Hi guys,

 

I wanted to put a new thread down for the front bumper removal for the Mk3 Octavia. I read Maxpowers excellent guide which helped a lot but there were a couple of additional things I wanted to add as the Mk3 has one or two more screws in places. Thus I wanted to show how I did it to help others if they needed help too. 

 

I had had to replace my right headlight washer jet after kissing a deer. The washer fluid was leaking and I had to top it off a lot more regularly. An annual service reported the washer jet was snapped and I also had to replace the headlight washer jet cover. Which went walk about after the deer incident. Skoda quoted me around £300 to repair this and not wanting to pay that much, I bought the parts in an attempt to do it myself. The parts cost approx £50 if I recall for the new washer jet and cover. Plus some spray on Black magic paint and lacquer from Halfords. 

 

This is is what I did. 

 

1. Took off the eight screws attaching the bumper and grill at the top. 

 

2. Took off the eight screws underneath the bumper. 

 

3. Took off off the four screws in the wheel wells. The very top screw isn’t necessary to remove the bumper but removing it makes it a lot easier to man handle the wheel well arch out of the way. The wheel well arch is pretty pliable plastic but you need a bit of brute force to get it out of the way for the next part. Like Max says turning the wheels over gives you more access. 

 

4. This bit, like Maxpower said it’s the awkward bit. There’s now three screws you need to remove. They attach the top corner part of the bumper to the chassis, just in front of the wheel well and they’re screwed in from underneath in an upwards direction. The screw closest to the front of the bumper is the hardest to get to and requires a bit of persistence. Having a longer torx bit and a spare pair of hands certainly helps. And removing the screws are a lot easier than putting them back. Once all of the screws are off, you should be able to jimmy the bumper off. 

 

Thats it!  Upper should be off! 

 

5. Removing the washer jet is really easy. The washer jets are attached to the bumper so you don't need to remove the covers before you remove the bumper. There’s also a bit of slack with the wires so I didn’t need to disconnect anything. The jet is connected to the plumbing and all you do is press two blue buttons to remove the jet. The jet is attached to the bumper with two shoulder clips. Just jimmy them up to unclip it. 

 

Thats it. Putting it back together is actually more of a pain than taking it off. There’s four prongs on the back of the bumper which fit into four separate holes on the front of the car. They’re a bit of an pain to get aligned and I actually snapped one off in the process. I wasn’t too bothered considering as the entire bumper is held on by 28 screws (not including the two at the top of the wheel well) in total! But getting the bumper back in the correct place to seat correctly is quite hard work. Parts need to align properly and some parts of the bumper need to slide into various channels at the top and underneath. 

 

Once the bumper was clipped back onto the chassis and back in the right place, we put the three awkward screws in first. These are the three that screw upwards into the chassis just in front of the wheel well. You’ll want a spare pair of hands and a suitably long torx bit to get these screws back in. I got my missus to use all of her weight to keep the pliable wheel well far enough away from the bumper so I could get some tools in to screw them back in. Again it was a pain and persistence is the key. Don’t be surprised if you drop the screw back into the bumper. If you’re lucky, you should be able to retrieve them without having to take the. Upper back off. After doing this twice we came up with ingenious solution of using masking tape and taping the screw onto the bit. 

 

Once the awkward ward screws are in you can then replace the others. We did the wheel well screws next, then the eight on the top of the bumper and finished with the eight underneath. 

 

It it took about 90 minutes in total which I don’t think is too bad considering neither of us are mechanics. A bit of swearing, a few nicks on the hands but we managed to get it done. I have tested the washer jets for the headlights and they still don’t work! But I believe they don’t go off every time you spray the washer fluid. They certainly don’t leak anymore! 

 

I’ll try and attach some photos that might help including all of the tools I used. I also used four ramekins to put the respective screws in so they didn’t get lost and I knew where the were from. 

Sorry there’s six screws to remove on the top of the bumper in step one. Not eight. I can’t count! Not sure how to edit the post. 

 

Sounds like you were very lucky. My Octavia also kissed a deer, not hard enough to break the water jet mind you, but enough to produce a radar sensor and front foglight warning message on the dash. The only other damage I noticed was a hairline crack on the bumper at the corner where the full-beam headlight is - thought that was everything. I took the car to Skoda to clear the errors but then a trained eye showed me a crack in the top plastic cover where you've highlighted six screws, then a tiny dent on the bonnet and then how the shut line between the bonnet and the wing was inconsistent. I'm thinking insurance job as we could be talking around £1000.     £4112 later...  😭  

 

You did well because going thru insurance has to be one of the biggest rip-offs ever. 

Edited 26 April, 20206 yr by Guest

Probably worth linking the pre-FL 'How-To' from @xpower here too, so that all content is in the same place...

 

 

Ill be very happy for this to be linked to Xpowers first how to guide. His was an excellent work through that gave me the confidence to do it myself. There was only one amendment I really made to his guide and that was clarity on the number of screws and where they were in the awkward bit just in front of the wheel arch inside of the bumper.

 

I had a few more photos that could have helped but its not very easy to link them in the description. I'd like to link them like Xpower has for each step as it might be easier to read and understand. 

 

Is it possible to edit my original post? Theres a couple of spelling mistakes I'd want to correct. 

 

Anyway I hope this is useful for anyone with the facelift version of the Mk3 and complements Xpowers original work.

1 hour ago, Scot5 said:

Sounds like you were very lucky. My Octavia also kissed a deer, not hard enough to break the water jet mind you, but enough to produce a radar sensor and front foglight warning message on the dash. The only other damage I noticed was a hairline crack on the bumper at the corner where the full-beam headlight is - thought that was everything. I took the car to Skoda to clear the errors but then a trained eye showed me a crack in the top plastic cover where you've highlighted six screws, then a tiny dent on the bonnet and then how the shut line between the bonnet and the wing was inconsistent. I'm thinking insurance job as we could be talking around £1000.     £4112 later...  😭  

 

You did well because going thru insurance has to be one of the biggest rip-offs ever. 

 

I had a good look but couldn't see anything damaged apart form the washer jet. I was very lucky by the sounds of it. 

I recently had the front bumper off to fit front parking sensors. I found it was significantly easier to jack the car up onto jack stands and get the front wheels off to then fully remove the front wheel arch covers. It gives you a bit more wiggle room.

I'm curious if the bumper skin removal is absolutely necessary for this job?

My right side jet is clogged so I need to get it off (pre FL) and there's nothing inside the guard on that side.

 

so, would it be possible to unclip the jet from behind with the wheel liner out of the way?

To revive the thread, a few years down the line, I came here because I noticed my left hand headlight washer had dropped inside the bumper. Dunno if something had caught on it but hey.

Armed with the above information (particular thanks @xpower ) and this yt video on a Superb, I went in.

I soon discovered what xpower meant re the two hidden screws.. in case of future need for access, I've put M5 screws going upwards through the threaded bit of the bumper end so it's now a hex nut plus washer on the top but accessible from above or below. Should make life easier.

Turns out in my case a plastic weld had failed so the mounting plate was flapping free. It's now held with a bolt behind the fog light, so I'm hoping for no repeat on that. I rather expect that if I'd gone to Skoda it would have meant a new bumper, who knows how many hours labour and probably radar recalibrate as well.

Also while moving covers for access I found a number of screws missing (4 of them were jammed into smaller holes for the top of the radiator grille!) so I've ordered more of those from a UK eBay seller (Skoda don't carry screws!!) to get it more back up to scratch.

Onwards and upwards!

My nearside washer doesn’t always fully return, so I was wondering how easy it was to get at.

I might just keep pushing it back in when it sticks 😀