My car is about 6 weeks old (bought it brand-new with 12 miles on it) and the rear bumper has never been hit, bumped, nudged, etc. It didn't look quite right the first time I washed the car, but today I noticed it's gotten worse.

Is there a DIY fix? Is there an easy way to reduce the gap? I really don't want to bring it to the $tealer. Has anyone else had this problem on a new car? I did a search and didn't find any pertinent info.

 

Bring it back to the dealer immediately. That's not right. Could be a manufacturing defect, but more likely it was damaged during transportation.

 

Is that overspray on the side of the lens in the first pic or just a reflection? Either way, it certainly isn't right.

 

Hi S2Crazy,

For what it's worth, I just got rear ended and that's exactly what my car looks like. It "did NOT" look like that before the impact. The body panels shown in your pictures were perfectly aligned on my car before I was smacked. The impact wasn't bad, just a solid "bump" but it did move the rear fender and body work a little. I've got it in the shop at this time for repair.

Definitely get this checked out. Are you "absolutely" certain that your car hasn't been hit? I know the dealer is required to tell you about such things before you buy, but you never know.

Good luck & let us know how it goes!
Drive Safe,
Steve R.

Edit: Ese2mil, I think what you're perceiving as overspray is just the reflexion of the paint in the tail light lens.

 

I say it's normal....

Pics are close ups and make it look even worse but the body line on the rear bumper are notorious for gapping and inconsistent spacing...

 

funny you mention this. when my car was pretty new about a year ago, i had noticed the EXACT SAME GAP had appeared out of nowhere, and i had also never been hit or even touched for that matter. it was on my passenger rear.

i was so pissed off, i thought maybe one of my friends or some fool out on the street may have been leaning on the car and caused that, but i also remember not seeing any grease marks or abnormalities on the bumper as if someone was leaning on it. so i concluded that it was a mystery and decided to just forget about it. but for real, it looked exactly like yours possibly even more pushed in.

now just a few weeks ago i was washing my car and i realized that it was almost gone. it was slightly still misaligned but nowhere near as bad as it was a while back.


so, if no one hit you, i say just forget about it unless it really bothers you. see if it decreases over time cuz you could just bring it back to the dealer whenever you want.


peace.

 

Mine was like that and I pushed it in with gentle force.
I think it's not seated properly there. Check it out. The bumper has things that are guided by the car to align it. Just like you give it a firm tug to come out, it requires a little gentle force to get it back in. If it's not fixing it.. nothing is going to get damaged. It's flexible there.

Anyway, I was stressing about the same thing. Tried the above method. I heard a little sliding noise or whatever and it was fixed.

 

The bumper clips have some give. Something shifted the bumper. You can push it back into position.

 

mine isn't quite that bad, but I've noticed that the hotter the temps become, the gaps beecome more noticeable

 

A few owners already mentioned that some bumper misalignment/movement is normal...I agree. However, what jumps out at me (after reviewing your pic) is what I noticed inside the gap. Perhaps it is just your picture...but it looks like you have a small paint chip underneath the taillight. Also, what is that white stuff inside the gap? Did you wax your car? If not, it almost looks like rubbing compound that is used after a respray.

As much as you hate to do it, please consider taking it back to the dealer. Your car is under warranty and they will fix it for free. I say this because I think you should have some documentation of this fix. If you car was slightly scuffed in the dealers lot and then resprayed to hide the damage, even though you cannot see it now, you will noticed the repair in a few months. At that point, they could try and say it wasn't their fault.