Was my front bumper installed incorrectly?

[boostu]

Just got my car back from a repair and the front bumper looks off. Hard to quantify but the shop insisted it was normal. I'm leaning toward this being installed incorrectly but the only E90 M3 I have experience with is my own so I was hoping to get input from the community.

[cjm41]

It is NOT installed properly. Pop the hood let us see what's going on with where it bolts/screws on the top.

[Scrippy]

Just loosen the 4 torx on top of the bumper when the hood is up. Loosen, not undo. And slide the bumper back a 1/4" and re tighten. The gap between hood and bumper line will close. Not a big deal. They should know to match the gapping from other panels but they don't do details like many shops. Pride in the details and your work is dead unless you find that elusive "one off shop/that does great work without returning and pointing shit out" people talk about.

[boostu]

Thanks for the quick responses. I’ll post a picture with the hood up tomorrow morning. Hopefully it’s a quick adjustment as mentioned above.

[roastbeef]

yea, thats a 5 minute adjustment of the torx bolts. you'll see 'em.

[boostu]

These are the torx bolts you're referring to, right?

[BayE30]

YUP, those are the ones.



In defense of body shops ( i manage a body shop) - One aspect the customer never sees or understands when having body repairs done for insurance (does not apply to cash jobs), is that the insurance company very strictly controls time in shop, as well as cost and amount of labor time that shops can spend on 1 job. Most shops would love to spend hours making sure everything is perfect, but thats in a perfect world, and well... So managers, estimators, and technicians are constantly under the gun to get cars done is a predetermined time frame set by insurance companies. If you don't hit those target goals set by insurance, your score goes down, if your score goes down you don't get any work sent to your shop. Its ugly, and i blame shop owners for giving insurance companies too much power and not pushing back.

[boostu]

Thanks everyone!

Originally Posted by SFCM3

YUP, those are the ones.



In defense of body shops ( i manage a body shop) - One aspect the customer never sees or understands when having body repairs done for insurance (does not apply to cash jobs), is that the insurance company very strictly controls time in shop, as well as cost and amount of labor time that shops can spend on 1 job. Most shops would love to spend hours making sure everything is perfect, but thats in a perfect world, and well... So managers, estimators, and technicians are constantly under the gun to get cars done is a predetermined time frame set by insurance companies. If you don't hit those target goals set by insurance, your score goes down, if your score goes down you don't get any work sent to your shop. Its ugly, and i blame shop owners for giving insurance companies too much power and not pushing back.

That's a fair perspective. The shop I was working with was really great about doing a couple things here and there at no additional cost (despite me offering to pay out of pocket) so not a huge concern, especially if it's an easy fix.

[dparm]

Originally Posted by SFCM3

YUP, those are the ones.



In defense of body shops ( i manage a body shop) - One aspect the customer never sees or understands when having body repairs done for insurance (does not apply to cash jobs), is that the insurance company very strictly controls time in shop, as well as cost and amount of labor time that shops can spend on 1 job. Most shops would love to spend hours making sure everything is perfect, but thats in a perfect world, and well... So managers, estimators, and technicians are constantly under the gun to get cars done is a predetermined time frame set by insurance companies. If you don't hit those target goals set by insurance, your score goes down, if your score goes down you don't get any work sent to your shop. Its ugly, and i blame shop owners for giving insurance companies too much power and not pushing back.

I find that this is why sometimes paying out of pocket can give a better result. They can take the extra hour of time needed to get it perfect. I'll gladly pay the extra $100 or whatever the hourly rate is for the small adjustments that separate an "okay" job from a "great" one.

[Siajoon]

Dude. Thank you for having this issue...

No seriously, I've had that gap between my bumper and hood forever and couldn't figure it out!! I'm going to try what was mentioned, hoping the gap goes away so my ocd calms down.