mdtobe

Hi everybody,

Last year I rear-ended a woman who was daydreaming and jammed on her brakes just before running into the car in front of her that was stopped (her SUV was bigger and I couldn't see the stopped traffic in front of her). She even admitted fault! But I knew that's not how the insurance companies would see it, and since there was no damage to her car (mine dove underneath her bumper), I wasn't going to involve our insurance companies. She offered to pay at least part of my repair bill, but I declined, figuring if I hadn't been too close I wouldn't have hit her.

So:

It's time now to finally get the front fixed. There is a little bending of the right front fender and sub-structure so it will have to go to my friend's body shop.

I need to choose between the cheaper aftermarket parts or the factory replacement parts (Bumper, both corner bumper covers, lower air dam, headlight/signal surrounds and grill housing). My concern is that the aftermarket parts are just plastic where as the factory parts are fiberglass (at least in the case of the grill housing). Obviously the metal bumper will be metal either way, but what about corrosion resistance? And as for the bumper covers at the corners, my Cherokee is the Classic edition with the shiny body-colored ones. The ones I had didn't seem all that strong (they might have been aftermarket).

Does anybody know which if any of these parts are significantly sturdier from the factory than from aftermarket? And are there any particular aftermarket brands to go with or stay away from?>

The vehicle is driven and parked in Chicago a lot, so there will be people who bump into it while they (try to) park, so sturdy is important.

And if anybody has a line on how I can find these particular (factory) parts used, I'd appreciate it. I've searched eBay and other spots for a year now and I haven't had much luck.

Thanks in advance for your help and suggestions,

John

Waynerd

Look through the for sale/part outs section in the forum. There are header panels on eBay all the time also. With luck you could even find parts that are the correct color already. Only aftermarket part that's much different from factory is the header panel. The aftermarkets don't look or fit 100% like factory. Plus they don't have the JEEP on them. Any bumper should be fine. I was just at a scrapyard last week and even though I live in New England where there's usually a lot of rust, there were at least 6 rust free Cherokees with most of the body parts in very nice shape. And of coarse a cheap bumper will likely be made from cheaper material. Hence the lower price. And factory matched spray paint can even be purchased on Amazon.

peabody

Bought my rear bumper ends from Rock Auto . Cheaper than anywhere else including used bumpers .. Couldn't tell any difference from the factory caps . Easy install .

Firestorm500

Unless you are going to restore and show your Jeep in a judged class, I would just go aftermarket.

The stuff you're talking about is basically cosmetic, not structural. Also, I would think new OEM parts would be hard to find now. When the Germans bought Chrysler, they engaged in pretty ruthless cost-cutting on older Jeep parts, mostly by discontinuing them.

Insurance companies use non-OEM parts all the time to fix crashed cars. The policy says they have the right to do so. If someone insisted on OEM parts, they can self-pay the difference.

mdtobe

Thanks for the replies!

I'm going to do some bone yard cruisin'.

dzywicki

I'm currently rebuilding the front end of my '99 XJ (second time actually). I had the asme thought about the header panel. My wife had found a complete one on eBay for $249 (included the header panel, all lights, headlights and wiring harness). Smashed that one, and then we got lucky and found a complete one at the pick a part for $50(it didn't have the grill but we didn't need that). I was able to find a bumper pretty easily. I don't have experience with aftermarket, but I was able to find everything I needed at the junk yard.