Rear bumper cover re-installation

[Matt]

Went to the race last night, and when I was pulling out of the parking lot I hit a grate of some kind with my right rear tire. It popped up and apparently hit my rear bumper cover. When I got up on the road I heard a scraping sound, and when we stopped my rear bumper cover had come off (bumper still attached) and was just holding on by (I believe) the driver's side marker lamp wires. I disconnected that and put the whole thing in the back seat and drove home. It did do some slight damage to the cover where it dragged the road, but it should be fine (maybe some touch up paint). Now I am looking at how to put it back on, and trying to understand how it works. (The Bentley manual is not very helpful).

There is a slide on each side of the cover, and it looks like they slide onto a spot on the side of the car. I see this in the picture of the front bumper cover on 510-4, but not the one of the rear on 510-5. The slide on the drivers side of my car has the top lip broken off of it, probably from when it came off. Does anyone know the best place for a replacement part? (and part number?) I don't see any way that this was permanently attached to the car. If there was, they broke off and are gone. Also, it looks like there were nine "Christmas tree" plastic clips holding it onto the bumper, which all broke as well. So I guess I will need replacement ones of those as well. (Part number on those?) Also, how do I get the trim strips off of the bumper cover to have access to the plugs and such?

Do I have it basically right? (I will also have to fix the wires which ripped on the passenger side marker lamp.) Anything to look for? I did try sliding it back on just to see if it seemed right, and it didn't want to go all the way on. Does it just take some force? The rubber lip around the top of the bumper cover seemed to be holding it up.

Thanks,
-Matt

[Jon K]

... WTF.... nuff said i think.

[Matt]

What do you mean by this? Hey, I pulled out of a parking lot and my rear bumper cover fell off. (Just another fine example of German engineering like I have seen elsewhere in the car, I guess) Help me or don't, I'll fix it myself anyway, but keep the snide comments to yourself.

[632 Regal]

Relax dude!

There is sort of an initiation period on this board, get used to it.

I don't think too many of us had our bumpers just "fall off", the grate must have really tore into it.

As for your bumper deal... if you go to the main page here you will see a link to an online ETK. Once you get there fill in the appropriate info and search for the rear bumper assembly, you should be able to find all the parts and numbers, also you will probably be able to make out how it goes together.

As for YOUR anti BMW/German engineering comments those should be kept to yourself, they wont get you much help on here at all. I figured I'd be nice enough to lead you in a direction and have you search for your OWN German crap instead of simply posting the info your looking for.

Good luck.

What do you mean by this? Hey, I pulled out of a parking lot and my rear bumper cover fell off. (Just another fine example of German engineering like I have seen elsewhere in the car, I guess) Help me or don't, I'll fix it myself anyway, but keep the snide comments to yourself.

[Elekta]

Amazing, I did something similar last week. I backed into a driveway that had a concrete approach, but was dirt after that, and the pot hole caught my bumper and pulled it off.

You are in luck. This is an easy fix. Take off your rub strips, starting with the center one. Use a taped up screwdriver and push up from the bottom. That way if you do mark the rub strip it will only show to someone laying on the ground looking up. The side strips have hooks and you grab the corner bend part, pull out a little, and then back, and they will slide out. Then undo your lights and tuck the wires in their little cavity.

Undo the four bolts holding the hard plastic bumper and pull the cover and the hard bumper off in one fell swoop.

If the bumper was already off, then skip that part and take off the hard bumper, clean everything, and soap up all your rubber gasket material.

The part that broke is found on the etk as #8 Sliding piece
PN 51-11-1-944-551 for my 1994 Touring, but it has to be universal to all e34's. Note, I bought this after I had just rotated the broken end to the bottom and left the remaining sliding clip on top. To get that off, take a fat head screw driver and turn a 1/4 (3oclock to noon) and then push the clip from the outside of the bumper in. The ring it's seated in is threaded, and is how I guess the body men make that gap suck up tight by the rear wheel well. Also, you will have broken most if not all of the plastic tack pieces in the center, so you will want to buy 10 or so of

PN# 51-11-1-944-537 8-Plug

All in all its a $17.92 day at the stealer.

Clean everything up. keep your gasket moist and soapy. Put the hard bumper in the bumpercover, and get the rubber in there even and well seated. You need a friend to help on the other side, and the two of you sitting on the ground can guide the cover back into postion. Make sure your black rubber is good all the way around before you tighten your four bolts.

I just put mine on quick and dirty, because I know I am going to replace the broken clip with the new one and do a proper realignment. I may actually take it off and have it blasted, sanded, filled and repainted.

It couldn't be easier, and it certainly looks worse than it is. I bet this is a real moneymaker at body shops, but it took me all of 20 minutes to remove, clean and replace with my friend.

good luck.

[bimmerd00d]

mine came off when i had an offroad excursion at the local autoX once. It takes a hell of a hit to knock a bumper off the car, i know because i've done it. You didn't just scrape something, you must've caught it on something and then pulled away from it and the bumper cover didn't hold. I would make sure it wasn't driver error before criticising German engineering.

[Elekta]

The fact that you can fix it for under $20 bucks is a testament to German engineering.

It's the same Germans who put that sweet plastic hinge on your gas door.

[Matt]

Thanks, this is just the info I needed. I took the cover all apart earlier this afternoon and looked everything over. I pretty much decided I needed the 9 push in clips (all of them broke) and the one slide on piece to fix it. It is good to have the part numbers. Is there anything that attaches the slide to the mount on the car? I took the slides out (with the little clip that turns 1/4 turn) but I don't see anything that comes in from the back side (it could be missing).

The metal part of my bumper didn't come off at all. It looks like the crate must have caught right behind the wheel and just pushed back. If there is nothing firmly attaching those slides to the car, it is just those nine plastic clips holding the bumper cover on. If the grate caught it right, it just slid the bumper back and popped all nine of those pins in one fell swoop and off comes the cover! Do I need to take the bumper itself off the car and reattach it to the cover first or can I just slide the cover over it?

I am glad to hear this has happened to someone else. The first person who replied seemed to be calling me an idiot for doing it and I take offense to that. As for the German engineering, it may be easy to fix, but I wish I wouldn't have to fix it so often! I thought I was finally getting all the problems with the car fixed, and then this happens. I would have rather the bumper been attached more firmly... My Crown Vic wagon (inherited from my parents) never had any problems with twice the miles (200k miles).

-Matt

[632 Regal]

and the plastic door handles.

[bimmerd00d]

the slide clips have a bolt that holds them onto the car on my '93 525i.