Front grill and headlights bent - how difficult to repair?
 

Hello all,

Unfortunately today someone reversed into the front of my car, it was a 4x4 so it went over the bumper and my grill took the impact. Car is a 1996 940 estate.

The damage as far as I can see is a cracked grill (which has broken it's plastic mounts) and the headlights appear to have been pushed back. I think the brackets behind them have been bent

Basically I was wondering how easy this was to repair? Could I take the headlights out and bend it back myself or is it going to be more serious and have to go to a body repair shop? As far as I can tell, the actual bumper (and abs stuff) is fine and virtually untouched

There should be a couple of "sprung lolly sticks" holding the grille in, squeeze them and pull them out then pop the grille out. You should then be able to see the headlamp mountings and decide from there.

Don't forget that until you've had eyes on the actual damage, nobody on here can even guess what the damages are so can't really advise you on what to do to fix it.

If it was a non-starter we could go through a procedure, check this, check that and so on but with body damage it's how long is a piece of string! ;) :D

Yes that's fair enough, I can see your point!

I'll try get a couple of pictures but from what I can tell the bracket behind the headlamps (both the vertical ones and the horizontal ones with the bonnet clamps in then) have twisted backwards. So I guess it's headlamps out and try bend it. Grill cracked and fell off during the contact so at least it's been removed for me!

I'll try have a crack at it tomorrow evening and see if I can take some pictures. Having never really don't bodywork before I guess I'm concerned as to whether I should be bending the brackets back to "roughly right" or the nearest 1/10 mm!

Given that the brackets mount the headlamps and headlamp alignment is part of the MoT test, when you've repaired it you'll need to get the headlamps aligned or you'll be dazzling every poor victim coming the other way and probably not be able to see where you're going either!

First thing really has to be to evaluate what the damage is, there's nothing you can do until then. If the 940 headlamps are similar to the 760 there's a fair chance the headlamps will need replacing as those mount on lugs moulded on the side of the headlamp case. Might even need to renew the indicator/sidelight units as well, although they slide into place, the headlamps are bolted the metalwork the indicators slide into.

Shame you didn't get the reg of the vehicle that did the damage - is there CCTV where you were parked?

There isn't much structure the holds up the lights inner and bonnet retention pin holes. I'd guess with a good hammer skill it could be straightened. or possibly cut out and used bits welded in.


+/- 1mm should be good enough, the lights will need alighnment though as Laird says.