F360: my front fender is cracking... any clue ??

That's your bumper, at least on this side of the pond, it's called a bumper.

Hitting the floor could probably cause damage like that

G

 

If you did not roll your fender and you lower it ; your fender will definitely crack .

 

My guess is that it has been the victim of a speed bump or hitting a curb on the front. See if you have any bad road rash on the underside of the bumper.

 

As Cig 1 mentioned that is his BUMPER and not the fender. Depending on how hard you're scraping on the driveways I would imagine that it could cause cracks like that. Do you scrape everytime you drive into or off your driveway? Did you accidentally hit the underside of the bumper hard recently? Maybe going over a dip in the road too quickly?

 

IMO Because it's on both sides and same area, it's by hitting the ground and bending the sides of the bumper inward.

 

Time for a CS bumper IMO....

 

FWIW, I had a 2000 360 which developed this problem on the front bumper very early on since new. No lowering and/or scraping. The local body shop fixed it to perfection under warranty. At about the same time, a friend who also had a new 360 had the same problem. I assumed it was a somewhat common problem with early 360's.

 

BONDO??? sorry bad joke

 

I had the same problem on my '01 360, it was a pain and I think the best fix is to buy a new one.

 

Bumper or car?

 

And by the looks of your tyre, you need a new one!

 

It's not your fault, Henkie. These bumpers are not molded in one piece, rather they are multiple pieces glued together. In this area, the air vents curve inside the bumper, and this shape would be nearly impossible to mold efficiently - it's called an undercut. So, the bumper molder made 2 separate air vent pieces and glued them into corresponding holes in the main body of the bumper. If you look inside the bumper with all the shields off you can see this clearly. The outside is sanded and faired, then painted. Over time, with flexing and temperature changes, this seam opens up a little bit and the paint cracks along the seam.

There are some rather technical fixes that could solve this pretty much forever, but I bet if you just sand, fill, and fair the area, and repaint it, you'd get years more good service from the fix. There are fillers made for flexible parts like urethane bumpers, and also flex additives for paint. Using these might help keep the problem from reappearing.

 

u just answered your own question homie

 

New bumper. Mine was repaired twice and it was on the way to happen again and it was a lot of money to get fix on both incidents. The paint, the clear film, the trials to figure out how to prevent the problem, the time in the shop and then having to take it back after a few weeks... A real pain in the azz.
The 360 bumper side air outlet was the problem just like the pictures above. If you take a look at the bumper from the inside you'll see that the bumper is built with a hole and the outlet is glued into this hole and that might create a problem on some 360s.

 

Of course if Ferrari would put a front-end lift capability in their cars like Lambo does, this wouldn't be as big an issue. Having driven G-cars a few times, it's SO nice to hit the button and drive straight into a driveway or over the speed bump etc.

If they made this an option, I think most 430 owners would go for it, I sure would.

Frank

 

The problem with my car didn't have anything to do with the front bumper hitting on anything and that includes every scenario, it just happened.

 

I have a similar problem in mine. I think it was caused when the cat bottomed out at the front, but this cracking only showed up much later (months) after that bump. Still not sure what's going on. 2001 360 spider, 5k miles
Image Unavailable, Please Login