At my work, I park on the side of the building up against the wall. The spot is a slight hill going up towards the building. I always park in 1st gear, because I don't trust the parking brake on hills. Every day when I leave work, I get in, start the car, and just hold the clutch in while I put on my seatbelt and roll the windows down and stuff. Mut today I reached onto the passanger floor to grab the cupholder extension so I could put it back in (I had a big cup at lunch time), and my foot slipped off the clutch. As you can assume, the car lunged foward and hit the wall that was about 8 inches ahead of the car.
For being only 8 inches and starting from idle, it SURE seemed like a hell of a lot of force when it hit that wall, right before my heart hit my ankles. So now the front bumper cover is covered in gouges (deep gouges, into the plastic) across about 2/3s of the center. It also appears that the nose must have flattened against the wall, because the gouges go up onto the flat horizontal portion of the bumper as well. The bumper looks misaligned where it meets the headlights (though it's hard to tell, because I think it always looked a bit goofy there), and the very front tip (where it is supposed to be kinda pointed) is like rounded off now, probably from being flattened. The lower grill is also popped out and won't stay clipped in correctly.
I climbed under the car and inspected everythnig, and it doesn't look like anything underneath is damaged. I am guessing I hit just hard enough to push the plastic cover into the real bumper and distort the cover. I think it'd take way more force than that to actually damage the real bumper or anything else, right?
So in any event, I guess I need a bumper cover now.... Good timing too, since I just spend $700 on performance parts. I guess Ill ring up the old credit card some more
I called Ford, hoping that I could order one already painted (I don't wanna know what it'd cost to have something painted alloy mettalic), but I guess they only come in plain plastic (for $252). I guess I'll call some body shops, and search for a take off bumper. This would be a good excuse to get an aftermarket one, too bad I like the factory one best.
Ok, I'm done. Go ahead and flame me now.
For being only 8 inches and starting from idle, it SURE seemed like a hell of a lot of force when it hit that wall, right before my heart hit my ankles. So now the front bumper cover is covered in gouges (deep gouges, into the plastic) across about 2/3s of the center. It also appears that the nose must have flattened against the wall, because the gouges go up onto the flat horizontal portion of the bumper as well. The bumper looks misaligned where it meets the headlights (though it's hard to tell, because I think it always looked a bit goofy there), and the very front tip (where it is supposed to be kinda pointed) is like rounded off now, probably from being flattened. The lower grill is also popped out and won't stay clipped in correctly.
I climbed under the car and inspected everythnig, and it doesn't look like anything underneath is damaged. I am guessing I hit just hard enough to push the plastic cover into the real bumper and distort the cover. I think it'd take way more force than that to actually damage the real bumper or anything else, right?
So in any event, I guess I need a bumper cover now.... Good timing too, since I just spend $700 on performance parts. I guess Ill ring up the old credit card some more
I called Ford, hoping that I could order one already painted (I don't wanna know what it'd cost to have something painted alloy mettalic), but I guess they only come in plain plastic (for $252). I guess I'll call some body shops, and search for a take off bumper. This would be a good excuse to get an aftermarket one, too bad I like the factory one best.
Ok, I'm done. Go ahead and flame me now.