Bumper brace on bottom of headlights?

[AAIIIC]

A couple weeks back when I pulled my bumper off to get the grilles powdercoated I noticed something didn't match on the two sides of the car. On the driver side, there's a flat, stout plastic brace that extends out from the bottom of the headlight about 1" or so to help hold the bumper cover up:


The passenger side headlight didn't have that same piece:


I know that the front end was hit prior to my owning the car, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if one (or both?) of the headlights isn't original. However, all the markings on both lights indicate that they're GM parts - same "VALEO SYLVANIA" markings in the plastic, same type of GM part number stickers on both headlights.

Looking at the bottom of each headlight you can see how the brace is held onto the driver side headlight by 2 fasteners (I don't remember if they were pop rivets or screws):


There's nothing on the passenger side headlight that appears broken off, nor does there appear to be any place for the same sort of fasteners to attach:


You can clearly see the difference the brace makes in the appearance of the bumper cover. The driver side sits noticeably smoother:




So, has anyone else noticed anything like this? Did GM change the design at some point? Maybe GM added the brace at some point to fix the wavy bumper cover, so my DS headlight is newer?

[TroyFleming]

Post the numbers on the Headlights. 2004 did not come with the brackets. If you owned this from new then I have no clue, but if purchased used, most likely previous owner had a fogged up headlight and replaced with older without bracket/or newer that has bracket. Car was in accident and went with an older headlight or went with newer headlight depending on year of car 2004 or 2005-2007 or dealer replaced one headlight under warranty.

[AAIIIC]

I didn't bother to write down the part numbers, and I'm not motivated enough to pull off the bumper just to read those stickers. And unfortunately I don't have the raw image files anymore, just the downsized versions I posted above. It looks like the passenger side one says PN 15278229 or 18278229, but it's a little blurry in the picture.

I bought it used 2 years ago, and as I said in the initial post, it's definitely had some paint work done on the front end. Based on what you're saying it sounds like in the process of fixing some sort of front end damage the original 2005 headlight must've been replaced by a 2004 one. Thanks for the info on the change - that's a handy piece of info to have. If I decide to replace that passenger side light I know now what I need to look for!

[jebfrank]

Humm, let me know what you come up with this. My bumper has some pretty bad warpage under both lights and it looks like this brace would cure it.

[ctsv154]

The new lights have the support, the old ones didn't. I have the same issue as I have had one of my lights replaced under warrenty and the other is not.