Front lip fell off on hwy, installed by Lotus Autobody..

[AVS_Racing]

btw I've had my fenders shaved at Lotus, and I've not had any problems so far. and in terms of warranty unless you know the owner real well or its under ICBC theres pretty much nothing you can do about it. Considering you are scraping your lip all day every day, it falling off eventually or at least having some sort of damage is pretty much expected.

[Limitless]

Originally Posted by falcon

So I skimmed the post because i didn't feel like reading an essay but from the jist of it, you saw problems from the get go, and didn't bring it up and do something about it? Falls off months later? No one to blame but yourself. I would have brought the issue up immediately and dealt with the manager. The rub marks are of course going to happen when you install a lip on your bumper. It's happened to my cars before and it's part of adding something to a painted surface. Unless the entire lip was bolted/glued on it will rub like that, and let me guess if they would have bolted it on with more hardware/glue, you'd be mad that they glued onto your paint, right?

There's only 2 people that I ever see working there, one is Andrew who deals with practically everything and another one is this older fellow who I only see deal with paperwork/computer things. The older fellow didn't seem to know anything, he just told me to talk to Andrew about any concerns I had.
But no, if he would have asked me if I was okay with siliconing/gluing I would have 0 problem at all. I actually asked him to glue the rear, and I would have preferred if he would have glued the front. I should have asked for that though, admitting fault on my part. But I would assume that if he mounted a lip and say that it's okay, that it would not fly off.

Originally Posted by Lomac

Just to play devil's advocate here... Three months after installing a front lip, I'm surprised at any shop that would offer any sort of guarantee on it. To look at it from the shop's point of view, you could have hung the lip on a concrete barrier while parking and ripped the screws part way out in the process. This could have caused the lip to fall off while at speed. (Hell, I don't even have a front lip on my car and my front bumper rubs on pretty much everything I come across. I'm positive any sort of lip I'd put on would be torn off within a week. )

BTW, I'm not saying this happened; it's merely a view that a body shop may take.

It's one thing to warranty body work or a paint job as it's pretty easy to tell when something is a result of poor workmanship or from the driver's lack of judgment. However, a front lip is subject to a lot of things and can be easily affected by the smallest of them all.


That said, two screws and a patch of 3M tape does seem a little sketchy...

Thank you. I understand where you are coming from, it's not fair for me to push all the blame onto the bodyshop, but I think they should have at least taken some responsibility for the way they mounted it.

Originally Posted by AVS_Racing

btw I've had my fenders shaved at Lotus, and I've not had any problems so far. and in terms of warranty unless you know the owner real well or its under ICBC theres pretty much nothing you can do about it. Considering you are scraping your lip all day every day, it falling off eventually or at least having some sort of damage is pretty much expected.

Yeah, it's completely up to the shop for what they want to do after payment has been made. I know that I pretty much won't be able to get anything from them or anything else simply because of the way the situation is... The shop doesn't think it's their fault, and it's not worth it to make an ICBC claim. Thought about small claims but that apparently takes 2 years or something and $550 is a pretty small amount..? I am not scraping my lip everyday though, I hardly scrape my lip at all after I had it checked by him. I'm not actually that low..

To get things clear;
-I have NOT scraped the lip at all since I took my car out of storage a week or two ago. I do NOT normally scrape because I know what I can clear and what I cannot
-I got the lip checked by him and I asked more than twice if it was okay to keep running. Since then I have NOT scraped the lip hard in any way, and if I had it was only a handful of times all of which were VERY minor scrapes. I only ran the car for a few weeks after I had the lip checked, and within those weeks I have definitely not scraped more than 8 times. None of them were hard at all, just slow (~1km/h, no aggressive contact) and light grazing (yes I also realize that this will affect the fitment of the lip)
-The thing is he checked the lip and told me to run it and come back only when the two screws fell off. Well the screws fell off on the highway, I know this for a fact. The lip also fell off with it.

Seems to be a lot of repeating false accusations... I do not scrape my lip often at all.

[Bender Unit]

Didn't you take your bumper off while in storage?
Swapping headlights in your Member's Journal thread
Was the Lip installed or not?

[Limitless]

Yes I took my bumper off during storage, I hung it on this little coat rack thing on wheels that I had. The lip was still on the bumper, the lip and the bumper both never touched the ground. Went straight off my car and straight onto the coat rack thing where it was hung up. I made sure that the lip didn't touch anything when it was on the rack either

[Limitless]

In case anyone is wondering what's going on... I bought some fiberglass repair resin today and my friend, who's a life saver, helped me put on a few coats and the hole is now covered. Going to sand it down smooth tomorrow and then figure out if I want to paint it or just leave it... Then comes the issue of how to remount it so it won't fall off. For now though I am super happy that the lip is saved, incredibly incredibly incredibly grateful that my friend was able to help me fix it. The scratches will still be at the bottom, but it won't be easily seen unless the car is on a lift or something hopefully. I also won't have to spend another few hundred to buy a new lip

[dared3vil0]

Limitless, I'd paint it a generic "filling" primer (the kind that fills in minor scratches/blemishes etc) and plastidip it matte black, Then put two coats of silver metalizer on it, Then 3 coats of Gloss clear. Just an idea.

[Splinter]

Originally Posted by Limitless

By this time I had scraped the lip pretty badly because of my ride height

Originally Posted by Limitless

Seems to be a lot of repeating false accusations... I do not scrape my lip often at all.

so... yea

[extracrunchie]

I installed my ASPEC Lip kit myself and majority of it was with 3m tape and a couple of screws from factory.

But I was real careful with installing and make sure to rub alcohol on my bumper so the 3m can adhere and bond.

Hopefully you get some justice.

[ilvtofu]

Originally Posted by Limitless

Yes I took my bumper off during storage, I hung it on this little coat rack thing on wheels that I had. The lip was still on the bumper, the lip and the bumper both never touched the ground. Went straight off my car and straight onto the coat rack thing where it was hung up. I made sure that the lip didn't touch anything when it was on the rack either

If you really had doubts about the way the lip was mounted and you had the bumper off, why wouldn't you reinforce the way it was mounted just to cover your own ass. I know it's a little "would've, could've, should've", but I would've seen that as a really convenient opportunity to address a known issue and honestly would've taken little to no time/effort.

[Limitless]

Originally Posted by dared3vil0

Limitless, I'd paint it a generic "filling" primer (the kind that fills in minor scratches/blemishes etc) and plastidip it matte black, Then put two coats of silver metalizer on it, Then 3 coats of Gloss clear. Just an idea.

Thanks for the idea I'm still not sure on what to do about it but appreciate the suggestion. Might just leave it since all the damage is on the bottom of the lip and you don't see it when it's on the car..

Originally Posted by Splinter

so... yea

I scraped it when I first got it installed, because it was lower than just my stock bumper. Maybe I wasn't too clear on my last few posts, sorry. It was scraped pretty hard when I first got it, which is why I brought it back to the shop to get him to check it out to see if it is still mounted on okay. He said it was, and there's nothing he could have done about it and to come back if the screws fall out. After I got him to check it, I have not scraped it often at all. Some people are making it sound like I scrape every single day, when I don't. I have scraped hard on it, but that was within the first few months, and before I got it checked. After the day I brought it back to the shop, it was on the road for a few weeks before it was garaged. During that time, I have barely scraped it at all.

Originally Posted by extracrunchie

I installed my ASPEC Lip kit myself and majority of it was with 3m tape and a couple of screws from factory.

But I was real careful with installing and make sure to rub alcohol on my bumper so the 3m can adhere and bond.

Hopefully you get some justice.

I'm not sure if my bumper was cleaned or not, but when I had previous lips installed on previous cars I would see at least 2 screws on each side, and tape all around. Not this time :/ Thanks man

Originally Posted by ilvtofu

If you really had doubts about the way the lip was mounted and you had the bumper off, why wouldn't you reinforce the way it was mounted just to cover your own ass. I know it's a little "would've, could've, should've", but I would've seen that as a really convenient opportunity to address a known issue and honestly would've taken little to no time/effort.

I really had doubts but I dismissed them after I went back to get Andrew to check it, and he said it was completely fine. That was stupid of me I guess, to trust a shady bodyshop when it was clearly not okay, I know that now. Back then though, I didn't have a lot of experience with mounting lips (I still don't) and I thought that if a bodyshop who has mounted millions of lips said it would hold, then it should hold.
Would've, could've, should've, I know that now. My bumpers pretty easy to take off, this time if I try to mount it myself I will be taking it off and putting locking nuts behind the bolts

[epicbeardman]

should have PM'd arrash. that dude could has MAD duct taping skills.

[blakgtp]

Originally Posted by sdubfid

I know money must be tight as a student driving a 370z.

I chuckled.

[Limitless]

Originally Posted by blakgtp

I chuckled.

Care to elaborate?
Posted via RS Mobile

[BrRsn]

How are you going to reattach it now, limitless?

I'm not sure how the bottom of a 370Z bumper looks but if you got a good surface to work with don't use screws. Do yourself a favor and get a rivet gun -- all you'll need is some 3M tape (as before) and rivets to really lock it all together.

Usually, for any body panels I just put on 3M tape, and put rivets/screws through it so it compresses the tape between the 2 surfaces and makes it super strong/tight

[westopher]

I didn't read the whole thing, but I'll add a couple of discontinued pennies. It sucks the install wasn't great, but, if they were going to go with a sturdier way of doing it, it would have taken a lot more work, and in the process you would have a mangled bumper if you ever went sans lip. When they said thy wouldn't tighten the screws, next time say, I don't care, tighten them. You got screwed by some lazy staff, but you have to protect yourself too, and you should have been smart enough to know that when your lip thats held with 2 screws have no threads left its not going to be good. Its like if a shop saw your lug nuts were loose and gave you some stupid excuse, and you went on your way not worrying about it.
The real thing here is, your car is low, and you got a big front lip. Your front got lower. Anyone with experience driving low cars knows, lips are disposable. They are always gonna get dragged, and gonna scrape through eventually, and I guarantee that wear through the lip was probably 90% worn there before that lip got dropped off. Sometimes with parts you gotta be willing to say fuck it with them and just fix it with zip ties or buy a new one. Nice to see you already got it figured out and saved it though.

[Limitless]

Originally Posted by dhillon09

How are you going to reattach it now, limitless?

I'm not sure how the bottom of a 370Z bumper looks but if you got a good surface to work with don't use screws. Do yourself a favor and get a rivet gun -- all you'll need is some 3M tape (as before) and rivets to really lock it all together.

Usually, for any body panels I just put on 3M tape, and put rivets/screws through it so it compresses the tape between the 2 surfaces and makes it super strong/tight

Still trying to figure that out :/ I'm not too sure but I want to silicone or glue this thing onto my bumper. I am thinking about 3m taping it, then putting silicone in the gaps and also using nuts and bolts on the corners and also bolt it from underneath onto the bumper as well. I have never used rivets before but it seems like a number of people keep recommending them so I will spend some time tomorrow looking into it I am just really worried about drilling into the cf, last thing I need is my lip to crack some more :s

Originally Posted by westopher

I didn't read the whole thing, but I'll add a couple of discontinued pennies. It sucks the install wasn't great, but, if they were going to go with a sturdier way of doing it, it would have taken a lot more work, and in the process you would have a mangled bumper if you ever went sans lip. When they said thy wouldn't tighten the screws, next time say, I don't care, tighten them. You got screwed by some lazy staff, but you have to protect yourself too, and you should have been smart enough to know that when your lip thats held with 2 screws have no threads left its not going to be good. Its like if a shop saw your lug nuts were loose and gave you some stupid excuse, and you went on your way not worrying about it.
The real thing here is, your car is low, and you got a big front lip. Your front got lower. Anyone with experience driving low cars knows, lips are disposable. They are always gonna get dragged, and gonna scrape through eventually, and I guarantee that wear through the lip was probably 90% worn there before that lip got dropped off. Sometimes with parts you gotta be willing to say fuck it with them and just fix it with zip ties or buy a new one. Nice to see you already got it figured out and saved it though.

I was hoping for the lip to last, and after seeing the results of the lip dragging through the ground, the lip was only about 20% worn (minus the damage from the lip falling off). I guess it's really thick, because after being dragged on the ground from 120km/h till 0, one side had completely sheered off but the other side had about 10% or 20% of material left holding it together. My scrapes from speedbumps, compared to this was next to nothing. I did fiberglass the damage and sanded it down so now it's sturdy again What I thought were hard scrapes turned out to be not too much damage to the lip itself. Hopefully now if I can find a way to mount it on sturdy, it'll last me for a long time. I don't have the money to keep buying new lips Thank you for the advice though, lesson well learned

[kouki_monster]

Originally Posted by Limitless

@blueg2 I paid $150 for the install of the front lip and sides, yes it was a cash deal so he didnt give me a receipt even though I asked for one. You get what you pay for I guess..

Posted via RS Mobile

Not to be a dick or anything but there's your problem lol. You buy a 24k car, I would hope that you would spend over $150 to get two pretty big aesthetic components on your car installed. I'm sure this is redundant now but spending a bit more could have definitely saved the headache, I wouldn't even bother going back to the shop to dispute with the cash deal you made with them.

Love the car and the route of mods you went with it though and hope everything ends well. Definitely feel for you since I had a front bumper painted / installed by a shop through a cheap cash deal and they ended up scratching my passenger fender a bit during install, but again I didn't even bother disputing or anything since I knew what I was getting into with the price I was paying

[BrRsn]

Originally Posted by Limitless

Still trying to figure that out :/ I'm not too sure but I want to silicone or glue this thing onto my bumper. I am thinking about 3m taping it, then putting silicone in the gaps and also using nuts and bolts on the corners and also bolt it from underneath onto the bumper as well. I have never used rivets before but it seems like a number of people keep recommending them so I will spend some time tomorrow looking into it I am just really worried about drilling into the cf, last thing I need is my lip to crack some more :s



I was hoping for the lip to last, and after seeing the results of the lip dragging through the ground, the lip was only about 20% worn (minus the damage from the lip falling off). I guess it's really thick, because after being dragged on the ground from 120km/h till 0, one side had completely sheered off but the other side had about 10% or 20% of material left holding it together. My scrapes from speedbumps, compared to this was next to nothing. I did fiberglass the damage and sanded it down so now it's sturdy again What I thought were hard scrapes turned out to be not too much damage to the lip itself. Hopefully now if I can find a way to mount it on sturdy, it'll last me for a long time. I don't have the money to keep buying new lips Thank you for the advice though, lesson well learned

rivets are like a nut and washer without the two parts. you wouldn't have to squeeze a socket in behind your bumper. all you do is drill holes, use a rivet gun to put in the rivet and it becomes more or less permanent and shouldn't work its way out like a screw. also the head of a rivet is pretty small whereas a nut and washer would stick out a lot and be scraped.



sorry for retardesque grammar ... damn phone

[VR6GTI]

Originally Posted by kouki_monster

Not to be a dick or anything but there's your problem lol. You buy a 24k car, I would hope that you would spend over $150 to get two pretty big aesthetic components on your car installed.

You cant really blame him if the shop quoted him $150 to install the parts properly, what was he suppose to do say he is willing to pay more? Unless he was quoted like $300 and tried beating him down on the price.

[blakgtp]

Originally Posted by Limitless

Care to elaborate?
Posted via RS Mobile

simply stating that If one can afford a 370z, money can't be all that tight.

[prelude_prince]

Originally Posted by VR6GTI

You cant really blame him if the shop quoted him $150 to install the parts properly, what was he suppose to do say he is willing to pay more? Unless he was quoted like $300 and tried beating him down on the price.

lol what. am I fu cking old or something? $150 is cheap now to install a lip now? How much are you guys paying to install a lip nowadays ? :X

edit oh wait, I see 150 for the lip AND sides. Yeah that's pretty cheap ;x

[boibuddha]

For the $150 you spent, you couldn't be expecting more than a couple hours of work put into your car.

Keep in mind that it that it took more than an hour to remove and replace my front OEM lip:
- remove front bumper (to access mounting hardware)
- R&R the 9-10 nuts & bolts using hand tools
- replace the bumper and line it back up

The MAIN question of this is did you want a permanent install?

If you weren't asked, a tape and screw install is the least damaging way to install the lip (body shop protecting themselves so you can't claim that they butchered your bumper). It does sound like the mounting hardware was inadequate though.

Rivets are better than self-tapping screws (2mm tall threads) but only minutely. The only advantage I can see is the option to R&R the lip multiple times without damaging the mounting hole further. The screws will hold onto the plastic bumper just was well as the rivets if not better.

Even if you wanted a proper permanent install, there are numerous steps that would have to be followed (and $150 couldn't buy, plus damage to the bumpers):
- R&R of the front and rear bumper (~2h)
- Determining where to drill/how many holes to mount the lips (30m) (This is critical when dealing with brittle materials!)
- Drilling & mounting the lips (~2h)
- Mounting the skirts (1.5h)

The loose skirt issue is due to the quality of the parts, period. The shop added screws because they felt the manufacturer's mounting hardware was insufficient. The side skirts of the EK civic are held on with 4 clips each side and a couple of screw clips. Even with those screws removed, the skirts were on there pretty solidly.

I am in no way involved with the body shop in question, I am looking at the situation as a shop owner.

- Re-install the "scraped" lip (which could have warped the mounting hole where the screw was holding and detached from the tape)? Depends on the owner.
- Half the cost of a $600 lip and hours of my time for a $150 job? No way.
- Repair the lip and remount it? Probably not.


Shitty situation, but at the end of the day it comes down to "You gotta pay to play".
You could save yourself some coin by R&R your bumpers yourself (~2h worth of work, depending on the car). I like what you have done to the car. Best of luck to you.

[Eff-1]

Originally Posted by blakgtp

simply stating that If one can afford a 370z, money can't be all that tight.

A fully modded 370z AND a winter beater EG civic

[GG]

OWNED

[Limitless]

Originally Posted by blakgtp

simply stating that If one can afford a 370z, money can't be all that tight.

Ah, okay lol just didn't really understand your post earlier

Originally Posted by boibuddha

For the $150 you spent, you couldn't be expecting more than a couple hours of work put into your car.

Keep in mind that it that it took more than an hour to remove and replace my front OEM lip:
- remove front bumper (to access mounting hardware)
- R&R the 9-10 nuts & bolts using hand tools
- replace the bumper and line it back up

The MAIN question of this is did you want a permanent install?

If you weren't asked, a tape and screw install is the least damaging way to install the lip (body shop protecting themselves so you can't claim that they butchered your bumper). It does sound like the mounting hardware was inadequate though.

Rivets are better than self-tapping screws (2mm tall threads) but only minutely. The only advantage I can see is the option to R&R the lip multiple times without damaging the mounting hole further. The screws will hold onto the plastic bumper just was well as the rivets if not better.

Even if you wanted a proper permanent install, there are numerous steps that would have to be followed (and $150 couldn't buy, plus damage to the bumpers):
- R&R of the front and rear bumper (~2h)
- Determining where to drill/how many holes to mount the lips (30m) (This is critical when dealing with brittle materials!)
- Drilling & mounting the lips (~2h)
- Mounting the skirts (1.5h)

The loose skirt issue is due to the quality of the parts, period. The shop added screws because they felt the manufacturer's mounting hardware was insufficient. The side skirts of the EK civic are held on with 4 clips each side and a couple of screw clips. Even with those screws removed, the skirts were on there pretty solidly.

I am in no way involved with the body shop in question, I am looking at the situation as a shop owner.

- Re-install the "scraped" lip (which could have warped the mounting hole where the screw was holding and detached from the tape)? Depends on the owner.
- Half the cost of a $600 lip and hours of my time for a $150 job? No way.
- Repair the lip and remount it? Probably not.


Shitty situation, but at the end of the day it comes down to "You gotta pay to play".
You could save yourself some coin by R&R your bumpers yourself (~2h worth of work, depending on the car). I like what you have done to the car. Best of luck to you.

Thank you. I have just started mounting my lip on today, and will finish tomorrow. So far it took about 45 minutes or so to put it on. Used 3m tape all around, silicone all around, and also 2 locking nuts and bolts on the corner. Going to spend another hour or two tomorrow making brackets and sticking atleast 4 more bolts and nuts on the bottom of the lip. Tried using rivets but then it didn't go that well... Learned that you do get what you pay for, but I've also learned that the more expensive shops aren't always the better quality ones :/

Originally Posted by Eff-1

A fully modded 370z AND a winter beater EG civic

Don't want to get into too much detail financially, but my 370z is still in the works haha. It was bought 2nd hand, 2009 and about 23k, and still paying it off. My EG was bought for 1k, slightly worked on, and sold for about 2.3k which is how much I bought my beater dc2 for

Originally Posted by Tequilabomb

OWNED

Lol.. grow up