At the dealer today I noticed all their 09's had the bumperettes on each side of the license plate location. When I look in the 09 brochure, the bumpers are without. I am stumped, anyone shed some light?

Thanks

 

They are probably required, to meet US safety standards.

 

We don't get them in Australia.

 

Aha, that is probably it.

 

Not so much to meet actual safety standards, because they don't make you any safer, but the reduce the amount of damage the car receives if you back into a wall at 2mph, since you only need to fix the bumperettes and not the whole bumper cover.

So it probably helps on the 'cost of repair for a 2mph read end collision' aspect.