Topic: How can I remove the rear bumper

[Ironhide]

Has been a long time again since I wrote my last post in this forum, sorry.
Got my car out of the garage and two weeks later a nice person hit my rear bumper with a shopping cart.
Unfortunately that person was gone before I returned.
So I went to a spot repair guy and he promised me to fix it and that it would look like new.
Yesterday I picked up my Sky and everything looked fine to me till the moment the sun started to shine on my car and I nearly exploded.
The rear bumper has two different colors now and the paint job is a disaster.
He also fixed a rock chipping on the front bumper and it looks the same (think that can be fixed without removing the front bumper).
A good friend of mine is owner of a painter's shop and I know that he will ask me to remove the rear bumper to fix the disaster.
Does anyone know how to remove the rear bumper, some pictures or something else would be fine.

What drives me really crazy is that I've payed 200 bucks for that crap and I won't get a cent back.

[Sly Bob]

That's never a good thing when you have work done and it's not done right. Hope you are able to get some sort of resolve. If it's a chain of repair shops of some sort, try contacting head office and tell them the issues you had.

As far as removing the bumper cover, remove the tail lights and the fasteners around the perimeter of the cover. There are both screws and what some refer to as "christmas tree clips". I don't believe it is necessary to remove the rear valance first but it you are having paint work done you will be separating that from the assembly anyway. Let's hope the next repair is more successful.

[Gentleman Jack]

There are also clips and screws in thru the wheel well liners I think. Getting the rear bumper off takes some time.

When I went in for a bumper they ended up spraying the whole hood to blend.

[Sol Asylum]

GJ when we removed Reed's bumper cover didn't we find out that backup light didn't need to be removed to take off the cover?  I think its easier to remove/install that light with the cover off the car. 

Oliver you will need to have someone help hold the cover while you remove bolts you don't want it to fall.  Its also easier if you put the rear end on jackstands and remove both rear wheels.  The wheel well liners don't have to be removed but remove the fasteners along the back half of the liners and bend them forward to get access to the bumper cover bolts.

[diamoney]

GJOliver you will need to have someone help hold the cover while you remove bolts you don't want it to fall.    Its also easier if you put the rear end on jackstands and remove both rear wheels.  The wheel well liners don't have to be removed but remove the fasteners along the back half of the liners and bend them forward to get access to the bumper cover bolts.

I found that leaving the top fasteners 'til last, the cover is balanced well enough that I could do it by myself without fear of it falling.  I had to remove my wheel well liners as there were extra fasteners than what were shown in the manual (first 1K) that were under the tail lamp assy.  And don't forget to undo the center brake light and trunk light!  Thankfully, there really is no panel alignment issue when you put it all back together!

[Gentleman Jack]

Very true- fitting back on was very easy.

[Ironhide]

Thank you so much for your help! 

Good news got 100 bucks back when I complained about the quality of the spot repair.
My friend told me to go to painter's shop for Porsche and U.S. cars and the owner told me that he never saw such a bad paint job.
He also told me that a good spot repair guy should have known that a spot repair would not work on a black car in the middle of the rear bumper.
Also he figured out that the spot repair guy painted my rock chipping protection and that it needs to be removed.
But there is light at the end of the tunnel, got a fair price for a complete paint job for the rear bumper and a repair paint job for the front bumper!

280 bucks!