How is the front bumper cover held on?

[cwerdna]

Has anyone removed and put their front bumper cover back on? Does someone have a diagram?

To make a long story short, I accidentally bumped into another car in front of me while turning right on red today. First time for everything, I guess. The only visible damage I can tell is:
- the chrome plated (painted?) strip near the license plate area is peeling/broken slightly
- 1 of my fog lights seems to not work now but I see no cracks (and isn't quite even w/the other one now)
- my license plate is partly bent along w/the bottom of its frame
- it's possible the gap between the bumper cover and the 2 fenders has grown slightly, along w/the gap between the front bumper cover and the edge of the hood) - I need to compare w/other Leafs.

How is the bumper cover held on? I had to remove (and reinstall) the front bumper cover from my Prius before and it was held on by some hidden nuts underneath the front fender liners, some nuts or screws under the hood, above the radiator and the rest were just clips. (Video of the removal of a pro who is WAY faster than me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zG2BPEK0dQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.) Not sure if this is basically industry standard.

Is my front bumper cover in danger of falling off? I've tried sorta of pushing/pulling upwards on the cover to lessen the gap but nothing seems to snap back in place...

 

[LeftieBiker]

I don't know the location of the connectors, but just looking at the nose I suggest you look for one or more broken clips, etc, roughly dead center in the nose. The whole thing is sagging down from what appears to be the center.

 

[cwerdna]

Yeah... it feels like it's sagging down a bit.

Since it's leased, I will likely need to get it fixed. If it were owned and the cover weren't in danger of falling off, I'd probably not bother.

With the Prius, I recall just basically pushing/snapping the cover back on and then putting in the screws/bolts.

 

[jelloslug]

Here is the info you need:

http://jelloslug.com/Leaf/Front%20bumper.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[cwerdna]

Wow. Thanks!

I think I'm ok, at least temporarily. Besides the side clips (might be a prob now), it looks like at least it's held on by some clips at the top (step 4) and 2 screws (step 7).

 

[LeftieBiker]

With that downward sag, I'm now thinking that the bumper reinforcement / energy absorber got damaged, maybe losing the nuts that hold it in place...

 

[cwerdna]

From looking at a few Leafs at work, it does seem like my gaps up in front are all bigger now. However it seems like the hood alignment vs bumper from the side aren't perfect on some other Leafs. I couldn't check hood vs bumper vs charging door on many as many were charging.

It also seems like the MIJ '11-12 Leafs have smaller hood vs bumper gaps (from the front) than '13+ Leafs (Smryna).

 

[Phatcat73]

I just had my front bumper replaced from a minor accident and noticed the same "sag/gap" between the hood and the bumper. I asked the shop and they said it's fine and that the bumper can only go in 1 way without any play. I then drove to my Nissan dealer and inspected 6 other Leafs on their lot.

5 were identical to mine.

1 looked normal.

I'll chalk it up to varying factory tolerances. Swing by your local dealer and take a look.

Here's some photos from my repair:
http://www.nationwideautowatch.com/extcomm/retrievephotos.cfm?source=fb&rk=34e5a78" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[LeftieBiker]

Yikes. I'm definitely *not* going to look at mine!