Front Bumper
- Thread starter Jesus-11
- Start date
Bright_White
Member
- :
- P5
Does it stick out if you tighten up all the bolts? If I remember correctly that's just a piece that sorta clicks into place...
Bright_White
Member
- :
- P5
Do you have the piece that broke off? If yes you can grab one of those plastic weld kits. Other then that I'd tighten it up and see how it looks, not really sure what else you could do.
mine did that too! it sucks but i did not find a way to fix it. i tried sticking(super gluing) a washer in its spot and i also tried a larger head bolt to hold whats left in there, neither worked now my drivers side of the front bumper sits lower than its supposed to. the plastic weld did not work for me it stayed for 2 hours after it cured fell back off in the garage. i gave up on fixing it after that because its 12 years old and has 160,000 miles on it and i am in college so i dont have time to spend 3 days fixing that. you might try duct tape but that did not work for me either. its just something for spacing the bumper right. i was annoyed by it for a little bit however ive gotten used to it and it just makes my car have character now. i still get people asking me how many miles it has and when i say 160k they say no way until i show them. people think it has 80k at most
i am just saving my money for any real issues with it and for a mazda speed 3 or focus rs or something of the like
i am just saving my money for any real issues with it and for a mazda speed 3 or focus rs or something of the like
Last edited:
- :
- 2003 Mazdaspeed Protege 1660, 2004 Winning Blue RX8, 2005 Mazda6
Bright_White
Member
- :
- P5
That's just for the 2 bolts, if his is already nice and tight that won't help this issue...
Bright_White
Member
- :
- P5
The way the bumper has to be put on I don't think this method would work either.
Again I would just put the bumper on as normal, and see how she looks.
ziptying does not work for that spot the way it goes in there there really is no fix. mines off slightly but its very liveable. the spacing around the light and fender is off but its not really that noticeable.
- :
- Protege5 2003
Any idea to fix that?
That is the Achilles heel of the bumper cover mount. As another poster illustrated that little flange you have remaining is supposed to extend further and have a hole in it. That hole snaps over a peg in a bit of plastic that is held in place by the lower headlight bolt. That bit of plastic is also prone to breakage, and to replace it you have to remove the bumper and the headlight. My guess is that if the bumper cover ripped there that plastic piece is also broken.
It might be possible to rig up a fix for the broken hole in the cover, but I strongly doubt that any form of epoxy, plastic weld, etc. will hold there.
As an aside, sometimes this doesn't work even if both the cover and the plastic piece are intact. The P5 my daughter now drives was in a minor accident, hit on the passenger side of the front bumper, cracked that headlight. The body shop that fixed it (under her direction, I was 1800 miles away and couldn't help) replaced the headlight and basically just stuck everything back together. The front bumper is mashed a bit under the cover - it is normally a rectangular tube and it is no longer square. This is just the last few inches that are messed up, the styrofoam energy absorber is intact except right there. When I finally got my hands on it I could see that the little plastic lifter adjustment that sits under the headlight had snapped off and not been replaced, and the plastic peg for that corner was also broken. So ordered those. When the bumper cover came off all the way only then did it become apparent that the bumper was not square, so those lifters wouldn't sit properly. This was kludged with a couple of washers, which put that back in more or less the right attitude. The plastic peg bit was replaced. Tried to snap the bumper cover back on and the peg and hole didn't line up - the peg is now about 2mm posterior to the hole. The bumper cover cannot be pushed back any further because it smacks into the fender. It seems that at least the lower mounting point for the headlight was pushed back a few mm in the crash. So now that flap sits on top of the peg, not around it. I have vague hopes that it might deform into position at some point, like on a nice hot day. Probably not. At some point I need to revisit this, maybe a washer between the plastic bit and the fender will move it forward enough. Also the headlight aim is probably off a bit now.
For what its worth, the other side has the hole over the peg, and has a much larger gap. It has been like that since I got it. The previous owner had had somebody back into the driver side front fender. They replaced that, but things are not quite square over there either. It looks like that fender is too long somehow, and that pulls the bumper cover down more than it should. The 2 bolts that mount the cover to the fender are in good shape on both sides, that seam is closed. I even replaced the grommets on the driver side, so that the bolts would get the best possible grip, and not "spin" like they did in the old ones, and it didn't make any difference. (These grommets are easy to replace, reach up with a pair of needlenose, grab them, and snap them off. Then snap in the new ones.)
yep, i broke mine and now the spacing is off just ever so slightly on my drivers side. it bothered me at first but now i dont even think about it.
