Front grille coming apart.

liquidplacidity said:

For anyone in this thread wondering if the 2019 versions of the car have the issue, they do. My bumper has the same gap as everyone else on the drivers side. Took it into my dealership where I purchased the car and they looked at it. They said they're not allowed to do body work without some sort of "authorization" from Honda, so they called Honda corporate and sent them pictures and waited for Honda's response to see if they can fix it under warranty. Honda came back this morning and said they are not going to repair the car due to it being "damaged". They said sorry but there's nothing they can do. I'd have to pay for the repairs. My car is in pristine condition and is no way damaged. The dealership refuses to do anything about it and told me to pick up the car tonight. I'm going to take it to another dealership to see if they can do anything about it and show them this thread.

I have a 2019 Civic EX hatchback if anyone needs to know.

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adomi01 said:

Hi, I am from Philippines and my issue may be similar to what you guys are seeing with your cars. aside from the usual grille popping, the upper portion of the bumper where the grille is connected to is slightly warping. see picture to see what i mean.

see the side view pic and notice how the center is slightly warping. this is not due to any accident or something but i think the heat of the engine. i initially thought it was because of the grille but after reading through this thread, i think it is the bumper that is having an issue.

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hikaru said:

That’s the reason that I fixed it with metal bracket to reinforce the center vertical beam to prevent it from collapsing. You can find the pictures couple pages back.

Honda is aware of the issue, so they make the center vertical beam bulkier and the retaining tabs wider with wider bumps as well to increase the surface that both grill and upper bumper pieces are connected.

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hikaru said:

Small cable tie will keep them in place, but the drawback is that the upper piece of the bumper may get curly surface over time. ABS plaStic, grill, tends to keep in shape, while the PP materials, bumper, shrinks over time from exposing to heat.

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adomi01 said:

Thanks.

BTW, do you have bumpers sold anywhere there that had this issue fixed or its only fixed in the 2019 model? I haven't been into the dealer to ask if they are also aware of this issue so I will ready myself to hear that they will deny it. I might hear them putting the blame on the replacement grille that I had installed. We'll see.

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adomi01 said:

This i think is what's happening to my car since i am aware that the grille installer used cable zip tie to keep the grille in place.

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hikaru said:

It's only fixed on the facelift or refreshed bumper. If you check my signature or click here you can see the difference, so you are at your own if you have 16-18 bumper.



If anyone use the cable tie to hold the grill down, it's going to make thing worse. The force of the cable tie basically pull the upper bumper piece down, and creating more gap between the grill and the bumper. There is no room for the cable tie to go in those tabs, so it will distort the upper bumper piece. I'll get rid of the cable tie, and use epoxy to joint those tabs.

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hikaru said:

Okay, my bumper was removed to make an upgrade with the snail horns, and I wanted to fix the gap. Here's what I did.

1. Slightly heat up the small tabs so that you can bend it down.
2. Adding bracket to the center vertical support beam in the bumper.

I notice that the center vertical support beam in the bumper behind the grill is sagging, which is the main reason that the tabs pop out over time. You know it's sagging because the top portion of the bumper above the grill is sunken, and you will notice there is a gap between the grill and bumper where the Yellow rectangular points out in the pictures below.

I figure in order to lift the bumper up again, something has to be there to strengthen the center support beam by changing the angle of the center support beam. I make a metal bracket with an angle slightly larger than what it is, then secure it with self tapping screws.

Now the gap, yellow rectangular area, between the bumper and grill is minimized, and it lifts the bumper up to fit the contour of the grill.

I think the metal bracket is crucial to maintain the contour of the top piece in the bumper, so that it won't cause too much stresses on those small little tabs in the grill. I hope the pictures and diagrams help.

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The Vyzitor said:

I like the heat gun and reshape approach. I haven’t read the entire thread, but has anyone tried reinforcing the holes in the bumper that the grill tabs slide in to? Maybe a thin 3D printed piece, matching the desired shape of the holes, but of much stiffer material, glued over the original hole? Something that won’t allow the bumper to deform due to heat or whatever and release the grill tabs.

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Hondanickx said:

Great find !
So the best thing to do is to reinforce all 3 the support brackets at the same time.I think if we would only reinforce the center one , i would only be a matter of time for the outer 2 to start bending too right ?

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hikaru said:

Usually the center one gives up first, but why not doing the other two while you are at it?

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Prelude2CivicX said:

Horrible. Take it to another dealer and see if they would fix it for free. My dealer offered to bring it in to take it apart and attempt to fix it if not replace the part that's damaged and that's after having my car for a little over a year now.

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Israel said:

What dealer did you go to? I leave around L.A. area

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