so i was driving last night on the interstate and ill admit i wasnt paying enough attention. traffic was stop and go and the guy in front of me stopped really fast and i didnt notice soon enough so i bumped him a little. he had a hitch on his truck, so he had zero damage, and i now have a crack/hole in my bumper.

im not body work expert, but i dont think this can be fixed, and along with an incident with a raccoon, i was thinking maybe its time i get a new bumper. i really dont want to, and i definatly dont want to spend the money for one, but i gotta do something.

so if i was just going to buy a bumper, what would you guys reccomend? i dont want anything over-the-top. i like clean lines. but its gotta be cheap

 

i'd go with OEM. if you look around you should be able to get a new one painted for like 500 bucks. Call up a few dealerships and get quotes for bumper covers. You'd be surprised at how much they vary.

 

wait, you mean buy the stock one again? i was thinking about that, but i didnt know if it would be much cheaper than buying aftermarket. it sounds easier though...

 

the problem with most aftermarket bumpers is that really the only aftermarket one that might be relatively cheap is the Kaminari front bumper simply because it actually fits. I don't even know how much that one goes for MSRP but i don't think it's cheap, plus it wouldn't look good with-out the rest of the kit. You could also look at the M3 Front bumper from Viniati or whoever makes it. Not sure how much that one goes for either. Most body kits require quite a bit of work(and $$) in order to make them fit right, That's the problem. So what may cost you 200 to buy, could cost 500 to install and paint. Maybe someone with an M3 front end could comment on how much it cost them to get.

 

go stock and get a lipkit or something..i agree with hans the onlly front bumper worth getting is the kami one but without something done to the rear or getting the rest of the kit, the car it will look awkward.

For the m3 front look for the user aciddrop..i believe he has it

 

Stay OEM, looks the best imo with a simple lip kit, or ground effects......

And like stated above with a lower front bumper and stock sides/rear it will have a weird stance

 

OEM with RS1 is clean. Had it for the longest time till I went to the kami kit. I thought M3 has alot of fitment issues.

 

i think ill just keep it i think i can live with it. ill probably take it off and hammer out the dents. maybe sometime in the future ill get a new OEM one

 

^^ that's what I said. when my bumper got messed up I was planning on getting it fixed the weekend after... well it's been more then half a year since then and I'm still rockin the same bumper. if you know a thing or two about body work you could try and fix it yourself. post pics of the damage, could give you advice on what to do.

 

this happened to me before where a truck's exhaust had backed up into my bumper creating a hole and his bumper was basically sitting on my hood. The total cost was around $1300 to repair with the hood damage. I think with your problem, it may be just as much as your insurance deductible, if not just a little more, So I wouldn't claim insurance (so your premiums dont go up).

If i were you, search on the forums and craigslist for people selling front bumpers for cheap and have a company repaint it for you.