Wellsy's World

So when it snowed the other week I was driving back into the carpark at work and hit a patch of ice under the snow. I was only in second, not going very fast but slid into the fence post by the gate. In the old days when car bumpers were made of metal I think I would have gotten away with a dent in the bumper and nothing else. With modern cars and their plastic matching bumpers though it’s a different matter.

I ended up sliding into the post at an angle catching the corner of the car (Ford Focus, 2008 model) – it ended up trashing the bumper and the fog light which is mounted in the bumper then stopping the car by hitting the wing which deformed it slightly. Even though this was at low speed because of the angle I ended up doing quite a bit of damage so although there was no structural damage it was going to be quite expensive to fix.

The first thing that most people would do is ring the insurance company and get them to fix it, however to keep my insurance premium below £1000 a year I had opted for a £500 excess. That with the loss of two years no claims would mean that an insurance fix would end up costing me around £650. That’s a lot. I figured I could get it done cheaper without involving the insurance company. Something that worked out quite well as in the same week my neighbourgh but the same thing and the insurance company shipped her car off to a garage for nearly a month – at great expense to her ultimately.

Anyway, I could have gone to a garage privately but since I like doing mechanical stuff I thought I’d give it a go myself. I started by hitting eBay and seeing what I could get. I basically needed a new bumper, wing, fog light and then getting it painted the right colour – Sea Grey. The best bit was the bumper. I found a guy selling Focus 08 bumpers in various colours so I contacted him and asked if he’d got one in grey – it is a popular colour for the new MKIII Focus. I’m guessing he has the bumpers in stock and sprays them on request as next morning he put a Sea Grey one on ebay for me. The fog light wasn’t a problem either but the wing I could only get primed in black ready for painting. Still – I got all the parts I needed for under £200. Having the wing sprayed will cost me a £100 at a Ford dealership so if you exclude my time then I will have saved over £350 by doing it myself.

So, putting it all together. I set aside last weekend to strip it all down and put the new stuff on. I spent most of the day on Sataurday removing the old bumper and wing and was just managing to get the wing on as it was going dark. That just left Sunday to put the rest of the wing on and then the bumper followed by the trimmings like radiator grill and fog lights. It’s not as hard as I thought it was going to be – most of it is clips holding the bumper in place with a few bolts here and there. The wing was most difficult but still easy enough to do yourself if you were considering it.

All I need to do now is take it into the Ford dealership for a spray one day and it’s done. Here’s a quick shot of what it looked like Saturday afternoon.