dang, whats the deal with the rear bumpers of the mini? mine got damage by a very slow impact! my bro and i share a small garage that is capable to fit two of our cars in a line, his camry and my s. i park right behind him and sometimes i slightly keep going until i nudge his car a lil, that way there is enough room for both of us, and there wouldn't be any damage to his bumper. but when it was my turn to park in front we used the same parking technique, after we parked i saw some damage to my mini! the sad thing is that i was in his car too and i was watching the needle barely going pass 0. urghh... any of you guys experience anything like this?

 

I have not hit another car by Mistake or on purpose for a few decades but What kind of damage? scratch,dent,hole,bumper is laying on the ground?
My 60 lbs Lab jumps in and out 4+ times a day over the rear bumper,Her nails scratch the paint on the top of the bumper,I have been hand buffiing them out with over the counter
rubbing/scratch remover stuff. So far it looks good when I'm done,but I may look for something that will cover to protect the paint,piece of invisibra maybe.
:smile: :smile:

 

I park in a similar situation. For future parking, try this. Get a few pieces of string, two nails, and a couple tennis *****. Punch a hole in the tennis ***** and thread one string through each one. Tie a knot on the end of each string so that you now have two four-foot pieces of string with a tennis ball on the end of each. Park the cars EXACTLY where they should be. Now, let the tennis ball hang from the string so it is just touching the windshield and nail the other end of the string to the ceiling of the garage in that position. Now when pulling into the garage you know exactly when to stop - when the tennis ball is just making contact with the windshield of each car. Stupid, but it works. Sorry I can't help you with the bumper.

 

thanks rick, i'll do that. the part where my bro's license plate hit my car chipped paint off, but the dent is not even that deep. i'm just surprised cuz i never damaged his car or he to my old accord considering how slow we go when we park. but anyways thanks rick for the advise and motor on. :smile:

 

The classic tennis ball solution will be harder to implement in this case since the two cars park behind one another in random order and they have different lengths.

My suggestion involves using a helium filled mylar balloon, preferably with big yellow smilies on it, suspended from a weight - a (new!) bathroom plunger will work nicely. Whoever parks in front places the balloon behind his car leaving a sufficient gap between the string and his rear bumper. The second guy to park pulls up until his front bumper just touches the string enough to disturb the balloon.

I'd like to hear how Click and Clack would solve this problem...

 

I thought this was about the bumper not how to park

 

Perhaps this is a case in which the word "bumper" has been taken a bit too literally? A small amount of airspace works not only as an excellent insulator, but also as protection between two metallic surfaces. Any parking technique which effectively avoids damage will incorporate this concept.

 

>>Perhaps this is a case in which the word "bumper" has been taken a bit too literally? A small amount of airspace works not only as an excellent insulator, but also as protection between two metallic surfaces. Any parking technique which effectively avoids damage will incorporate this concept.
>>
>>So don't trade paint,as it wer

 

I don't think I can call my rear bumper useless but I have noticed that one of the reasons why various exhaust tips don't seem to fit right on our MINIs is that especially for the MCS, the rear bumper plastic seems to assume various shapes and is not always fitting correctly as in symmetrically.

On my rear bumper if I push in the middle just a little I can get the exhaust tips to look really good but it I leave the bumper alone it hangs funny making the tips look like they are asymmetric. I think the bumper might have been rearranged at some point from minor parking episodes over the last 14 months and so it doesn't hang quite the same.

I'm thinking of attaching a bumper hanger to stretch from the rear valence to the muffler metal shield plate to get it to look cosmetically a bit better.

So my bumper is doing OK at bumping into things- but maybe getting a bit bent in the process.

 

could it be that one of the screws that connects the bumper to the body is not tightened?

 

>>I have not hit another car by Mistake or on purpose for a few decades but What kind of damage? scratch,dent,hole,bumper is laying on the ground?
>>My 60 lbs Lab jumps in and out 4+ times a day over the rear bumper,Her nails scratch the paint on the top of the bumper,I have been hand buffiing them out with over the counter
>>rubbing/scratch remover stuff. So far it looks good when I'm done,but I may look for something that will cover to protect the paint,piece of invisibra maybe.
>> :smile:

 

>>could it be that one of the screws that connects the bumper to the body is not tightened?

I would naturally expect some damage based on your description of events. What you are calling the bumper is actually not the bumper, it's merely a piece of painted plastic, aka "bumper cover" and is purely cosmetic. The actual metal bumper itself is to be found underneath.

If you tap the bumper cover with a hard metallic object (i.e. license plate or license plate screw from the other car) I would naturally expect at the very least paint scratches and possibly a dimple in the plastic.

So I would suggest in the future, don't do that :smile:

or at the very least, make sure the metal license plate from the other car doesn't contact your MINI's bumper cover. No doubt the other car also has a plastic bumper cover similar to MINI so if you make contact with only that you minimize the risk of scratches.

The utility/practicality of cosmetic painted plastic bumper covers can be debated (as opposed to old-fashioned chromed steel bumpers) but that's the way the entire auto industry has gone so we pretty much have to deal with it. Cosmetic bumper covers give designers a lot more flexibility but are of course much easier to damage.