I'm a newbie, so if this has been discussed, i appologize.

Couple of questions:

We bought an '04 two weeks ago. My wife backed into my friends car and tore the rear bumper cover. Can the cover itself be replaced? Is it a diy job? Are they available pre-painted?

where's the best place to find technical information on repairs and maintenance? Does Bently have a good manual available?

thanks

 

1) Bumper cover - The rear bumper cover is a separate piece and can be replaced without needing to replace anything else except, perhaps, some fastening bits and pieces. I believe they all come unpainted and are then sprayed appropriately. I had Markel in Omaha replace mine a couple of months ago because some backed into my car overnight while I was staying at a motel in South Bend. The body shop pre-painted it so all I needed to do was show up and wait for them to install it. It could probably be a diy job if you can either find one already painted the proper color or if you have good painting facilities available. One issue to beware of is where the damage is. If it's way off to one side or the other, the supporting bumper underneath probably escaped damage and won't need to be repaired or replaced (my case, fortunately). If the damage is more toward the center of the car, you may have metal damage underneath the torn plastic.

2) Bentley has the best manual available for MINIs. You can probably find it at one of the vendors listed on this site. It is not truly complete - for the first gen cars it doesn't include the convertible at all, and while I have found it to be extremely useful in some circumstances, it's been less so in others.

 

Hope that Brent doesn't mind me borrowing his materials, but these intructions (for the installation of his MiniDoMore hitch receiver) show how easy it is to remove/replace the bumper cover yourself:

http://www.minidomore.com/pdf/2002-2...-2007_Conv.pdf

Of course, all you care about are steps 1,2 and 4 (unless you want to add the MiniDoMore while you already have the bumper cover off anyways )

You can get primed (but unpainted) covers from dealers or vendors and just have a local paint shop finish it for you -- and i think some vendors will sell pre-painted bumpers: start with Classic MINI (I think Morristown MINI used to, but they don't ship bumper covers anymore).
If you're doing all this anyways, you may consider replacing the standard bumper cover with the aero kit bumper cover if you like the more aggresive look -- that's what I'll probably do when I replace mine (very minor scrapes on mine that don't require immediate replacement, but I'll do it soon nonetheless)

 

thanks!
looks pretty straight forward. The damage is in the corner and pushed right next to the metal bumper which punctured the cover. 6" either way would have been bad. thanks again for your help.

 

My ex-wife did the same thing in her car (not a Mini, but the same kind of bumper cover). She took it to a body shop, which repaired the cover and repainted it. Looked good as new. I think they charged her about $300. Might be worth checking with a local body shop to see...

 

I got quoted $217 for the bumper cover, and expect paint to be between $250-300ish.

-Cody

 

Forgot to mention:

your dealer may offer you a painted bumper cover -- BUT they'll probably get the primed bumper and contract out the painting to a local shop (you may even be able to find out which one). . . so it would probably be cheaper to order the un-painted bumper from the dealer, but then take it yourself to the paint shop instead of going through them for that.

 

or you could buy one from someone in NAM. Both MCS and MC have been in the marketplace recently...