Looking at several older Mini's for purchase for the Wife. One has a pretty good price but there is an 18" crack in the rear bumper cover.

I've spent the last hour with search and came up blank.

What kind of plastic is the 06 OEM rear bumper cover. ABS would be best case for me as I've been able to fix my Concours motorcyle
ABS fairing fairly easily.

...ED

 

I do believe that they are indeed made out of ABS.

By the way, what product do you use to fix your motorcycle ABS? Plastic Welder?

I'm in the process of filling in the center grill cutout on the front bumper of my aero kit and have had little luck with many different fillers/sealers made for autobody and some even for bumpers. Because the bumper is so flexible I keep getting cracks before I'm even finished painting.

Because of the length of the crack, plastic welding may be your best bet. I've also seen "hot staples" where specifically strong staples intended for plastic repair are melted into the crack to hold it together before plastic welding. Just a thought.

Keep me posted and I would love to see progress pictures.

 

Here's a link from Outmotoring. They supply the OEM factory aero kit. They have it labeled as injection molded ABS plastic: http://www.outmotoring.com/mini-coop...ar_bumper.html

 

If you can see the abbreviation stamped into the back side - here's a decoder with suggested repair methods:

http://www.urethanesupply.com/identify.php

 

ERIK, thanks! I used ABS (plumbing) pipe cement for filling small cracks, and I have
a spare front ABS fender to use pieces of for reinforcing bigger repairs. I use the abs
cement to do this also.
You can only use black abs cement, they have abs/pcv/cpvc combo cement but this
does not integrate into the ABS well enough to do a permanent fix.

If I get the Mini with the cracked cover, I'll try to remember to post the fix.

...ED

 

Note that bumper covers are pretty easy to come by on the used market too...

 

DixonL2, Thanks, I did look around some and found a few. Economically, that only works
if I can get the right color.

Of course, this will all be useful only if we get the one with the cracked rear cover, or find
another good deal on one with similar plastic problems.

My wife has decided that she WILL get a MINI, and I'm pretty excited about it myself.


...ED

 

Bumper cover can be repaired easily. But requires special material other than body filler so it can flex. Auto part store sells specific premixed bumper repair kit. If void is present use fiberglass mesh to give it some structure.

Just repair small area apply guide coat sand even with 800 grit, prime and blend then re clear coat the bumper.