heathmallory

I've owned my 2010 SHAWD w Tech for 10 days and I've already had my first ding. Due to another driver crossing the center line today, I hit a pretty large snowdrift going about 50mph. The TL actuallly caught a little air and landed HARD. The landing didnt hurt anything, but hitting the drift tore the front end up a little. The bumper skin has a little tear on the bottem surface, the passenger side lower grill is brokken and the passenger side turn signal assembly is broken.


I'd like to repair the skin with a little epoxy since the tear is not visible. I definitely need to replace the lower grill and light assembly. It appears the fog light is undamaged. I won't really know the extent of damage until I pull the skin.

Does anyone know how the lower grill / turn signal assembly attaches to the skin? Does it just snap in from behind? I'll find this out when I pull the bumper skin off, but was just curious if anyone knew.

I may end up just having everything replaced, but I'm hoping I can just replace what's broken and call it good.

heathmallory

Update.... I removed the front bumper skin this afternoon to get a better assessment of what was damaged and what needs to be replaced. The damage to the skin and the various componentry behind the skin on the passenger side was more extensive than I was hoping for. Everything plastic is pretty much trashed. It was a good opportunity to see exactly what lies beneath the bumper skin.

I took some pics of the process. I'll try to post a few tomorrow.

Kingmeow

Sorry to hear that. Please post pics when you get a chance. Anyway you can buy the parts and replace them yourself. Places like Bernardi Acura (Acura of Boston) allow you to order any parts online at a much cheaper price. They even have exploded diagrams so you can pinpoint what parts your need.

heathmallory

Thanks for the Bernardi reference. This is news to me. Cool! I still would need to the bumper skin painted as it doesnt look like they come painted. It's an awesome web site tho!

Kingmeow

For the bumper skin you will need to piece that out to a body shop. You can probably just drop it off w/o leaving the entire car. Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

6spd10

10 days old....OUCH!! That had to hurt. Sorry to hear about that!

heathmallory

Yeah. I was bummed. I'm over it though I'm going to have a body shop fix it. I thought about ordering the parts thru Bernardi and doing it myself, but I don't feel like messing with it.

I'm not used to having a vehicle with low ground clearance! My previous vehicle was a VW Touareg and that thing was a tank!

Kingmeow

Order the parts and give them to the body shop guy else he will order then from a dealer and pass on the dealer pricing to you. Or have the body shop order from Bernardi.