Replacing front bumper cover
 

My wife wants me to replace the plastic cover on the front bumper of our 190E due due some cosmetic damage to the black rubbery part of it. Unfortunately it appears only available as one piece, including the painted part - without the paint. I was wondering, hopefully without having to first remove the old cover, if anyone knows if the black part can be removed separately? There is no damage to the painted part on our car. Thanks.

Steve

On the w201 190s, the 1st layer of the bumper is called the bumper cover or bumper strip. Im assuming that your talking about this. To remove this, you have to go underneath the car behind the bumper. You will see that the bumper cover is held on by tabs on the top and bottom of the bumper. You push these tabs outwards and it should pry the cover apart. You dont need to remove any bolts to remove the bumper cover.

Thanks! I'll try it tonite.

Steve

Postscript. I ordered the part from Performance products, and it came in this weekend. As hoped, it was only the black cover, so no painting required.

Removing involved three sheet-metal screws at each end, removing the license backplate and temp sensor, then disengaging all the snaps. Since limited access to the snaps meant removing the old cover unscathed would require a lot of time, and the old cover was to be discarded, I basically ripped it off at this point. Judiciously. Most of the snap tabs were damaged, but the high-impact painted plastic bumper cover I was careful to protect.

I exchanged the foam insert to the new cover, and it snapped right on. Reattaching the six screws at the ends was a little trickier than I expected, but the whole job was completed in under a half-hour. Thanks again to fastbenz!

Steve