Gearhead Jim

As previously posted, a geezer (even older than me!) pulled out in front of me and trashed the front end of my C6. The body shop did a good job of repairs except the front bumper sags slightly, that causes the hood-bumper gap to open up. It also causes the gap between the bumper and headlight lenses to be too big at the bottom; and the hotizontal joint line on the sides above the side markers has a gap at the front.
The body shop tried to fix the problem and it looked good for about a day, then the sag returned. They claim that some of the hardware keeping the top of the bumper back near the hood, does not hold properly and they don't know how to fix that.
Next week I was going to go back to my insurance company and raise Cain. Then today...
While looking at a friend's 2006 I noticed he has the same sag as mine. Turns out his front bumper had been replaced under warranty because of ripples in the plastic, his work was done by a different shop but he has the same problem. So there is obviously something slightly tricky about how to hold that front bumper in place, and the shop manual doesn't give me any clues.
Of course I could go to the Corvette specialty shop that fixed another buddy's '66 perfectly. And it only took them a year to do the job!
Hopefully, someone here can tell me what the shop needs to do differently. If not, perhaps you can recommend a shop that does good body work on newer Corvettes and doesn't take forever. I live in Crystal Lake, IL.

One more item-
The top of the front bumper has a small section on each side that fills in between the hood and the headlight, about 2" wide. The inner part of each section matches the fender contour, but the outer part only 2" away tilts upward too much and sticks up above the fender right beside the headlight. Of course I can push it down with my hand but it just springs up again when I release it. Either we need to re-form that small section of plastic, or find something inside to tie it down. Suggestions?

AORoads

Don't know what it will take, but obviously you and that other fellow are not going to the right shop(s) (master of the obvious that I am). If you don't get answers here, I suggest you get in contact with a local Corvette club and ask them (includes NCRS chapter, even if that one place took forever on the C2). You do appear to be close enough to the Chicago metro area so, hopefully, there's more than one, great body shop for Vettes.

spin-doktor

I work at a collision shop in Dallas, Tx and have dealt with this before. The front buper upper bracket is the culprit here. Its not difficult to adjust, just a bit time consuming and obviously the techs that worked on your car were not familar with it and didnt know how to adjust the gap correctly. The upper, center bracket needs to be pulled back some. Doing that makes the front facsia very difficult to snap into place without scratching and thats why they probably left it too wide/loose but it can be done right with a little patience. You car will have to go to somebody who knows what they are doing.

spin-doktor

Regarding your other question, the upper corners of the front bumper (where the bumper meets the fenders, the area between the headlights and the hood) those two coners are held down with two different kinds of special plastic clips ( two per side, four clips total) Its a good idea to replace them when the front bumper is taken off because theyre made of plastic, but theyre very easy to miss so the guys who fixed your car probably forgot to order them and just salvaged and reused the old clips that go there and thats part of the reason why those corners keep popping back up after you snap the corners back into place.

In the following diagram ive pointed out where the clips are supposed to go, the diagram only shows one kind of clip but theres two different kinds and you need to have one of each for each side. Ive also circled the upper front bumper brackets that are causing your bumper to sag and need to be adjusted back as i mentioned in my earlier post.

cclive

Wow, now that's a quality response! Nice job Spin-Doktor...thanks for the learnin...

RRVettes

Thanks!!

Gearhead Jim

Thanks for the detailed response, I'll be visiting the shop one more time.

AORoads

x2!!! Nice info. But Gearhead, why would you go back to that shop?

Gearhead Jim

They've done very good work for us in the past, it and sounds like the problem is ignorance as much as anything. They are also on the State Farm insurance approved list, so they have a big incentive to get it right or possibly lose the approval. We had the windshield on our C5 replaced a thousand miles away while on vacation, turns out it wasn't sealed correctly and we found the water leak almost a year later. I called our agent and he mentioned the approved list, suggested I call the W/S shop and give them the opportunity to make it right. The shop wasn't overjoyed to hear the problem, but they told us to have it repaired by the local dealer and they would reimburse us, which they did promptly; several hundred dollars.
OTOH, the body shop only gets one more chance...

Gearhead Jim

Today we had a meeting at the body shop with the State Farm adjuster, who agrees that the car is not correct. The shop is going to re-adjust the upper front bracket to eliminate the sag.
After further examination, it appears the front bumper may be defectively molded. The upper corner on the right side of the bumper is ok, but on the left side it sticks upward relative to the fender behind it. The clip(s) seem to be holding well, when we push the bumper down the fender behind it also goes down; they seem to be tied together but the bumper is simply mis-shaped in that area. They're looking a new bumper, but straightening the existing one would be nicer. They reshaped it once with a heat gun but it returned to the original (bad) shape when it cooled. IS THERE ANYWAY TO DO A PERMANENT RESHAPE ON THIS SMALL AREA WITHOUT RUINING THE PAINT?
Also, the clip over on the right side is loose, the clip is new but apparently the hole it snaps into in the fender came overside. IS THERE ANY EPOXY THAT WOULD BOND TO THE FENDER STRONGLY ENOUGH TO REDUCE THE HOLE DOWN TO PROPER SIZE? Again, we might get a new fender but a minor fix on the existing one would be nicer: Their paint work is perfect, they should be able to do it again but why roll the dice if we don't need to?

WadeH

My 08 has the exact same problem with the upper left corner of the front bumper.

The car has the original bumper, has never had any body work, and has never been hit. It appears to be a factory defect.

I was going to have the dealer look at it the next time I take the car in. Has anyone else ever seen this problem fixed under warranty? My dealer has always done a good job with mechanical work on my Corvettes, but I've never had them look at something like this.

Thanks,
-Wade

sneakypete

Good golly Ms Molly, now that is helping a guy out.

Red Rochester

Good information to know .

DjCritterus

... and here I was about to post up that a good car bra would keep the front end from sagging

ro2516

I have the same thing, albeit minor, on my '08. I took it to the dealer to adjust and while I was there, I walked down their display lineup of 2009s. There were 5 Vettes side-by-side and every one of them exhibited the same problem, generally to a greater degree than my own. (By "upper left" I believe everyone is referring to the top edge of the bumper on the passenger's side of the car. That's where all of the cars on display had the problem as well as my own.)

danl72

WadeH

That's interesting. It sounds like it may be a common problem.

In my case, "upper left" means the part of the bumper skin that meets the fender on the top of the driver's side, between the hood and the headlight.

Thanks,
-Wade

tls630

Right side is determind from the drivers seat. Which in your definition it would be left. But anyway I have the same problem on my 08 no hit with 3k miles on it. I do not have a dealer anywhere near me that I would trust to touch it.

Gearhead Jim

My comparisons had been with 2005-2007 cars, none of the ones I looked at had any problems with the bumper sticking up above the fender between the hood and the headlight.
But after reading your post, I hustled down to the dealer where I ordered my car. Normally, they would have at least a dozen new Corvettes in stock at this time of the year. Now, just 5
Three Z06 and two Coupes.
Two of the five cars had a "moderate" mismatch, the bumper was maybe 1/16" above the fender. One of them had a "bigger" mismatch, the bumper was about 1/8" higher. That's still less than my mismatch of about 1/4", but it indicates the current cars are not matching up as well as the earlier ones. Bad bumper molding, or bad fitting at the factory?
BTW, my mismatch is on the driver side but the dealer's cars were all on the passenger side. Go figure...

ro2516

The five cars I saw with the problem were all base models and the problem on each one was on the passenger's side too. I looked at several Z06's as well and they were all good.