nothing is more annoying than taking your vehicle in for service than to get it back with parking lot damage and of course....it wasnt us....and with a repair that would be less than the deductible..doesnt make sense to file an insurance claim.

I should have taken a before picture but it dawned on me after I straightened it out that others might want to know of a way to fix bent bumpers.

the rear right corner below was bent in and moved forward 1" and was making contact with the body. if you look close...you can see some body creasing from the contact.

this is an after photo after unbending the bumper.

 

here is a pic of the other side, which was good.

 

to unbend. I used 2 6 inch pieces of 2X4 place behind the bumper, and old compact car jack, and another piece of wood about a foot long. the 1 foot piece of wood got propped up on the shackle brace, then the jack, then the smaller peices of wood.

 

tips are:

due to the springing action of the metal bumper, I had to unbend it .5 of an inch furthur than where I wanted it to rest. so to get the 7/8 of an inch I needed, I had to unbend it .5 inches more.

the bumper was both bent in and bent up. so by placing the jack high up on the inside of the wooden blocks it did both unbending and pushing it back down.


it needs some painting now, but for 20 minutes worth of work, one less thing to be annoyed about is always good.

I was going to buy a harbor freight 4 ton bar jack at a cost of 179 to do this, but wanted to see how this old compact car jack with some wood blocks would work. the crankning was very easy using just the allen wrench you see jamed in the jack slot.

I have a slight bend at the right front which I will do next. when I do that one, I will do a before and after pic. I'll have to see where I will place the jack for the front.

 

The bumpers are pretty light duty - easy to bend. I was backing into a space with my 2011 F350 once that had a really low guardrail at the edge. Since my rear fender bottom curves in, it slipped over the guardrail without me feeling it. When I pull away though, the fender grabbed the guardrail and bent out - that I felt.

Fixed it by holding a piece of wood against the fender and smacking it with a sledge hammer - did a pretty decent job.

 

yes, im not liking how easy they bend....and the aftermarket want-to-haves are very pricy. thinking about bolting two leaf springs on the inside of the front (one on the top an one on the bottom). not sure how to reinforce the rears.


there are a lot of bumper reinforcement kits out there for other vehicles...but none for the SD.

 

You should see how light duty the dodge bumpers are, or at least used to be. I had an '04 2500 that my dad backed into a telephone pole. Bent the dent out with the slightest effort of a 2x4 and hammer. My '00 and '04 Superduty's were much better built. Sounds like Ford went lighter with the new models. Still gotta be better built than the other manufacturers

 

You took your truck in for service and while under their care it got hit and they won't do anything about it? I'd have my lawyer all over their DONKEYS