Opinions - body kit fitting up to standard?

Junkwhale · Post by **Junkwhale** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 7:00 pm

Hola all

Have just got my (new) factory front lip and sideskirts painted and also got them to fit some (new) rear mudguards. The panelbeater in question quoted $450 to do this and ended up charging $600 due to the fitting being not as straight forward as they expected.

Picked up today, and am very happy with the painting they did. From a few metres away the fit looks okayish:

However the fit / install of the sideskirts, lip, and mudguards has left me a little disappointed on closer inspection.

both sideskirts look like this from on top:

front lip has gaps on both sides you can see the ground through when looking down from above on it:

and the mudguards have a maybe 2-3mm gap where it separates from the curve (basically looks like there's no doublesided tape holding it against the car):

What do people reckon? I figured given it was all factory pieces it would all fit pretty flush, am I expecting too much?

MrGrey · Post by **MrGrey** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 7:31 pm

sadly its quite common and I think its just the nature of things.

the fitment of your sideskirts is pretty crap tho to be honest.
because it has already been painted, I would fill the gap in the top pic with black silicon, ignore the gap in the second pic and the third pic would be sorted by injecting adhesive in the gap and clamping it and leaving it for a day or two to set.

sorry for your hassles

I can understand how disappointed you must feel right now.

warrior · Post by **warrior** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 7:51 pm

Don't want to be rude but I think its crap, for $600.00 get them to do it again (correctly) of get a discount and do it yourself.

In my eyes that is not good enough

SLYDIT · Post by **SLYDIT** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 7:55 pm

yup thats crap. i wouldnt be happy with that. ive never seen a nb with gaps like that.

Junkwhale · Post by **Junkwhale** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 7:57 pm

They wanted to charge 650 too because they spent about 4hrs fitting them but i thought that was too much given the result so they took 50 off (lol)

warrior · Post by **warrior** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 7:58 pm

I agree with mrgrey that nothing is perfect but fitting a bodykit takes time (a factory one or not) and you have to give a toss about the result.

It looks to me the people that have done this have not spent enough time on it.

Ask yourself this question. When you go to sleep tonight are you happy with it? Not anyone else but YOU.

I think we know the answer to that one.

Take it back mate.

Junkwhale · Post by **Junkwhale** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 8:09 pm

warrior wrote:I agree with mrgrey that nothing is perfect but fitting a bodykit takes time (a factory one or not) and you have to give a toss about the result.

It looks to me the people that have done this have not spent enough time on it.

Ask yourself this question. When you go to sleep tonight are you happy with it? Not anyone else but YOU.

I think we know the answer to that one.

Take it back mate.

yeah that sums it up well warrior.

I'm pretty sure given a car lift, adhesive tape, drill & some hardware I would have made it fit better myself so will take it back on Monday and see if they can improve the fit.

thx all for the opinions

MrGrey · Post by **MrGrey** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 8:33 pm

They wanted to charge 650 too because they spent about 4hrs fitting them

they are lying to you.

my sideskirts which are a similar fitment style took me 20 minutes to fit (drilling 6 holes per skirt and screwing in stainless steel screws)

the rear mudguards would take me 15 minutes to fit (3-4 holes and stainless steel screws)

and around 30-40 minutes to fit the front skirt (that is a conservative estimate bearing in mind the painters would have another set of hand s to hold things steady instead of doing it all with 1 person)

bear in mind I have personally done this, I am not talking out my ass like the panelbeater seems to be

Junkwhale · Post by **Junkwhale** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 9:14 pm

^^ yeah that's about how long I imagined it would take, and why I asked them to do it in the first place since i figured it wouldn't cost much on top of the painting.

had another look with a torch in the dark and they've made a complete dogs breakfast of it. They used the brand new mounting hardware + bracket/washers from the new front lip to bolt the second hand side skirts among other things...

found the instructions for the side skirts, here: http://www.mr-miata.net/stuff/Side_Sill.pdf doesn't look like rocket surgery to me...

MrGrey · Post by **MrGrey** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 9:17 pm

yeah its not hard at all to do a decent job....
if you weren't so far away I would jump at the chance to help fix it and do a decent job.

I would take it back and get them to do it properly.

Junkwhale · Post by **Junkwhale** » Fri Feb 21, 2014 9:23 pm

Yeah will ring them tomorrow morning to see if they're open sat otherwise will take it back monday.

this is what they should fit like - pic from mx5mart: http://mx5mart.co.nz/photos/martphotos/ ... skirts.jpg

Snapfrozen · Post by **Snapfrozen** » Sun Feb 23, 2014 6:56 pm

Are they genuine or aftermarket?

I've got 2 opinions on this.

1. The job is shit, the gaps are unnacceptable considering the price.

However

2. If they're fibreglass or aftermarket there's a chance that they've been produced so many times that the mould is shit. If theyre this bad then there's not much you can do. The ends of the copy plastic gv lips are a good example of this

Junkwhale · Post by **Junkwhale** » Sun Feb 23, 2014 7:36 pm

Snapfrozen wrote:Are they genuine or aftermarket?

I've got 2 opinions on this.

1. The job is shit, the gaps are unnacceptable considering the price.

However

2. If they're fibreglass or aftermarket there's a chance that they've been produced so many times that the mould is shit. If theyre this bad then there's not much you can do. The ends of the copy plastic gv lips are a good example of this

They're all polyurethane genuine OEM items... and were supplied with all the original/required fitting bolts/rails/push-pin things (which they managed to mix up and use the sideskirts parts for the lip & vice versa)

Junkwhale · Post by **Junkwhale** » Sun Feb 23, 2014 8:28 pm

It's pretty obvious when you look at pictures of other NB's with the kit fitted where they went wrong. e.g. they obviously put the sideskirts too high so there's no way they'd fit in the position they're bolted:

how they should sit:

mine - note how the end of the skirt actually goes above the line of the dimpled area whereas it's well below on the above pic:

how they should sit at the front:

...and on mine:

ccsfd · Post by **ccsfd** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 8:38 am

I have the same skirts and mudflaps they fit perfectly with
no gaps. For that much money id take it back and get them to do it properly.

Junkwhale · Post by **Junkwhale** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 10:59 am

Took it back this morning. Showed them a pic of how the skirts were fitted too high, pointed out they'd swapped the hardware around, and the gaps in the mud-guards.

They tried telling me it was because the kit didn't fit, and the car didn't come from the factory with these bits so they wouldn't necessarily fit properly (yeah right!)

I've left it with them for the morning to try and get them to fit better. If they haven't managed a decent fit when I pick it up I'll ask for a discount/refund for the fitting (the paint job they did on them was good so happy to pay for that).

Junkwhale · Post by **Junkwhale** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 11:01 am

also left them with the original fitting instructions I downloaded and printed off, they didn't seem to happy to be given them, lol!

MrGrey · Post by **MrGrey** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 12:03 pm

also left them with the original fitting instructions I downloaded and printed off, they didn't seem to happy to be given them

this reaction really pisses me off

when I am getting some work done I research the hell out of it and give the mechanic/technician the information in order to help them to do the work effectively and correctly.

every. single. time. they look irritated and seem to take it as a personal slight. so I say the same rehearsed statement

look, this is nothing personal. I trust your ability which is why I have bought this job to you in the first place. That being said, I do not know of your experience with this specific job and as I am paying you for your time, I would rather you spend 2 minutes reading this from people that have specifically done the job so that I know that you are totally clear on what is involved

I then make sure they read the documentation in front of me while I am still there so that they do not just throw it in the trash. I have only had one guy who refused in which case I then cancelled the work order and left. He tried to make me pay for his time but I refused and told him to take me to the small claims court. He didn't and I am confident that if he had done so I would have won easily.

I do this because I am trying to avoid silly mistakes as I have seen so many botched jobs because the mechanics had a "she'll be right attitude" and had a go at the job using guess work.

/endrant

I hope the panelbeaters do a good rapair job on your car junkwhale, no one should settle for a crappy job.... especially when they are being charged top dollar

jtsoldier · Post by **jtsoldier** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 5:44 pm

As an interested Cantabrian, would you mind saying.. who this was?

Even if you message in private... I like to learn from other people's mistakes by avoiding these kinds of people.

Cheers.

Junkwhale · Post by **Junkwhale** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 6:26 pm

Well I picked it up before lunch and the fit was improved...somewhat. Took it back again after lunch as the mud flaps still needed adhesive/tape to get them to follow the curve of the bumper and i'm still not really happy with it.

From a couple of metres looks okay:

looking closer though there's still some gaps. At the back ends:

these still don't line up properly with the join in the panel and the gap between the front and back parts is still too large(the gap should be 3mm +/- 1mm according to the instructions):

possibly because of that there's still this at the front of them too:

and from the top with the door open - pretty sure this is gonna fill up with water/dirt/leaves (the highlighted bit is showing the gap with the double sided tape facing up...should be facing/attached to the panel here not tilted up like it is):

MrGrey · Post by **MrGrey** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 6:30 pm

name and shame.... that is a pathetic attempt at an easy job

Junkwhale · Post by **Junkwhale** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 6:31 pm

jtsoldier wrote:As an interested Cantabrian, would you mind saying.. who this was?

Even if you message in private... I like to learn from other people's mistakes by avoiding these kinds of people.

Cheers.

I don't see any reason not to share - there's nothing i've said that's untrue about them so i don't see how they could possibly complain (other than the fact they may still remedy it if I go back...a fourth time).

Paul Hussey Panelbeaters, on Blenheim rd

Snapfrozen · Post by **Snapfrozen** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 6:34 pm

Usually the side skirts would bolt up BEHIND the inner guard. Probably the problem there

Junkwhale · Post by **Junkwhale** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 6:35 pm

I really don't understand why they couldn't do a better job or just adjust it till it fits correctly?

4A-GE · Post by **4A-GE** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 6:35 pm

Is their workshop as messy as the jobs they do?

Opinions - body kit fitting up to standard?

Opinions - body kit fitting up to standard?

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