Ugly bumper gap solutions? Aftermarket bumpers?

[Martinjmpr]

(crossposted from http://www.expeditionportal.com)

OK, I knew when I went from a Toyota to a GM product, that there might be some differences in fit and finish, and most of the time, I'm fine with it (and to be fair, the GM stuff isn't as bad as I thought it was, and the Toyota stuff isn't as great as reputation sometimes makes it out to be.)

Still, there's one thing that just annoys the crap out of me on almost all GMT-800 SUVs (Suburban/Tahoe/Yukon). It's this ugly "bumper gap". Here are a couple of close-up shots of mine:

Driver's side: Not terrible, I suppose, but still not great:



Passenger side: Yeah, this just looks awful to me:



Normally, I'd be inclined to think that maybe the PO bumped into something, but I noticed that almost every GMT800 SUV I've seen has this same problem. Here are some photos I swiped off the Intertubes:





So I figure either everybody who owns a Suburban/Tahoe is a terrible driver who bumps into things at random, or else this is just an example of sloppy fit and finish by GM.

Question for the group, what to do about this? Can the bumper cover be "straightened?" Just live with it? (not a big deal but it's still ugly to me.)

Aftermarket front bumper? The only option I'm aware of is Ranch Hand and that's WAY too much bumper for me.

Anyone else bugged by this or am I the only one?

 

[Fosscore]

Mine has a gap too. I took my bottle jack, after loosening up the bumper bolts and raised it up a little bit. I don't like that it is not flush either, but have just dealt with it. I notice most GMT 800s have this gap.

I even traded out the front bumper as it had a small crease from somebody hitting something at low speed before I got it, and that didn't change anything. I was going to change out the miscellaneous bumper components, but am okay with how she looks, even with that bit of a gap.

 

[fiatdale]

You can raise the bumper with either a jack and a 2x4 or put some shims under the mounts up front. if the front gap is good, loosen the 15mm bolt (for the dogbone brace) on the back of the bumper, lift it up, and re-tighten. None of these trucks had tight gaps on the cap - fender, much like most F-150s have a huge gap between the cap and bumper.

 

[adventurenali92]

It's a GM thing. But my 99 dodge Dakota as well as my 01 durango, which were the previous two vehicles I had before my Denali also had bumper gaps. My 2006 has it as well. Over the years they loosen and sag from all the bumps in the road. Although I recently just had a small fender bender. Bent my bumper up crooked a little bit. Wiggled and played with it so it's where it supposed to be. But I dropped the new bumper off to get painted today. So when it's ready I'll be putting it on and following @Fosscore 's method to straighten and tighten everything up haha.

 

[Tonyrodz]

Mine also has the gap. I was able to move the bumper up a little bit when I swapped bumpers, lessened the gap but it's still there. I'd think it would need a little bit of gap just to prevent rubbing issues between the lower part of the fender to bumper.

 

[Illnasty]

Defly a GM thing. When I bought my 2002 brand new, I used my finger tip to measure the gap on the hood of the left and right side. Finger tip fit inside one side and the other it did not. I got a little concerned that this brand new truck was in an accident but checked a bunch of other brand new ones, and it was the same thing....typical GM

 

[fiatdale]

Gaps on the 2000-2006 Tahoe hoods are terrible. But as far as the bumper goes - there is definitely adjust-ability there and can be tightened up.

 

[OhioHoe]

The ss bumper cover closes up the gap a little bit

 

[Rocket Man]

The front hood gaps are fixable with the adjusters that are on either side although I don't know why GM made them next to impossible to adjust. There's nothing to put a wrench on, only the rubber bump stops. Those came off when I put vise grips on them, then I was able to get ahold of the metal and adjust them and afterwards I epoxied the bump stops back on. Mine were way off and it looked like they were like that from the factory since the threads had loctite on them.

 

[fiatdale]

If you want to tighten the hood gaps you need to loosen the entire fender, where it mounts to the firewall / cowl and loosen at the core support also. You can't achieve the same gap as a NNBS but it will be close. You may have to tweak your hood hinge also to tighten up that back gap. None of these ever had good gaps from the factory.