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Old 11-21-2013, 04:31 PM   #1
D-Flo
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Rear bumper partial detachment caused by wind

Hey guys (and gals!):

Earlier this year I was driving along the I-5 freeway in a strong headwind when the right side of my Yaris 2012 SE liftback's rear bumper panel detached from its tabbed joint (located at the wheel wheel) and started flapping against the right side of the car. I pulled over and noticed that the tabbed joint was somewhat cheaply constructed (i.e., snap together), and would very likely come off again at anything over 20 mph. My fix was to move the bumper slightly so that the bottommost plastic tab at that joint remained firmly planted inside its receiver hole. I also wedged a piece of truck tire in the crack when I discovered that the bottommost tab would unlock itself unless something was forcing it to stay put. I posted pictures below:

But this solution created a new problem because now the joint is exposed and the bumper is off angle slightly creating an ugly aesthetic and mild aerodynamic problem, and the whole thing is being held together by one tiny plastic tab which is probably going to break eventually under the stresses caused by air friction. I thought about super-gluing the tabs back together, but I'm on the last year of my lease and am worried that they'll penalize me for modifying it.

Side view:


Diagonal view:


Closeup:


Bottommost Tab facing straight down towards the ground:


I've reported it to my official Toyota dealership's service dept and tried many times to get them to fix what looks like a mfg design or production flaw, but they're giving me the runaround saying that "they don't have authority to eat the cost of a new bumper under my warranty because it costs over $1,000 and we need an official Toyota inspector to take a look at it before we eat the cost." And the inspector is supposed to visit the service dept once a month, but hasn't made a visit since my incident (and may never do so until the end of the lease in Oct. 2014). Basically, I want to have a plan on how to fix the bumper if they keep playing games with me or if I decide to buy it off the lease.

For example, will superglue do the trick? Or some sort of harness I could install in the wheel well locking both sides of the joint together?

Best Regards,
D-Flo,
Livermore, California

Last edited by D-Flo; 11-21-2013 at 06:48 PM.
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Old 11-21-2013, 04:47 PM   #2
cali yaris
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#1. Pictures would help.

Are the tabs on the bumper broken or torn? Where exactly is the damage?
Superglue is not a good strategy.

If the tab is "firmly planted inside its receiver hole", why doesn't the bumper line up?

As you can see, pictures would help greatly.
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Old 11-21-2013, 05:16 PM   #3
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Has the bumper been off for any reason prior to this? Those clips are somewhat fragile and the correct way to release them is to unclip them with a small screwdriver, rather than pulling them loose. One time of yanking, rather than properly releasing them will result in the clips being deformed (or broken) and the same for the slots on the bumper that snap into them.

If the slots on the bumper are not damaged, you may find that just replacing that bumper clip assembly will cure it.
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Old 11-21-2013, 06:15 PM   #4
D-Flo
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I leased this new w/ 5 miles on the odo with that same rear bumper, so I'm assuming it's the original and nothing unusual happened to it between manufacture and when I drove it off the lot. I will take some pics and edit my original post. I'm a complete forum noob and just now figured out where to store my photos on the interwebs so that I can use the "Insert Image" feature to make them visible in my posts.
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