Hello everyone, I recently had a very minor accident in a traffic jam. The car in front of me stopped suddenly, I slipped on black ice, and lightly hit their rear end. The impact speed was around 10 km/h. As a result, my front bumper (plastic only) is damaged. The bumper is cracked but still attached. I was quoted €2,500 to replace it, which feels excessive given how minor the damage is.
I’m considering leaving it as it is.
Do you think this could cause problems during TÜV (HU) inspection in Germany?
Thanks in advance for your advice!

by Kozhi_pee

5 comments

  3. Jesus no.

    Tüv is a thing and safety matters but let’s keep it in the shed here.

    Unless there are sharp parts protruding everywhere, thats not gonna be an issue, dont worry.

    Also, 2500 bucks is to replace the entire bumper. Thats excessive to fix, yes, but in cases like this they often dont fix, they replace. There are smart-repair Shops out there, many will do this type of damage for 100-300 bucks, depending on the result. You could also try to diy it.

  4. Should be fine as long as no danger to fall off or sharp bits sticking out.

    Is that a Subaru forester?

  5. You need to remove that red arrow-shaped thing. It could impale children!

    Apart from sharp edges: anything that might get loose or fall off could be an issue. It doesn’t look like that.

    If you ask employees at a car wash, they’ll probably say that any additional damage caused by the car wash won’t be covered. It doesn’t look like there are gaps which are large enough to catch any strands of the brushes though.

    TÜV doesn’t care about cosmetic defects.

    I’m not familiar with Subaru, and I have no clue what’s hidden behind the front. You might want to check whether there are hidden aerodynamic elements which got damaged or misaligned. That might be an air guide which forces air toward the disc brakes, or per of a diffusor or similar aerodynamic device to improve downforce. It simply reduces wind noise.

    A 10 km/h impact shouldn’t shear off any mounting point for any aerodynamic element responsible for downforce (*), but if there are air guides, you might want to check whether they got loose.

    (*) I once had the issue that an aerodynamic element below the engine wasn’t correctly reinstalled, after it had been temporarily removed to check for damage behind it. The downforce already got strong enough to rip it loose at pretty low speed (200-210 hm/h). It was still attached to the car, but noise and decreased front downforce were evident. The repair shop sent the guy who had messed up with a mobile lift after me (I had naturally left the Autobahn at the next exit) and he fixed the issue on a McD parking lot.

    You got a quote. Did someone screw around at your car to check for further damage? I no longer trust random repair shops.

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