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Help! Got in minor accident

1157 Views 11 Replies 7 Participants Last post by  Erbe
The damage to my front bumper is superficial and I don't have the means to bother with fixing it anyway. The plastic OEM grill is cracked in several places--as well as the plastic headlight bracket that connects to the grill assembly. There's something wrong with the hood latch that we can't quite figure out (it locks just fine--it just takes some real pulling on the latch to get it open again), and the hood itself doesn't look dented or even touched--but there's about an inch and a half between the hood and the driver's side of the front fender/side panel area.
Any advice on an interim fix while I get this all sorted out and get some estimates which will likely be in the $1000s? (Fairfax, Virginia sucks...it once cost me nearly $100 to replace a fuel filter and I even provided the parts).
Thanks to all who respond.
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hmm...at least it isnt the painted gen3.5 grille. well if some pieces still fit properly, i'd go to a junkyard and maybe find a gen3 grille and slap it in. you could maybe tape the headlight bracket and grille in place with ductape or electrical tape.
Its easy to fix the gap on the hood. Its bent at the crumple zone. If you open your hood and run your hand along underneath the hoold, halfway on each side it "Cups" in. Thats the crumple zone. You can bend it back yourself using just your hands. I did it to mine on BOTh sides and it looks brand new right now.

Heres what you do:
grab with one hand behind the crumple zone. And with the other hand grab about 10 inches in front of the same crumple zone. So now your hands should be about 2.5 feet away from each other. With your left hand you push UP (Presuming your doing the driver side) and with the right hand you pull DOWN. Do that little by little and keep shutting the hood after you do it and test out how much progress your making.

PM for more advice or pics on what to do.
Here's some pics (I love digital cameras)

BEFORE:



AFTER:



OTHER DAMAGE SHOTS:



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4
yikes! thats worse than my trunk:hammer:

try that crumple zone thing, hopefully it'll work.



when i smashed my car i took it to a shop that did it under the table...wasn't that bad of a deal
yeah apparently I only get 5MB of bandwidth for this picture host site
Well I got two estimates today:

$1036 and $1242

Both estimate 4 days to complete the work

Here's the laundry list:

new hood
new upper tier
new emblem
new grill
new headlight, assembly
new hood latch
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looks like your passenger headlight bent that sub frame bar too. also there are little black rubber thing on the side near the front of the car under the hood. You might have to readjust those aswell. when doing that make sure you have another person standing by because you have to do that trial-and-error-style. (hold hood latch open while someone else pulls at hood)
Corsulian said:
Well I got two estimates today:

$1036 and $1242

Both estimate 4 days to complete the work

Here's the laundry list:

new hood
new upper tier
new emblem
new grill
new headlight, assembly
new hood latch
rip off man...you can get all those parts on ebay for way less than that and all of these parts are easy to install (besides the hood, could use a couple people) the hood can jus be painted at maaco to match ur car and the grille is like 20 bucks on ebay...DIY and save some money:thumbup:
^i kno...but im tryin to say he would save more money if he did these easy replacements himself
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