On Halloween, I was DD for a group of my friends going into Oak Park to a bar called Doc Ryan's on Madison St. Like a lot of the folks there, I wasn't afraid of a little walk in the cold, so we parked my Eldorado down one of the side streets, in front of the houses (away from the main bar strip). Good spot, quiet neighborhood, all is well, right? Nope, life ain't simple.
Someone must have backed into me a little when leaving, because there were marks on the curb in front of my car, and the front passenger-side of the bumper was pushed in about three inches. Naturally, this meant the fender and wheel well was pushed out of alignment, so that plastic/rubber panel at the front of the wheel-well was rubbing my tire everytime I turned the wheel to the left, or very hard to the right. In reverse, it made a horrible racket, just awful grinding and little clunking noises.
I was pissed, and I'm not looking to be spending hundreds in car repairs. I know that it's not a difficult fix (apparently the bumper is designed to push in on a slight impact and not crack or crumple), but I'm still not totally cool working on my car myself. Oil changes and stuff like that aren't bad, but I don't even have a good jack right now (just a little emergency one that came with the car) and I don't want to mess anything up.
Anyway, I figured I'd tell this story to let you know that if it happens to you, it's probably gonna be alright. I took it to the repair shop out on Ogden Ave, a little private shop, and within 30 or 40 minutes they had it out of the garage, bumper all shined up and back to normal. Afterward I drove down to Wal-Mart and put 'er through the paces, turning, backing, the works. No noises, no scraping, all is good. And the price? $88 even. Eighty-eight dollars got my bumper straightened, and they shined the chrome trim (only on the bumper itself, but still) and cleaned the lenses on the fog lights (they got muddy the night before Halloween and I hadn't cleaned them myself yet). For the life of me, I can't even remember the name of the shop because I was thrilled at the work and price, but I promise to go by there tomorrow and post the name of the place for any members in the Lisle/Naperville area who have a similar problem. They were very professional and friendly, so next time I need any bodywork done, I know right where I'm going. Just not, y'know, what the place is called
. But I will!
PS - Sub, if you see this thread, you were right about something a while back. That Chilton's manual I got is pretty worthless. It didn't even have anything on the bumper or fender in any of the sections, including "Exterior". I looked through that sum'bitch for about 45 minutes without finding anything useful - with a little bit of instruction, I might have done it myself (I have decent tools), but when I looked underneath with a good flashlight, it just looked a little too confusing to wing it. If you see this, what was the name of that other thing (book, magazine, manual, website, whatever) that you recommended against Chilton's awhile back?
Just got my bumper pulled back into alignment . . . 98 ETC 
