Well, this is odd. Moved my car this evening as we have a snow emergency in effect here after a couple days of heavy wet and now frozen snow. Noticed that my front bumper has a vertical crack in it. The location is quite strange. It is on the inside of the lower grill lip area. Just extends to the front of the bumper and stops. No apparent scuffing or damage to the rest of the bumper. Never hit anything (at least that I was aware of). It really hasn't been all that cold either of late - maybe 10 F. The only thing I can think of is maybe running over large clumps of snow and ice, but I would have expected a crack on the bottom or front, not the inside of the lower grill lip. Anyone notice whether the Gen 3 bumpers are more fragile than most?. I've cracked a bumper before in extremely cold weather (-20F) when actually hitting something, but never had this experience. Are replacement bumper covers now available for Gen 3s? I recollect that some Gen3 parts were not readily available a couple months ago.
You sure its not been hit whilst parked? Of course the guilty person would have left a note which could have blown away?
OK. Now that the snow has abated, I got a better look at the bumper and noticed that the plastic panel under the car that is below the bumper under the car is also cracked. I know there is another thread about cracked under car panels on the board. So I am surmising that I went over a chunk of snow and ice that was sufficient to crack both the under-car panel and the bumper immediately above it, although the front of the bumper is intact. Chalk it up to the car's low clearance I guess. We'll see if my comprehensive will cover it. Otherwise it's going to be a bit expensive to replace both the bumper and the clear bra on it.
