quick question about body kits

[Kobir]

what material is genuine parts made off, just seen a c-one lip made in p/u plastic? was just wondering if the lip was genuine, no point asking the seller as hes most likely to say yes regardless if it is or aint

thanks

[Lex_GTS]

Polyurethane is authentic. Generally black in colour of unpainted. Fibreglass is what replicas are made of, more often white in colour, but could be made black with a pigment (never seen done)

Only reason you'd as black pigment to fibreglass is to claim it was authentic and someone would find that out sharpish, so noone bothers. Hope that helps.

Oh and the one you're talking about sounds genuine

[Kobir]

thank you sir :rolleyes:

[foxxy]

There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

Polyurethane is the OE type of material, its resists knocks because its durable and fairly flexible and doesnt age if its painted. Ideally it should be painted with plastic friendly and flexible paint. Anything else often has a habit of peeling or cracking or buggering the base material..

The whole thing has a quality feel to it and nearly always fits without mods to the existing bodywork. The disadvantage is the cost because the market for body kits is very limited - not everybody wants it and the tooling costs can be in the 10s even hundreds of thousands of pounds so the costs of the kit is always more expensive than GRP..

Glass fibre (GRP) is a different ball game, its always had an image of shoddiness and cheap feel to it going back a long time, however times have moved on for the better.

It takes any old paint because its fairly rigid but paint can "craze" if the part is allowed to flap about.

Fitting is not as straight forward, it nearly always needs modification in some way and always prepping with filller etc before painting.

The advantages are its cheaper because the tooling can be knocked up by anyone with some knowledge for not much money out of bits of wood, foam, filler and plaster.

And if you break it its dead easy to fix.

[InsolentMinx]

There's also "Duraflex" which alot of the American replicas are made of. It's a kind of fibreglass mixed with a little something that makes it slightly more bendy than normal fibreglass, but not as flexible as urethane.

Duraflex or similar equivalents can come in black, white or green.

I'd aim for urethane wherever possible, but Duraflex as a substitute if replicas are only available.

Steer clear of fibrelgass for anything that may bend or come into contact with a surface at any point (ie lip/bumper/sideskirt)

But as said above fibreglass is easier to fix when cracked. although there's no knowing just how deep the internal cracks may be between the layers.

Edited February 19, 2013 by InsolentMinx