Inexpensive Rear Bumper Top Guard Cover with Photos

[evh]

I thought I would share my experience and photos of installing an inexpensive rear pumper guard.

What I was looking for was an inexpensive guard for the top of my rear bumper of my 2009 Limited AWD. I use my Edge more and more like a truck carrying around heavy items (small engines, etc.) and the top of the rear bumper was starting to show it. I did read other threads here on the forum and looked at the Toyota Scion rear bumper guard that is stated to fit quite well. I think best price for the Scion bumper guard right now is around $70+.

I wanted something less expensive. My thinking is I have a 8+ year old car with > 200,000 miles that is worth roughly $6,500 at this point (sad, it stickered new for roughly $40,000). I don’t want to trash it and want it to last a bit longer (watch out MACT), but I wanted to keep expenses low.

Picture1 - I did some research and found many different ones on eBay. The one I bought cost $9.49 delivered straight from China (it arrived in < 10 days, I was surprised). You will find many different suppliers sell this same item. It is 41” in length, comes with 3M tape and a wipe to clean your bumper before application. (Note, there are also 35” ones being sold, they are too short for our Edges in my opinion.)

Picture2 – This is how it arrives and what is included. On the negative side, the tape was placed in the bottom of the box so when I pulled it out, the edge of the rolled up tape picked up some cardboard paper from the box. Not the end of the world. I was happy to see that the guard was curved and could be adjusted quite easily (straighter or more curved) so I wasn’t concerned about it not fitting the bumper correctly.

Picture3 – Shows what it looks like after I applied the tape. A couple of notes here: It doesn’t say how much tape is included. I decided I wanted a vertical strip right in the middle and on each end. I then wanted 3 strips between them. There was not quite enough tape to do that. I had some other double stick tape that I used when I ran out. I would estimate that they want you to simply run 3 long strip horizontally along the length of the guard.

Installation:

I cleaned the top of my bumper and started to install the guard. I took the backing off the middle vertical piece and lined that up with the hatch latch that is in the middle of the back. I made a point to put this close to the end of the back of the bumper. The thinking is that this does not have a lip that wraps around the back of the bumper toward the ground, so putting in very close to the back edge may offer some extra protection. Once I had the middle adhered, I removed the backing on the 3 strips on one side and took my time and applied it (see Picture4). I made no special measurements. I then did the other side the same way.

Pictures 5, 6 and 7 show the finished product. All in all I am happy with the results. It has been a couple days now and it has not blown off in driving or started to buckle/bulge, etc. I’ll update this thread after a few months and let you know if there are any changes. Let me know if you have any questions.

Edited July 29, 2017 by evh

[enigma-2]

Excellent write up. Looks good as well.

[ben senise]

for less than ten bucks that looks like a deal.

 

i bought the ford one and was extremely disappointed in how thin it is. and how expensive it was.

[evh]

ben senise, how much was the OEM guard for your 2016?

[onyxbfly]

Great write up!! Thanks for sharing!

[Mikula]

hows it holding up? after having my dog jump into the back and misjudge her leap, i have some nice scratches on top i'd like to cover with something like this.

[ben senise]

ben senise, how much was the OEM guard for your 2016?

 

i'm sorry i didn't see your question until now

 

it was a bit over $100 canadian so about $80 or so US?

 

it's very thin though and i really wouldn't recommend it. i had one on my '09 and it was much thicker. this one is almost like a bumper sticker. i think it's barely more than 1 mm thick. on my black edge it is effectively invisible. on a contrasting color maybe it would look better.

Edited August 15, 2017 by ben senise

[PaulSchott]

This place always gives me new ideas!! I was looking at this post and realized I just threw away the perfect bumper protector.

I replaced the back bumper on my wife's 2002 Grand Cherokee and threw the old one in the dumpster at work. I did some dumpster diving and retrieved the black protector from the jeep. It was too deep so I band sawed to the correct depth and cut off the nipples that held it to the Jeep. The curve was pretty good so I just used a belt sander to clean off the sawed off edge and used some 3M body molding tape to attach it. It needs to be cleaned and shined up but I think it looks pretty good.

[evh]

Paul, that looks good given all your modifications. Makula, so far no issues. The tape is holding it firm. It looks good. I did compare it to the factory protector on my Wife's 2013 Grand Cherokee. I note that her's is a much harder black rubber than this is. One thing I would do different is how I put the small piece of tape in the middle. If you look closely you can see that it raises the guard in the middle where that tape is. 3 long strips would not show vs the way I did it with the small strip in the middle.