wat up guys, after you buy the body kit, where do you go to have it painted and installed, you can't do it yourself can you? Can you guys give me estimates of how much the painting and the installation cost?

 

wow those are some hard questions.does the kit need work ?
man it could get expensive or could be very simple.
your best bet is to take it to a local bodyshop that has worked on
show cars,import cars etc.im sure you get the picture.

 

You're suppose to take the kit to the autobody paint shop and get a quote on how much it would be to prep/paint/place the kit on your car. Could be good, could be bad. Expect at least another $600 for this job though.

If you want to go cheap, you can just paint the kit yourself with some cheesy paint, install it yourself... and bamn, save some money.

I'm surprised you got a bodykit without realizing that you would have to pay for the cost of paint and installation for it. It's like buying a new car, and asking people whether you have to put gas in it to make it run or not.

 

I don't know that he has anything, except the car.

 

wow... u shouldve researched this BEFORE u bought the car. kits are expensive but putting it on is also REALLy expensive... if you have an extra 500 bucks laying around then i guess you can go paint it and install it. It would suck if you had that kit on the floor juss rotting while ur working to save up money to install and paint it.

 

So normally, 500 is enough for paint and installation rite?

 

Depends on your local autobody shop. It can be from 500-1000. I wouldn't trust people that I don't know personally and pay them 500 for a body kit install... most likely it'll end up all out of angle and bad paint job.

 

My suggestion would be to take it to a reputable body shop, such as a hot rod paint shop. Those guys know their body work. If you lived in Houston, there are tons of places I can refer you to .

 

If it is a complete kit and you want a good job then you are looking at between 1,250.00-1,750.00 and that is if the parts are good quality... The paint alone for all the parts would run about 750.00-1,000.00... I would be very suprised if a shop would do it for 500.00 and do a good job...

 

Veilside D1 GT skirts = £186 (at cost price) to paint = roughly $340 at a reputable bodyshop here in the UK.

My spoiler = £111 to paint = roughly $200

The front bumper has been quoted at ~ £300 - so about $500

None of that includes fitting, I did the prep work myself, but the fitting for the skirts is going to be another £200ish as its an all day job to get right, I may fit the bumper myself - will see how it goes at the weekend with the test fitting.

So all in for front, side and spoiler ~= $1000 for paint
And about $500 to fit.

 

where did you get the body kit from?

 

It seems to me that with all this extra cost of painting and installation required for other body kits that the Mazdaspeed kit really isn't all that unreasonably priced, no?

 

The MS kit is actually a pretty good deal when you consider quality and finish... The paint on it is really nice and it fits perfectly... Also when you go to sell the car it is an original OEM part so it helps for resale...

 

Agree cortec, although I'm seriously impressed with the INGs stuff so far, will see how it fits, but quality wise its leagues ahead of Veilside - i'm really not that impressed with the Veilside stuff at all - thought it would be good with them being a well known company. But now that MS kit is down to a reasonable price, its probably about the same cost as the rest.

 

one thing i hate about bodyshops is can you trust them especially with a rx-8. I heard of people test driving people's cars when they drop it off at the shop for some work.

 

I've been getting the parts sent to the bodyshop and then fitted at the dealers, so they don't need to take the car to the shop.

Also, reset the second trip counter, leaving the first one on view, that way you can check how far they have gone, usually about 5-10 miles after something that needs a road test, but for parts to be fitted, should be < 1 mile!

I complained when 30 miles had been put on, and a LOT of petrol had gone, got the work done for free !!!

 

Thanks for the input guys, anyone know any places they could recommend for the chicagoland area? one more thing, does anyone know if you need to do anything like cut a piece off the back of your 8 for the veilside version 1 rear piece to fit in? thanks

 

Do a search in this forum for veilside ver1, someone put one on a few months back - I *think* it does need some cutting of the rear bumper, as does the D1 GT rear, and possibly from memory the MS rear also.