If you didn't see it in the What did you do at work today? thread, I did this on my way to work on Friday before last (8/5).....
That was my last day before we were going on family vacation so it was a lousy start. The fellow I ran into did something extremely stupid but at the end of the day I ran into him so it's my fault. That Saturday my brother and I went to a local GMC dealer for parts but they didn't have any and wanted me to pay list price. I told the parts guy I could buy them from Flow Chevrolet (GM Parts Direct) and ship them for a little less than he was quoting and asked him if he could sell to me wholesale as dealers often have for me in the past. He couldn't or wouldn't budge but brought to my attention that GM is now selling parts directly to the public. They ship them to your dealer, who collects the money at the time of the sale, and you just go pick them up.
www.parts.gmc.com
www.parts.buick.com
www.parts.chevrolet.com
www.parts.cadillac.com
They offer a much better price online and I even got a 15% discount code for body parts. I ordered the chrome bumper face bar, the lower valance, the plastic inner support for the bumper cover and both of the left and right mount brackets that mount the bumper face bar to the frame mount brackets that same Saturday. At that point I was $806.07 in. GM wanted $10/rivet for the correct rivets for the front plate holder so I got a bag of them from Clips and Fasteners for like $13. The bumper cover was not available for sale online so I found one at a Buick/GMC dealer in Conroe (about 20 miles north of here) and paid about $250 out the door. At that point I had a plan in place to fix the truck and was moving forward with doing so. It made me feel better about it.
We were in Galveston most of last week. We rented a beach house. It didn't suck.....
On Tuesday or Wednesday last week I got an email from GM stating my parts had been shipped and that I should hear from the dealer within two days. It stated further that if I didn't hear from them, to go ahead and call. We got home Thursday late morning and Sean and I spent several hours cleaning up and stowing the gear (camp chairs, coolers, pop up, etc.). Friday morning I called the dealer and they indicated they had the parts. They hadn't called because the system with the website evidently hasn't been well implemented yet. The parts show up to the dealer, addressed to the dealer, and there isn't a system in place for them to know it was an online order and that they should call the customer. No matter. I got the parts picked up first thing that morning and before lunchtime the truck was torn down....
They don't build them like the used to. The bumper is a cheap flimsy erector set....
We had to tear the old bumper down because we needed the fasteners and the most of the brackets to re-use. The chrome face bar is so flimsy by itself that I folded it over with my bare hands. It went a lawn/leaf sack and went in the recycle out at the curb.
Bumper going back together.....
This ate us up for some time. The new inner brackets that bolt the chrome face bar to the frame mounts were missing the nut for the backup. They were tacked onto the old mounts. I dug around in my hardware but I didn't have any metric nuts in this size. I ended up hitting the tacks with the Dremel and then putting a socket and breaker bar on them to break the rest of the welds. Then I ground off the remaining spot welds with the Dremel and on they went. They weren't fun to get a tool on and really needed to be tacked to the new brackets but the brackets were already painted from the factory and were already on the bumper. I wasn't going backwards......
Here the refurbished bumper is back on....
I haven't been able to get the new bumper cover painted yet so we just went back together with the old one. It has a little paint damage and is rippled in a few places from the collision but the truck looks way better put back together. When I get the new cover painted Sean and I will swap it out. I also plan to get the powder coating on the grill insert redone. Here she is, back together....
One week after the accident, it's basically fixed. It's a relief. I really don't like driving a wreck around.
The purge solenoid I replaced around 9 or 10 days ago didn't fix the evap code. For the money, I'm going to keep spraying it with the parts cannon. I bought a Delco vent valve from Amazon, used like new for $33. I'll get that on and take it from there. I had hoped to get the tire sensor replaced this week but it didn't happen. I'll probably work on that next week. I'm really sick of "SERVICE TIRE MONITOR SYSTEM" in the Driver's Information Center every time I crank it up. I wish I could pull that stuff out by the roots.
That's it for now friends. Thanks for following along.
That was my last day before we were going on family vacation so it was a lousy start. The fellow I ran into did something extremely stupid but at the end of the day I ran into him so it's my fault. That Saturday my brother and I went to a local GMC dealer for parts but they didn't have any and wanted me to pay list price. I told the parts guy I could buy them from Flow Chevrolet (GM Parts Direct) and ship them for a little less than he was quoting and asked him if he could sell to me wholesale as dealers often have for me in the past. He couldn't or wouldn't budge but brought to my attention that GM is now selling parts directly to the public. They ship them to your dealer, who collects the money at the time of the sale, and you just go pick them up.
www.parts.gmc.com
www.parts.buick.com
www.parts.chevrolet.com
www.parts.cadillac.com
They offer a much better price online and I even got a 15% discount code for body parts. I ordered the chrome bumper face bar, the lower valance, the plastic inner support for the bumper cover and both of the left and right mount brackets that mount the bumper face bar to the frame mount brackets that same Saturday. At that point I was $806.07 in. GM wanted $10/rivet for the correct rivets for the front plate holder so I got a bag of them from Clips and Fasteners for like $13. The bumper cover was not available for sale online so I found one at a Buick/GMC dealer in Conroe (about 20 miles north of here) and paid about $250 out the door. At that point I had a plan in place to fix the truck and was moving forward with doing so. It made me feel better about it.
We were in Galveston most of last week. We rented a beach house. It didn't suck.....
On Tuesday or Wednesday last week I got an email from GM stating my parts had been shipped and that I should hear from the dealer within two days. It stated further that if I didn't hear from them, to go ahead and call. We got home Thursday late morning and Sean and I spent several hours cleaning up and stowing the gear (camp chairs, coolers, pop up, etc.). Friday morning I called the dealer and they indicated they had the parts. They hadn't called because the system with the website evidently hasn't been well implemented yet. The parts show up to the dealer, addressed to the dealer, and there isn't a system in place for them to know it was an online order and that they should call the customer. No matter. I got the parts picked up first thing that morning and before lunchtime the truck was torn down....
They don't build them like the used to. The bumper is a cheap flimsy erector set....
We had to tear the old bumper down because we needed the fasteners and the most of the brackets to re-use. The chrome face bar is so flimsy by itself that I folded it over with my bare hands. It went a lawn/leaf sack and went in the recycle out at the curb.
Bumper going back together.....
This ate us up for some time. The new inner brackets that bolt the chrome face bar to the frame mounts were missing the nut for the backup. They were tacked onto the old mounts. I dug around in my hardware but I didn't have any metric nuts in this size. I ended up hitting the tacks with the Dremel and then putting a socket and breaker bar on them to break the rest of the welds. Then I ground off the remaining spot welds with the Dremel and on they went. They weren't fun to get a tool on and really needed to be tacked to the new brackets but the brackets were already painted from the factory and were already on the bumper. I wasn't going backwards......
Here the refurbished bumper is back on....
I haven't been able to get the new bumper cover painted yet so we just went back together with the old one. It has a little paint damage and is rippled in a few places from the collision but the truck looks way better put back together. When I get the new cover painted Sean and I will swap it out. I also plan to get the powder coating on the grill insert redone. Here she is, back together....
One week after the accident, it's basically fixed. It's a relief. I really don't like driving a wreck around.
The purge solenoid I replaced around 9 or 10 days ago didn't fix the evap code. For the money, I'm going to keep spraying it with the parts cannon. I bought a Delco vent valve from Amazon, used like new for $33. I'll get that on and take it from there. I had hoped to get the tire sensor replaced this week but it didn't happen. I'll probably work on that next week. I'm really sick of "SERVICE TIRE MONITOR SYSTEM" in the Driver's Information Center every time I crank it up. I wish I could pull that stuff out by the roots.
That's it for now friends. Thanks for following along.
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