capn tibs

After reading this I had two thoughts...first was ouch! That right there would hurt someones wallet pretty bad, especially for a car that retails less then the total of all that. That's about 3 grand right there with either rear bumper or hood option.

My second thought was more of a political/economical statement. $3,000 (shipping not included) when I can get a rather comparable setup for less then $1,000. Well did actually with the exception of the mirrors.

All you guys on this site that b**** about authentic-ism of a body kit are ridiculous I think. Whats the big difference? Mostly it's a difference of fiberglass resin layers. I know your all going to say fitment but I think that is BS. I have read many times in the past where people have had to modify their official /authentic bumper or side skirts to fit. I have also read and experienced personally many examples of non-authentic bumpers, side skirts, hoods, etc. that fit with absolutely no manipulation at all.

With all that said my statement is: I think the incompetence to maintain a medium between competition is a big reason the economy is in the situation it is [in our country at least].

My reasoning to this is:
A supposedly quality official vendor like Veilside will (bend you over and stick it in at least 12 inches) charge you two or three times as much for a product.
Logically speaking the bumper can not cost Veilside much more then what the cheap companies offer. Veilside would probably be getting their fiberglass tools and materials much cheaper. They both make molds so the labor cost should be about the same. Veilside would probably have a higher cost of associated overhead and burden. Their profit mark-up is what eats up the rest.

A company that is more quantity then quality and not known to be official will sell you the product with the guarantee that it will be just as good as the authentic version. They may even say it is authentic. They cut costs by eliminating a quality assurance representative (in this scenario it is pretty much a guy that will shine light on the fiberglass product and sand smooth imperfections as well as check certain dimensions for quality control. These companies are producing products quickly and trying to push as much out the door as they can by lowering the price in hopes to avoid any recalls/complaints about their sacrifice to maintain quality.

Where is the middle company? We used to have a lot of these in America (mind you I'm damn young but I do remember). For the past six years most of my associates at work have been much older than me and some of them can remember when you only had one company to go to, but they were the middle company. They wouldn't rape you and they wouldn't sell you shit either.



I think it sucks but we are seeing less of the middle companies and more of the other two. I believe it is the consumer as well as the worker that creates this problem. The consumer because you have two very typical types of consumers these days. The consumer that will sacrifice their demands for quality for the lowest price and the consumer that will sacrifice the dent in their wallet to make sure their demands of quality are met. So one is broke with a very nice product that has a resell value about equal or less than the cheap no quality product. The other has plenty of money leftover but is either going to spend it to enhance the quality or they are going to have wasted the money on something they don't even use...trash.

Sometimes there is a consumer like me however, who will by the cheap product and enhance the quality cheaply by providing their own time to make it happen. While this is not so costly, it still seems rather inefficient and shows a poor dis-concern for incompetence.

The worker contributes to the problem by the attitude/persona they build from their product and sales. The quality authentic merchant worker will tend to think his product is so much better than the competition that he will refuse to consider them as competition. This thinking will make such a worker not concerned with how much they get done but instead be concerned with perfection forcing the merchant to have to raise their price and try to make 3-5 times the profit off of one product since they will sell that much less. The worker that sacrifices quality will tend to think the competition is no different other than a price tag and will push off as much product as he can without even hesitating. No level of quality assurance will be of concern because he will believe he is no less incompetent than the guy ripping you off.

It gets worse and worse until both sides of the competition are incompetent...which is all allowed and more so influenced by the consumer.


Can anyone with a real job step out of their [mental] box and explain to me why we let ourselves become so incompetent just to pacify a consumer long enough to make one sale? Think about your work first (some of you may not be able to relate because some people still work in that medium I mentioned at the beginning, thank god for those few of you) and think about your competitors and where you stand amongst them...do you really think you or your associates are completely competent? Do you really build a relationship with your customers that will last?




Maybe this belongs in the rant section...

majik

Front Bumper AE0501-01 $650.00
Side Skirts AE0501-02 $545.00
Rear Bumper AE0501-03 $555.00

Wow... $3,000, you say? I think your math is wrong. For sideskirts, front and rear bumper, you're looking at $1,750 plus shipping (maybe $200?). Also, different distributors may charge less. That is the retail price, you can probably find it cheaper. OR you can spend $800 from eBay and hope it works. Also, if you get a front bumper, it'll look stupid without the sides and rear. No other kit matches up with it because it's so low. It'll look weird without the full kit.


Hm... I think you're wrong. How many Veilside body kits have you seen in person, at car shows? I've seen dozens. I think I've seen 3 fakes that look as good as the original, while probably 10 are obvious rip-offs. I've seen front bumper that don't line up to the headlights (may be as much as 5" off). What do you do in that situation? The top mounts just fine, but the holes for the headlights don't line up. Only option is to start cutting it and piece it back together.

If it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit. There isn't much manipulation you can do with fiberglass, it doesn't bend like urethane.

The problem comes from people making molds of replicas. If you make a mold of the front bumper using the outside to capture all the curves, then it's going to be a little off. Now consider another company that wants to carry the bumper - they make a Replica of the Replica. Any imperfections on the first one are going to be multiplied on this bumper. They don't have Tiburons to test fit, they're just copying molds to have products.

Veilside charges because they spent the time and money for R&D, and made sure it fit the car perfectly. It's like Brand Name vs. Generic, except the Generic might be made by some company who doesn't give a damn about quality or fitment, just profit.

I suggest you read this thread. I wrote it for people like you: http://www.rdtiburon.com/index.php?showtopic=277

Nobody's going to keep you from buying something off eBay. Go for it, it's great for people trying to save money... but you might get caught wasting the money if you don't get a decent bumper. There ARE members here who have had success with eBay bumpers.

I'm sorry if I seem a little sensitive to the topic, but my car has been used TONS of times on eBay to sell fake body kits (they grabbed my pics off CarDomain). Then I'm left with people contacting me to ask what I did and how much I spent to make it fit.

Edit: hm... another thing. This bumper sits 2.5" off the ground. It WILL scrape daily until you learn how to drive it, then it'll only scrape once a week or so nana.gif . There was a local Tib with a fake kit, and it was always chipping and breaking from scraping. The quality just WAS NOT there. I never broke my front bumper until I hit a curb head on, and then again when I hit a pot hole and the nose dipped into broken asphalt (no chance of survival).

I personally never would have paid that much for a body kit, but I was in an accident and used the insurance money to purchase the kit. It was cheaper to buy the kit and have a friend paint the entire car, than for the collision center to buy factory parts and paint just those parts.

REDZMAN

Read any of the dozens of threads about knockoff parts, and you'll have all your answers. You should support the companies that support us, not the folks out for a quick buck trying to pass off cheap quality parts.

SOCKS_old

well, the fitment issue with knockoffs would be much to risky for me to ever do it again on any car.. i've seen people buy from the same place.. one that needed say.. 200$ in body work to mount the kit.. one that the guy said 'F this' cuz the sides were to long, front was like 6" to wide, tail lights didn't match up, etc.

if i were to ever buy a body kit again, VS would be my last choice as far as 'authentic' kits goes, not only because i don't like the style, but they still use FG... Urethane kits are the ONLY way to go imo.. yeah, they are a bit heavier, but you can get into an accident and pop em back to shape.

i do realize thats not an option for the RD crowd though.

but for an RD guy if i were to go with a kit, id wanna make sure i was prepared for possibly some big headaches and want to do alot of body work. 2000$ shipped for a body kit, that would still need painted is a SHIT TON of money to spend on an older car if its going to be a DD. I got lucky with my 'cuda II' knockoff kit as it fit real well and held up for as long as i had it.

Blue Bomber

I also got lucky with my vader kit. I didnt buy the official veilside because hey, i didnt have like 6.5 grand to spend. ($2000 for kit, another like $800 for shipping to Canada, then $3500 to paint the whole car) My front bumper fit almost perfectly, my rear bumper fit great, but unfortunately the side skirts were too different in the part where it wraps the door. So i dont have the side skirts on. I personally dont think my car looks bad without the sideskirts (not that I could have them on anyway on the roads where I live), so for the $600+shipping I paid was worth it.

With buying a fake kit its pretty much russian roulette. Yes you can be fine, but there is also a chance you can get screwed over pretty hard.

Ericy321

LOL the black RD2 I bought had the invader kit or something on it. Other than the fast that it was already beat to hell when I got it, the fitment was so far off it wasnt even funny. As Majik said, the first copy may be fine. But then you have the companies making copies of copies of copies and it gets WAY off.

My Cuda2 (MPS would be the original) fit pretty good. The sides were a little to short and the fitment around the taillights was a little tight. The headlight spacing is also a little to big but no big deal. That was still not a super cheap kit though and if I remember right is a copy of the direct original from Shark Racing.

As far as performance parts go, I like to support companies that work with us and support us. I had an AEM intake on my car when it was NA. I probably wouldnt buy anything else. The filters arent as good, and the overal quality isnt there at all. Knockoffs are the reason the good companies end up going out of business (didnt Greddy have to declare bankruptcy or something for a bit)

On my RD2 now all I have is authentic, non cheape chinese parts, with the body kit being the exception if it matters. I need the quality to be there because I dont want stuff to break. For shows and overall when you pop the hood to authentic, quality parts I just feel it means a lot more than opening the hood to a kinda decent fitting ebay turbo kit or anything like that.

majik

I agree with SOCKS. Urethane kits are the way to go, but I'm not aware of any body kits for the Tiburon that are Urethane.

I also agree that spending $2,000 on the body kit is way too much for the value of our cars. Unless you have insurance money to put towards it, your 10 year old car isn't worth a $2,000+ body kit that can't be resold. Spend it on a turbo and have more fun, or find an $800 body kit on eBay and pray it works.

Blue Bomber

^^ Thats what I regret lol. I spent the money on a body kit when I could have gotten myself a decent turbo set-up. 02.gif Not making that mistake again lol.

REDZMAN

The Wings West kit is Urethane, RD1 only though.

Side skirts will work.

There are some options for juicing up the OEM bumpers, which really do look pretty good, with urethane parts.

I've actually bought a few, and Lee/Javageek/Socks have seen the ones I got.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BODY-KIT-JD...sQ5fAccessories

Here's the Wings West front lip...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/97-98-99-Hu...sQ5fAccessories

You know what? Looks like that might fit the RD2. Hmm, I might buy a set of these now....


You also could buy a front lip or other parts from another car and just modify it as needed to fit yours. If you can find something the right width, a bit of sanding could be all you need to get stuff to line up. This is one from the GK.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/TIBURON-03-...sQ5fAccessories

Many others told me for ages I should do the above, and I have come to agree with them.

'treezy

If you can source an ATH lip kit they are not not fibreglass (urethane), and a stock F2 evolution bumper won't be fiberglass either (but will have the euro license plate blank instead of shaved like the fibreglass reproductions).