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Plastic bumper welding/repair

How repairable are the plastic bumpers on late model cars? Wife got crashed again in the 93 Taurus. The slide bracket on the bumper that holds the side of the bumper to the body broke some spot welds. The bracket came off all together on the other side. And there is one small pushed in area.

So, do body shops regularly repair plastic bumpers? can they spot weld brackets plastic to plastic? What about small holes? The insurance companies preferred repair shop want to fix it. Other shops want to replace it.

Also, how hard are they to paint? What about repainting a used bumper that's a different color?

Bob

Reply to
Bob Urz
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A huge dent in my plastic composite bumper was fixed by a dealer's tech in

10 minutes using hairdryer (HEATER) and his own human hands restoring bumper shape, it's not painful; if bum,per not too hot. Free because I came for a different and expensive reason (to replace steel wheel rims with aluminum alloys), but still i was amazed and gave $40 in his hand, in private. SO from now on I kno whow to reshape deformed plastic bumper - hairdryer/other kind of mild heater and a lot of patience with you rown hands and a pievce of fabric/rag, sometimes touch up paint, in any case it's not what i feared. I feared a totoal replacement would be necessary or takintg things apart, but uit was fast and easy
Reply to
amigo cabal

If the plastic cover hasn't been cracked then have the body shop reuse it, just replace all the steel underneith. I have never heard of spotwelding plastic to metal so probably what your talking about is the bracket underneith.

If you can avoid repainting, do so. No matter what they do the new paint is never as flexible as what the factory puts on it.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

"Bob Urz" wrote

Sounds like my post a couple months ago that got zero response...

- Anyone know what the hard plastic bumpers are made of, and/or how they're

- attached to their mounting brackets? Momsy's Taurus wagon's rear bumper

- has come loose from the side bracket (looks like it got scuffed by someone

- in a parking lot, flexed enough to break the join), and is flapping in the breeze.

- Were they sonic/heat-welded, epoxied, solvent-cemented, Krazy-glued,

- Scotch-taped, or held on with little pink Bandaids with hearts and flowers?

Does it look like this?

-

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Reply to
MasterBlaster

Reply to
C. E. White

The steel underneath is fine.

No. Its plastic to plastic. The plastic bumper shell has a plastic composite bracket on each side with a groove in it that slides into the knob on each side of the front end in front of the tires. This knob resembles a old school door striker These composite bumper brackets are glued or plastic spot welded to the sides of the plastic bumper shell. They are on the sides in front of the tires. They are not the main mounts in the front.

Having never done it, i am just curious to weather there is special paint or prep procedure to paint a plastic bumper. Especially to repaint one

Bob

Reply to
BOB URZ

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