What front bumper is this?

[CaddycamperR]

Can anyone tell me what front bumper this is and weather it will fit a 2012 Caddy?

[Afield23]

Standard mk4 and no I don't believe it will fit without substantial mods.

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[CaddycamperR]

Standard mk4 and no I don't believe it will fit without substantial mods.

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Where are people getting this look bumper for the Mk3 from?

[PaulC61]

Blend of 2 bumpers. Top half mk3 bumper then the bottom half is whatever you want stitched onto it.

[CaddycamperR]

Has anyone done a ‘How to..’ on this?

[dan@biali]

No because its really a bodyshop job. It can be done diy but to get the best finish you really need to know what you're doing. Look up matt@reflex posts and you can see some of the process which involves cutting the two bumpers in half horizontally, hot stapling them together and then plastic welding followed by a lot of filling and sanding. There are a couple of people building these on ebay etc but I've not heard great things about the quality (you get what you pay for) and Reflex will not touch them anymore as its almost as expensive for them to get the bumpers up to their standard as it is building one from scratch.

[CaddycamperR]

So Reflex are the people to contact to have one made?

[Afield23]

Reflex don't do them anymore. And steer clear of eBay ones as Dan said - they look ok in a photo but close up the detail is poor. Depends if that bugs you or not personally I would want a good quality looking item for 5 or 600 quid

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[CaddycamperR]

So really the only option is to make your own. Who on here has made their own then? There seems to be a few van running them?

[dan@biali]

There are bodyshops prepared to build them. I think Reflex can do them but don’t like to as most customers wouldn’t be prepared to pay what they cost in labour to build.

I’ve built one. Took 2 attempts to get decent enough at plastic welding and needed a lot of plastic filler to get it level. Also need to do a couple of bumpers to learn from your own mistakes as there are elements of the process that are hard to explain - I definitely made the mistake of building mine predominantly off the caddy which I think is the issue with the eBay ones.

And those mistakes can be expensive. Pair of bumpers could be £4-500, plastic welders aren’t cheap and although it can be done with soldering irons, it’s much easier with the right tools, hot stapling is a better method of support than the overlapping method I used but that’s another tool to borrow/buy/hire and then I used several tubs of proper plastic filler so at least £1-200 in consumables.

Not trying to put you off but it’s a bigger job than you think!

[Barbel330]

I'll give you a first hand honest review of my custom bumper. Mine is from Kris who sells them on eBay. I didn't buy it through eBay as it was built at my specific request (mine is a scirocco R bumper not the usual Gti or R20) but it's from the same guy.

The quality of the plastic welding was absolutely fine, no problem at all. Filler work was not ready for paint by any stretch of the imagination and required a fair amount of re-doing by myself but the main structural part of grafting the 2 bumpers together was very solid and everything was aligned perfectly. As I'm a body repairer myself, sorting the filler work before painting didn't worry me too much. I believe he is using a different bodyshop to do the filler and primer work nowadays but I've not seen any of the more recent ones myself so can't comment on them.

My bumper has been on my van (which is used as my work van daily) for a year and is still perfect bar a couple of stone chips, no splitting or cracking which you would get if the plastic welding was of poor quality.

Im sure the likes of Reflex do an absolutely perfect job of producing these custom bumpers which is great if you have a show van or are made of money, but we don't all have show vans or the sort of money they charge for the show quality finish so as a cheaper option, you can't really knock the eBay ones in my opinion.

[CaddycamperR]

There are bodyshops prepared to build them. I think Reflex can do them but don’t like to as most customers wouldn’t be prepared to pay what they cost in labour to build.

I’ve built one. Took 2 attempts to get decent enough at plastic welding and needed a lot of plastic filler to get it level. Also need to do a couple of bumpers to learn from your own mistakes as there are elements of the process that are hard to explain - I definitely made the mistake of building mine predominantly off the caddy which I think is the issue with the eBay ones.

And those mistakes can be expensive. Pair of bumpers could be £4-500, plastic welders aren’t cheap and although it can be done with soldering irons, it’s much easier with the right tools, hot stapling is a better method of support than the overlapping method I used but that’s another tool to borrow/buy/hire and then I used several tubs of proper plastic filler so at least £1-200 in consumables.

Not trying to put you off but it’s a bigger job than you think!

Dan you don’t happen to have a spare you looking to sell with you mentioning by your on to your second bumper?

[CaddycamperR]

I'll give you a first hand honest review of my custom bumper. Mine is from Kris who sells them on eBay. I didn't buy it through eBay as it was built at my specific request (mine is a scirocco R bumper not the usual Gti or R20) but it's from the same guy.

The quality of the plastic welding was absolutely fine, no problem at all. Filler work was not ready for paint by any stretch of the imagination and required a fair amount of re-doing by myself but the main structural part of grafting the 2 bumpers together was very solid and everything was aligned perfectly. As I'm a body repairer myself, sorting the filler work before painting didn't worry me too much. I believe he is using a different bodyshop to do the filler and primer work nowadays but I've not seen any of the more recent ones myself so can't comment on them.

My bumper has been on my van (which is used as my work van daily) for a year and is still perfect bar a couple of stone chips, no splitting or cracking which you would get if the plastic welding was of poor quality.

Im sure the likes of Reflex do an absolutely perfect job of producing these custom bumpers which is great if you have a show van or are made of money, but we don't all have show vans or the sort of money they charge for the show quality finish so as a cheaper option, you can't really knock the eBay ones in my opinion.

Barbel - thanks for your advice an opinion mate. I’m very much the same mindset that I do want to have the look but at the same time I’m on a budget.
Also I do like to have some input myself, there’s a lot I can do to make the basis better so that in the end it does look a quality job.
You wouldn’t happen to have the details of the fella from eBay would you and I can get in touch with him?
Cheers

[dan@biali]

No spare bumpers I’m afraid and mine wouldn’t be any use anyway as I have the Cross arches bonded on and you wouldn’t be able to remove them.

[Barbel330]

He's on Instagram if you use that? Probably Facebook I'd imagine but I wouldn't know as I don't have it. His name on Instagram is @2kcaddy. If not, just message him on eBay, he's very helpful and will build you whatever you want providing it's feasible. He can supply the bumper with all the (brand new genuine VW) grills and small bits and pieces if you require or he'll just do the bumper and you can get your own bits to finish the job.