plastic welding techniques that either use red hot metal staple to join the split, and/or filler rods to fill the crack.
Many of us have been using metric measurements/units for 50 years
As anyone familiar with building stud walls etc can tell you, 400mm c/c being equivalent to your traditional 16"
DIY with a soldering gun. Align the 2 sides staples across the crack Melt the broken edges together, using some ABS as filler. Melt smooth ten sand. Spray Or if you're less fussy just do staples on the nonvisible side.
Way to go..., except if the surface is curved filling and smoothening is a chore..?!
A 400mm split in a plastic bumper must have required considerable force. Weren't you paying attention to your manoeuvre?
My car has worse, and has passed two MOT tests since with gaffer tape holding the bumper together.
You can weld plastic from behind, but if the mark still showsdue to the finish being compromised, than its really going to be a whole new part unless you can disguise it with some filler and paint. I'm thinking that if you knew the plastic, it might be possible to use a solvent to do the gluing. However, maybe it might not be so strong afterwards. I remember when I could see seeing a Ford Escort leave most of the lower part of the rear of the car behind due to a risen up peg on the edge of the footway as they tried to do a three point turn. Brian
You just ask Alexa. Brian
Yes so why does some B/Qs still sell stuff in feet? Its because a lot of us are not happy with metric. I just missed being taught it at school. Brian
I think the only time you will get into trouble is if you replace it with a piece of Angle iron, it will be the sharp edge thatit gets failed on. Brian
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