Hey guys,

I am having a very difficult time removing the rear bumper. There are two shock absorbers which each have two bolts. I undid these (at the body) and removed the little bracket on the back that can be used to drag the car around. This should allow the rear bumper to pop off with the shock absorbers attached but it wont budge.

So i look at removing the plastic cover but cant coz the screws that hold the top of the cover to the top of the bumper i cannot access. The bottom bolts i got out but unless i get the metal part of the bumper free form the body, i dont know how to undo these top screws.

finally i looked at the brackets on the shock absorbers. There are four nuts for each shock absorber that hold the bumper to it and one long bolt that runs through the whole bracket and shock absorber. Well i can get three off if i really try but have no idea how to get the fourth one off since there is limited room between the metal bumper and the body of the car.

So basically i am painting but cannot get the damn rear bumper off the car. Anyone been down this road before?

 

I just removed a rear bumper last week so it's fresh in my mind and in my camera.

You need to remove three nuts on each side, two located on the back of the shell that hold the shock bracket to the body and one that ties the other end of the shock into the body, which is accessed from inside the rear compartment.

As I recall, they were all 14 mm nuts and were easily accessed using a ratchet fitted with a 14 mm socket without an extension.

Here's some pics:

 

Here's a quicker method. There's one 14mm bolt running through the bumper shock bracket and then going back into the bumper. Remove each 14mm bolt and unclip the connectors for the license plate lights and the bumper will slide right off of the brackets and off the car. Then you can remove the bumper shocks and brackets independently.

 

Yup - this is the easiest method.

 

This really helped - thanks! I'm taking my rear bumper in to get sprayed tomorrow.

For clarification - the two 14mm bolts to remove the bumper are the ones you can see by looking up under the bumper - not the ones through the floor in the hatch.