406oc.co.uk

Few weeks ago was in a small accident, about 20mph or so, went into the back of a grandad who slammed his brakes on when he heard a fire engine behind us, I was checking my rearview mirror to see how close it was to get out of the way and went into the back of him.

damage was worse than it looked:

front:


bonnet, bent:


headlamp gone, bumper brackets twisted:




had to have heaps of repairs done. needed a new headlamp (w/bulb), new fog lamp for the offside, new bumper, new grille, new badge, new bonnet and new slam panel, all of which cost me (thanks to scrapyards and ebay) a shade under £300.

sadly its still never gonna be the same again. this is putting the new bumper on:



the old bumper wouldnt come off its bracket, so had to be smashed off, because it had simply buckled.

i dont have the money or the time to replace them, which means with the new bumper on theres a half inch gap between headlamp and bumper.

Poor 406

How come you didn't go through the insurance?

My guess is he's TPFT cover so he's got to foot his own repair bills, hence doing it on the cheap!

I've done similar in my old 309, but I was fortunate enough to have pretty much all the spare parts I needed at home, so changed it in a day and was back at work the next.

The front bumper alignment is dependant upon the correct location and condition of the black fibreglass re-enforcing support bar behind it.

Dont forget its only held on the car by a couple of bolts, the stupid twist fixings under the headlights and some plastic rivets.

Did you change the bumper bar? Most of the time they are fooked but look ok on initial inspection.

cheers for the advice, might look into changing the bumper bar, as it is i just changed the bumper itself, and had to have the new one screwed in with a drill.

im fully comp so my insurance would cover it, but being only 20 years old i dont want to be making too many claims, for a 2.0 engine at my age im paying £1200 a year as it is in insurance, and as a university student thats £1200 more than i can generally afford