Originally Posted by Matrx8

First of all, I purchased this kit online. Notice that it is not Extreme Dimensions. When I got the body kit I looked it over and it seemed fine to my untrained eye. It had some scratches etc but surely the body shop can just fix that right? However, I noticed the little ED sticker on the inside of one of the bumpers and I said "oh ****" because I've heard a lot of people including RL friends saying stay away from ED.

I emailed the vendor asking why they sent me a ED kit instead of the Vfiber kit I bought. They basically said that they found ED makes the best quality kit of that body style (yeah right) and if I have any problems blah blah blah.

A few days later I had a friend help me take it down to the body shop with his truck. [understatement] In hindsight, with 30-40 MPH winds and the bumpers not being tied down, that was probably a bad decision. [/understatement] The rear bumper flew out of the truck at 50MPH, hit the highway and preceded to blow to the other side of the 2 lane highway (thank God it didn't hit anyone). One of the corners was destroyed and it had road rash out the wazoo, but hopefully the guy at the shop can fix it. Needless to say I was a little irritated. Just a little.

When we finally got to the shop after tieing them down with jumper cables (yes, jumper cables) because the gas station nearby only sold junk food and beer, the guy basically told me that not only could he not fix the broken bumper, but even the pieces that WERE 'undamaged' were completely worthless. He said they would undoubtedly not fit right, there would be gaps, it wouldn't be smooth etc. He had me look at the bumper of my car and said "You want THIS bumper to look like that right? It won't. It's going to look horrible. The PAINT will look great but the bumper itself will have waves and gaps and bumps and scratches and there's nothing I can do about it."

I had him throw the entire body kit in the dumpster on the spot. Not just because one of the bumpers was damaged, but I love my 8 far too much to put anything la moitié cul on it (pardon my french). He also said that if I want to get a body kit that looks nice I would be paying a custom body shop 5K+ for purchase, shipping, installation and painting of a REAL body kit. Not only that, insurance doesn't cover it unless you ask them to (They'll charge you more), it does not increase the value of the car, and if god forbid you should ever hit anything, the damage will probably be irreparable and will have to be completely replaced.

Yes, I am out 6 or 700 bucks, but like the guy said, at least he told me because there's a lot of shops out there that will say "Yeah we can put it on for you", charge you an arm and a leg to get it looking half way decent but just not good enough, then when you say "WTF is this, it looks like crap" they say "That's the bumper you gave us to work with, where's my money?". Was that a run on sentence?

EDIT: update March 20 2012

Originally Posted by eltoffo

What´s the name of that front and rear bumper? is there any replica to be aware of?

Originally Posted by dxjp

Not to bump and old thread but to give some insight.

I spent almost 20 years in japan building cars. I have worked with, been sponsored by some of the top brands in Japan. There are just as many knock off kits in Japan as there are in the states. They blatantly advertise all the time, and fit about as good as what you get in the states. I have used all the top brands, and to tell the truth some of them fit like crap, and or need a ton of work to look good.

Some are way over priced crap, some are great with a good value to quality, and some are just "why did I bother". Remember japan took a hard hit during the down turn. A lot of manufactures went cheeper material, to china, philippines, or same stuff with a higher price. If you think modding a car in the states is expensive, see what we get for a build in japan.

Originally Posted by Matrx8

You're going to make an oil prince very happy.