Well, it finally happened to me. I was making a left turn into a business, passed the turn a little bit, and accidentally ran the bumper up onto the sidewalk a little. I understand that scraping is probably a common thing with this car, but it still hurts to see that. My main concern is that I cracked the bumper along the very bottom edge where it bolts up at. If you know the area, you know that they are rectangular holes cut out of the bumper, leaving part of it to be thin plastic. What is this cutout for? For the OEM front lip spoiler? Did I ruin structural rigidity by cracking the bumper in this area? The piece that broke is so small, I can't see how it will affect structural integrity at all.

I'm probably going to go out and super glue it tomorrow, then it's time to start shopping for a front lip spoiler. I realize that the spoiler will actually make the bumper lower than it was before, but it was my careless driving that caused this. I'm usually pretty careful. Boy what a careless mistake...

Edit: Sorry, there are probably a lot of posts that talk about this exact same thing, talking about these sorts of things with fellow enthusiasts just helps me cope with these incidents if and when they happen. Thanks for reading.

 

how about a picture?

The rectangular holes are there for clipnuts incase you think about getting an OEM lip spoiler.
A small crack in that area doesn't sound like it'll do much damage. However, the bumper is plastic and I think if the crack isn't taken care of now it can potentially get bigger as time goes. I scraped the shiet out of my front bumber when learning the limits of the car, and now covered it up with a lip spoiler...

no biggie!

 

You didn't hurt the structural integrity, you just scuffed it. I know your pain. . . . believe me. Luckily, mine wasn't as bad as yours. I installed a Costal Metals splitter to minimize this problem in the future. What I'm trying to get used to is judging the distance as I pull in to one of those concrete curbs/bumpers at restaurants etc. It's hard judging the distance I need to stop before scraping on top of these damn things. The front of our cars stick out much further than we can see.

 

I agree, the front of the car seems to just disappear "somewhere up there". And if I park knowing that the nose is long, I feel like the back end is still sticking way out. It has taken me a little bit to get used to it (esp. since my beater car is a short nose, over-all short car CRX), but what helps me is to think of our seats as where the back seats would be. In fact, whenever I pull next to a 4-door, I pull up until my door is lined up with their rear door, and the car is parked perfectly.

hope this helps.

(no "back-seat driver" jokes pls. )

 

I just did the same thing, don't worry about structural intergrity. This bumper is entirely plastic and it will in no way effect the intergrity or crash-worthiness of the front end. (if this is what you meant by structural intengrity) The actual "bumper" is behind the plastic fascia.

 

Thanks for the replies guys, I'm starting to calm down from the whole thing. I just called Jeff at Ganley to order an OEM front lip spoiler. I ended up using super glue to hold the small piece that cracked together, and it seems to be holding up very well.

I'm excited about the front lip spoiler, the OEM is the best looking one, but that's just my opinion...

 

Goodluck man with the new lip spoiler