[Boomersooner18]

I dented my front chrome bumper of my 2010 Titan and am wondering how much I should expect it to cost to fix. It doesn't look bad, but it's noticeable and the right fog light popped out. Is this fixable or does it typically need to be replaced?

 

[Smccarty3]

The bumper is in 3 pieces 2 end caps and the chrome piece. I tried to pound a dent out of mine with no success it?s steel behind it and does not bend back easily. Maybe some kind of suction tool a shop has or something might do the job, but my experience is that repairing dents in chrome is tough. The end caps are cheap on eBay as are replacement fog light housings. Chances are the replacement bumper would be cheaper than the repair to the chrome at a shop.

 

[pierze]

I'm in the exact same boat right now, but this is the second time. I'm tired of the chrome bumper, which is basically a mirror that accentuates and magnifies even tiny dents. I'm wondering if anyone knows if I can bolt on the body-color bumper instead? From what I can tell in the service manual there are a bunch of other parts behind the bumpers and they (somewhat surprisingly) vary significantly between the chrome and body-colored bumper cars.

Anyway, the new chrome bumper piece off eBay is ~$200 - $250 and from what I can tell it's a bolt-on self-install that will take an hour or so.

 

[Smccarty3]

When I bought my 15 after trading in my 06 with the dent I put a bull bar on to hopefully prevent a recurrence.

 

[pierze]

Honestly I'm not toooo bummed about having to replace the bumper because this is an opportunity to black out the chrome. After this my truck will be almost completely finished (top grill and rear bumper are the only chrome left). Even though the "mirror" will be gone, I'll still probably get some sort of protection up front too. Good call!

 

[LaxDfns15]

When I bought my 15 after trading in my 06 with the dent I put a bull bar on to hopefully prevent a recurrence.

Bull bar won't protect from that. It's only held on by the tow hooks so it'll just bend straight into your bumper if it's anything more than someone just leaning on it.

 

[Smccarty3]

When I bought my 15 after trading in my 06 with the dent I put a bull bar on to hopefully prevent a recurrence.

Bull bar won't protect from that. It's only held on by the tow hooks so it'll just bend straight into your bumper if it's anything more than someone just leaning on it.

When I did it to the last one, it was pulling into a parking spot with metal posts cemented in, I just tapped it, but it left a nice dimple. The post was only about bumper high so once you stared to get close you really couldn?t see it, they were just installed at the place the week before. It will do the job I want it to, but my buddy from work has hit 2 deer with his bull bar this year, bent the bull bar but saved the front of the truck.

 

[pierze]

Right, so back to my mid-thread question - has anyone tried to bolt an XE-style plastic bumper onto an LE/SE chrome vehicle? I'm of the opinion that we're each going to have our own individual use cases and that there's no magic bullet solution, but each little bit helps:

• flexible plastic instead of metal helps reduce minor dings (prevents the dings from being permanent)
• dull finish plastic instead of mirror chrome helps make dings less visible (if/when they stay)
• very minor dings can be prevented with a bull bar or light-duty body modifier of some king, especially for "parking by feel" in tight situations. Remember that the Gen1 Titan is designed, somewhat annoyingly in my opinion, to look like a an English bulldog with an underbite where the chrome bumper is the "chin" and is literally the most forward part of the vehicle. Adding a bolton device that becomes the front of the vehicle, even one that only withstands a few pounds of pressure, is _*exactly the huge improvement*_ I'm looking for.