7moon12

so i haven't driven my '04/A4 gto in about 2days-on vacation and the first few days are an 'office space' do-absolutely-nothing type of days. was 'bout 10pm tonight and decided on washing the car instead of halo3. got to the carwash around the corner, put in the quarters and was about to start spraying when i noticed my car's pain. the front bumper on the passenger side was hanging off a bit. needless to say, my night took a dive-just came back home without washing. after closer inspection i noticed they took off 1 screw by the front passenger wheel and the rest it looks like they tried to pry off-stopping at about the low beam bulb at the headlight assembly. the bumper and bumper tabs themselves(except 1) look fine(not even any paint scratched) it's a couple of the tabs the bumper connects to that are broken. i am attaching some pics, does anyone know what the proper part name is called so i know what to order??? it's some sort of plastic strip support about a foot in length that goes from where i'm pointing in pic1 to where i'm pointing in pic2. pic3 where i'm pointing is about the midpoint of the strip i need to replace. as always, thanks for the help guys!!! on a side note, what sux about this is that about 2months ago some bonehead(while i was in a store, never saw it happen)hit and damaged my rear bumper, which also broke a 3in half-moon size hole on the rear deck lid right under the 'gto' emblem. still haven't fixed that yet cuz i'm still trying to decide if i'm gonna go to the '05 rear bumper set up. anyway, i'm rambling and hopefully someone can answer my question above!!!

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raspantienator

I can tell you that the Pontiac body man can put your VIN # in and pull up the diagrams. if its the peice going into the bumper that broke, there is a replacement part. If its the female receiving peice attached to the bumper, there is no replacement part. I'm looking into a similar situation and this is what the body man told me. I saw the schematics on his screen so it seems plausible. What I said above refers to the end clips not where you are pointing in your 3rd pic.
Nasty design though!

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Lapres_3

I hate crap like this. Just makes me feel kinda sick.

Any clue as to what they were trying to do? Stealing a radio is one thing, but headlights? cmon! Is there alarm circuitry around there that can be snipped or something?

Sorry dude.

I dont know but maybe this will help.
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GTO JUDGE

Where the bumper meets the fender under the light is a problem area. There is a clip about the size of a tooth pick attached to the bumper. That clip snaps into the fender piece. If that clip is broken you are looking at a new bumper. However, the bumper and the fender can be "married" together from behind the bumper by epoxying the two pieces together. The downside is, if you ever have to remove the bumper you will have to break that "weld" but you can re epoxy it back.

It is a real bad design flaw. You may notice GTO's with unsightly gaps, or protruding bumper. This is because the clip got broken. One swift blow to that joint can break that clip.

Hopefully the clip isn't broken.

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fergyflyer

My guess is they thought he had HID headlights. An HID headlight unit runs from a low side of 600 to as high as 1800 per light. Probably figured out part of the way into removing it that it wasn't HID and stopped.

Regular light assemblies are also stolen from time to time on cars where they are expensive. A typical light assembly runs 300 with some as much as 700 for the non HID type. It's easily damaged and expensive to repair, so there is a good market for the parts.

Number one item stolen from a car is the headlight assemble. Number 2 is the airbags, number 3 is now the stereo. Technology changes things.

7moon12

i took those pics last night and they're not too clear...tried taking better pics in the daylight-click on them and they should enlarge. as i mentioned, the bumper itself seems fine, it's that clip i'm pointing to that has the broken tabs. i'm hoping i only need to replace that clip. i'd been putting off fixing the rear bumper, but because of this crap i guess i'm gonna just have to eat it and take the gto in and get both bumpers fixed. hell, i don't do bodywork and i could've done a better job of removing the bumper than the dweebs that did this!!! oh well. peace out.

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