Front bumper splintering? + Wheel well destroyed itself
 

Took a relatively short road trip, and just before getting home I went to clean the windshield again with wipers/spray, and no fluid came out. Figuring it was empty, got home and started filling the reservoir, only to realize it was puddling on the ground. Found two areas of damage:


1. The black plastic in the wheel well, at the front right, was all shredded up. [PIC] The hose for the wiper fluid runs through here and it was severed. My first thought was I'd run over something, but on closer inspection, I don't think so. This black plastic piece has been kinda loose for about two years, and I'd keep pushing it back into place, but I didn't see any way to fasten it or why exactly it was coming loose. It looks like it came really loose during my drive and touched the wheel, because there's a big section shredded up and kinda melted looking.


2. Along my front bumper there's these lines running horizontal. [PIC] They're either scratches (I dunno what could scratch it in that direction), or the plastic is splintering. I'm thinking it's the latter. I've certainly scraped my front end on low driveways and such, many times over the years, but these are new.

On my drive I did hit a hell of a rough railroad crossing, but that's all I can think of lately.

Cool story.


How can we help?

I'll wait for a non-douche to respond. Thanks

Can't tell anything from the 1st pic.

The 2nd pic is from hitting something hard enough to flex the paint and crack it.

Thanks Rusty.

So not the plastic itself splintering then. That's good. Maybe a repaint is all it needs then. I didn't realize this sort of thing could happen.

For the wheel well, is this a common issue? My car is pretty gently used and only has like 35k miles, but it started coming loose like two years ago even. Not sure how easy or expensive it would be to get this fixed

From what I can see in the 1st pic. The liner was loose and came back and rubbed on the tire. You have to remove the front bumper and see what else that maybe damaged in that area.

Exactly. I had this happen when I hit a particularly bad bump on the interstate and my old CF lip got decimated. It pulled the fender liner into my tire which ate it up immediately, and damaged my windshield washer fluid line.

You did not ask a question in your story. That's why I asked how we can help. What exactly do you need? Personal attacks aside.

Now here is a question. Had you asked it in your original post, I might have understood what you needed.


Personally, I have never heard of this happening. A body shop visit will give you a better idea what needs to be done to fix it.

I notice that now the wheel well liner on the driver's side is coming loose too. The only thing holding these things in place are a single plastic push-on thing, which is now missing on both sides. The same crappy things used with the plastic around the engine that break so easily. Also it takes a lot of force for me to align the holes, so no wonder the things break - so much sheering force. If this isn't a really common problem I'm shocked. It's a bad design

True, there was no question. Maybe I took your comment the wrong way. I was just looking to see if anyone had similar experience or comments. I suppose it's not a question I need an answer to, as it doesn't affect how I'll handle the situation - I was just making conversation ;)

:tup:

If you have to force the liner into place. Something is out of alignment.

The front fender liners are not held on by a single clip. There are a bunch of them that clip to the chassis, front bumper, and undershroud. The ones that clip to the undershroud are the most likely to break/come loose and they are the ones that generally prevent the liner from hitting the wheel at speed. Gotta make sure everything is aligned properly before you can expect a clip to hold.

Ah yeah, that's what I meant to say is just that only one is holding the center portion there. There's definitely other clips elsewhere.

I'm wondering if the plastic kinda gets warped out of shape due to heat because with there being so many other points where it's held together, there's not much that can move out of alignment otherwise. I don't see any way I can shift something to get the hole to line up without force, since the other points of attachment are fixed in place.

I live in Texas so it gets hot here.... Plus engine/road heat.