Dumb me-bumped into a frozen snowbank and cracked the painted plastic bumper around the fog light on my '02 Ram sport. Also broke the air dam under it. I think an airdam could be found pretty reasonably, but could the crack in the one piece plastic bumper be fixed and then re-painted instead of replacing the whole thing? Any ideas???

 

Well it really depends on the severity of the crack whether a body shop would fix it or not. If the crack is all the way around I would say they would say to get a new bumper. If it is a crack thats just a line of some sort then you could fix it pretty easily. This is where pictures would help. If it just a line type of crack then you can take a small drill bit and drill a hole at the end of the crack as that will prevent it from getting longer. Then you can V out the back with a grinding tool of some sorts and use a plastic welder to weld it back together (On the underside of the bumper). As far as the front you can sand it down with an 80 grit paper, feather it out quite a ways with 180 grit. Then you can buy a plastice body filler for the front (Plastic bondo, mud whatever you want to call it) 3M makes a good brand though. You then sand it down with 220 wet till its smooth, finish up with a 400wet, prime, sand, paint. Its a tedious process and I would recommend letting a body shop do it.

 

The crack in the bumper runs from the bottom edge to the fog light opening...maybe 4" long? I wondred if a body shop could do it easily-it sounds like it. Hopefully cost would be much less than a new OME sport bumper from dodge at??? $600+???

 

I took the sport to a body shop today and said they could maybe use some kind of plastic glue to hold it together for now, but it probably wouldn't hold. The air dam actually is part of the the whole one piece sport bumper, to that would be fixed too. I could just glue it for now and live with it and a OME is $600 w/ paint. A remanufactured is around $500 w/paint. If anyone knows of a front sport bumper for sale, LMK.
Thanks

 

my bumper is cracked too and i can get one for 350cdn not painted but my gf works at dodge so she can paint it for free. although its not to difficult to get touch up paint and air gun and do it yourself.

 

Thanks-that is a good price compared to what the body shop could get even used ones for. Thanks for the reply!