Beatrice wrote:Hey guys, sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been really busy with work and trying to take advantage of our economic climate by buying a house .
Anyway, I read some of the criticism in this thread, and from firsthand experience I'm going to have to both agree and disagree with some of the comments.
First off, let me say that my car is a real head-turner. People look at it no matter where I go. Now, I don't know if it's because of the car itself, the kit on it, or the superb wax job it has (haha or at least I try to make it superb), but people compliment the car all the time.
As for the scraping issue, yes, it does scrape in places a car riding at normal height shouldn't scrape. It mostly happens on driveways or curbs with moderate dips. I had a smog technician race it up the smog machine ramp and pretty much crack the crap out of the middle of the CF lip. Idiot. But all that is a non-issue because the CF lip is just that. A lip. If you don't want to scrape, then don't get the lip. And if you absolutely must have the lip, then either deal with the scraping, or get your kit modified by shaving about 2 inches off the bottom of the bumper and attaching your CF lip to that. The CF lip actually has little indents in it so that it flows with a trimmed bumper. You guys probably have no idea what that means, but I'll take some pictures soon to show you what I'm talking about. That's what I'm having them do to cut down on my scraping issues once I'm lowered.
So, verdict on the scraping: IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SCRAPE, DON'T GET THE CF LIP. If you must have the CF, then spend the extra dough and have your bodyshop trim the GTR bumper so you aren't wincing everytime your car goes over dips.
As far as the material, yes, it could have been made out of something better. Everyone knows urethane is better than fiberglass. But then it would also cost a hell of a lot more. Plus, having driven around with it, I can tell you it's pretty durable even after an a$$hole smog technician rammed it into his machine, I accidentally miscalculated a dip (which rammed the bottom of it pretty hard into the ground), and a douche hitting the rear bumper in a parking lot somewhere when I wasn't around. Plus who knows how many other little things that have happened to the kit. Even after all that, all there is to show for it is a small crack in the rear bumper where the parking lot guy hit me.
Verdict: YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. So stop crying, shell out the extra $$$, and buy a urethane kit. Or, save that money for now, and buy you a new GTR kit to replace your old F'ed up GTR kit when it's all crummy-looking. Hey, urethane starts getting crummy after a while too. Just because it's urethane doesn't mean it's going to last forever.
As for the paint, I noticed the paint job on the kit wasn't good as soon as I saw it. It looked like it wasn't prepped and was rushed. There wasn't an even coat on the kit. When I asked John about it, he admitted that the paint job wasn't the best and that they had rushed it a bit to get pictures of it into an industry catalog. I mean, come on, it only had one layer of clearcoat. That's not a professional paint job. That's like a Maaco $100 special right there. Even so, the paint is holding up fairly well. It's chipped and cracking here and there, but again, like I said, the initial paint job wasn't the best. For a crappy paint job, I think it looks damn good. Of course, I do wax the thing at least every 2 weeks, so that probably helps it.
Verdict: IF PREPPED AND PAINTED CORRECTLY, PAINT SHOULDN'T BE TOO BIG OF AN ISSUE. But the Doc is right, urethane does hold paint better. If you hit something with a fiberglass kit, the paint is bound to crack sooner or later, because fiberglass doesn't have as much give as urethane kits do. Rigidity will F paint up.
Bottom line, body kits are a mod. Like any mod, they have their pros and cons. Sure, an exhaust sounds nice and gains more power, but you're probably going to lose MPGs. Yeah, that tint looks F'ing awesome, but in some states, that awesomeness is going to cost you a fix-it ticket. Oh snap, those rims look hottt, but oh wait, now my speedo's off by a little. Same concept. Body kit is going to look nice, but you may scrape on dips or you might have to change the way you drive a little. Wait what am I talking about? The GTR kit by itself doesn't scrape. It's the CF lip that causes the scrapage. So, bottom line: IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SCRAPE, DON'T GET THE CF LIP, OR MOD IT SO THAT IT DOESN'T SCRAPE. Simple. I don't understand why everyone's crying about it.
Sorry bout the pics above^^. New pix when I have the chance.
First, congrats on buying your house!
Second, I don't think anyone was being critical simply for the sake of being critical. I think some of it was misunderstanding regarding the pieces of the kit. nissan4life pointed out the option of not getting the CF lip, which as I posted earlier is a huge thing regarding freeing up extra room if folks want to lower their car.
Third, no need to beat a dead horse regarding fiberglass vs Urethane... both can look bad if not prepped properly... but if Urethane is prepped properly, it holds paint just fine, better than fiberglass I would say. Also urethane has more flex to it, thus the ability to withstand a punch better. NOt that fiber glass isn't strong, its just that when it gives, instead of bending, it breaks!
Lastly, whether or not folks think the kit looks good is completely arbitrary to the points brought up in this discussion. I personally love the look of the kit, I loved the way it looked in person when I saw it on the blue Sedan at Buffalo Wild Wings, but eveyone may not agree. Regardless, as I stated before, I'm glad that AIT took a shot at this... and now that we know that you can get the kit without the lip to help prevent scraping issues, I think that makes it an even more attractive option. For me, the only drawback is still the fiberglass because, after owning fiberglass kts in the past, I promised myself I wouldn't do another fiberglass kit... but this front bumper is still damn sexy.
Nissan 4 LIFE wrote: Even though I have airbags, I still drive like my car is lowered since I cannot raise my bags any higher than 1/2" above stock height.
yeah, but that's just it, you can raise your car up to stock height for driving, and then drop it when you get out.... essentially, so essentially, for driving purposes your car isn't dropped. Now take your kit, drop your car down 1.5" in the front and 1" in the rear, and I'll bet your kit won't last a day until you start to phuck it up! That was the point we were making earlier! With the current parameters (i.e. GTR bumper w/ CF lip) driving with this kit on lowered springs would be a disaster... that was our point.
Jose3.5 wrote:My paint on my lip doesn't stick. If it hits something it cracks off.
once again, poor prep job.. I've seen your lip in person, and the first thing I said to myself when I saw your damaged lip was.. damn, the homie got jipped on the prep work before his lip was painted...
While driving Blake's car, I had a truck's tire blow up in front of my on the expressway while driving 70 mph... a piece of the tire hit the front of the car and scraped the paint off, but that's what it did, scrape, not chip.... that's becaus Blake's Stillen bumper was prepped correctly before it was painted!
All in all, with the new information that Nissan4life stated, I'm not downing the kit, the only complaint that I still have is the material, other than that... I hope to see some of these kits on the road sometime soon!
