Sunday, January 8, 2012

Front Bumper and Front Spoiler

When I bought the car it was missing the "front spoiler", which bolts to the underside of the front bumper.  A Porsche replacement part is over $500, so that's out of the question.  I found the "Special Edition" front spoiler on Pelican Parts for $98.95.  The descripion says

"Originally used on the Limited Edition 914s, this front spoiler will make a great addition to your 914."

Not a lot of detail, but the picture on the web site shows a black-colored spoiler, looking good, so I went ahead and ordered it a few weeks ago.  I was hoping it was metal, but if not, then hard rubber would be OK.


When it arrived, I was very disappointed.  First, it's made of fiberglass which it doesn't say on the web site.  Second it came with a skim coat of white body filler.


Here you can see the terrible job done by the manufacturer in the finishing stage.  It appears they expect buyers to do the final body filler / sanding / priming / painting / clear coating steps.  This is not mentioned on the web site.


I could handle all that, but when I took it out to the car, it was about 3" too short to reach from one side of the front fender to the other.  It's pretty stiff so I wasn't comfortable with trying to bend it into shape, to get 3" of extra width out of it.  To summarize: it's fiberglass, it came unfinished, and it's 3" too small.  So tomorrow I'll call Pelican and get an RMA to send it back.  I get to pay shipping two ways on this oversize box, but it's just not what I'm looking for.

Since I'm not going to use a front spoiler at this time, I bolted the bumper back in place and mounted the fog light frames.

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