New Wings West kits poor quality!

[Jeff A]

I bought one of those new Wings West body kits recently, and took it to a good body shop to get it painted. They called me up and asked me to come there to meet about it. There are serious quality problems with it, especially with the spats. There are repairs obviously made at the factory, there are mismatched seams, "flashing" beads running down seams, and gouges. These problems are worst on the spats, and somewhat on the skirts. The front air dam was reasonable.

There was also no mounting hardware, and no instructions. Dali was nice enough to supply instructions for the old model of the kit (made in Mexico), so that helps to some degree.

The body shop said that urethane is very difficult to sand in order to remove deep imperfections without causing really bad scratching. It's going to cost about $500 to get it done due to the extra labor.

Anyone else experience this with theirs? I did get one of the earliest sets.

As for paint, to go with no clear coat ("single stage" as they call it), it was $100 per quart for good paint in the stock formula red color. This is turning into quite a project...

Jeff

 

[stacy'snsx]

I had one of the early models(the too long ones).I wasn't happy with the fit,that is why I build and sell my own style.I gotta say this though,alot of NSX's have the Wings West.It is a very affordable kit compared to the rest,so the money you save may have to be spent on bodywork.The bottom line is,if it's the look you are after and it hasn't busted your bank account,then you've done well!!
Good luck I hope all works out for you in the end.
Stacy

 

[ChrisK]

I believe the fitment was always on the sub par side. Not bad, but not the greatest eaither. Just as you said, the front spoiler seems to be okay, the side skirts has some fitment problems and was long on one side, and the rear spats had the most problems. For my side skirts I too had the long one and I actually ground it down a bit on each side to make it look more seamless to the cars fender. It came out pretty good. I also carved out a groove patter in the shape of the front and rear mudgards so when you screw the mudgards back on it sits flush, if not a little inset on the new skirts. I also had to and out imperfections in mine. As for scratches the sanding leaves behind it wasn't too bug of a deal since the body shop just used a high build primmer, sanded that, then painted it and it came out nice and smooth. Over all, I still say it was worth it for me because the WW kit is cheap, and I did all the labor (Except for the painting) myself so I saved a lot of money.

 

[Jeff A]

Well I got them all fixed up and painted and installed. As much as I wasn't very impressed with the raw parts, I am indeed happy with the overall results. It took a lot of careful labor to get them properly finished and properly installed. But the whole thing cost about $1,100.00 which is I guess relatively cheap for a body kit.

Here's a picture. The rear view is much more agressive than I expected. I get a lot more looks with the kit on.

Jeff

 

[jalnjr]

wings west makes a tow package too??? :tongue:
kooool!!!

 

[Jeff A]

Custom job on the trailer hitch... Look in the next issue of NSX Driver for an article on how to do it. :wink:

 

[Meeyatch1]

I have always been amazed at how Wings West could manage to sell such terribly built pieces to so many people and still have such a following. I would never subject my car (or wallet) to the Wings West kits as they just seem to require too much additional labor to fit even semi-properly.

 

[TommyP]

But.. the front lip WW makes just seems to look so right on the front...... very odd indeed.

 

[Acura NsX Pilot]

I dont know if this effects the cars with wings west in the warmer regions but every year my WW front lip paint cracks. I attribute this to the extreme cold and then warm climate which causes the urethane to shrink and expand.

 

[martin]

I dont know if this effects the cars with wings west in the warmer regions but every year my WW front lip paint cracks. I attribute this to the extreme cold and then warm climate which causes the urethane to shrink and expand.

Hi

I had many fine lines appear on my WW front lip too. They where not there when I bought it.

My theory is that because I have scraped it it has flexed and therefor the clear coating has cracked. Maybe the cold weather I have had my NSX out in also has some of the blame.

Here is a picture of the fine lines. I hope you can see them on the photo.

I do not plan to do anything at the moment with the front lip. I will scratch it again and will probably end up with the same fine lines. Some day in the future I will get the whole car repainted in about 10/15 years maybe

Regards

 

[lowdwnsteve]

wanted to bring this post back to life after I ran a search...

I bought the older style kit and wow-- what a work of art this body kit is!! LOL...
I'm not complaining too much, just was real dissapointed of how much sanding had to be done to make it fit the lines of the car.. I had to take alot of material off to get the skirts to line up around the door area.. There were alot of "chunks" that had to be filled in-- and the spats-- wow those spats fit soo well.. lol.. do they really expect the 2-sided 3m tape to hold themselves up to to the car (I'm talking about the corners on the inside).. phillips screws I suppose.
The front lip is good, though doesn't really matter, cause I can just imagine how many times It's gonna be repainted for when I curb out getting in my driveway...

So the Question I have for those of you with the WW kit : Did your body shop have problems painting them?
I got a call stating that the material Wings West uses is garbage, and that the paint will not adhere.. This was fixed by printing off the PDF file on WW site "proper painting technique" and dropping it off at the shop!!:tongue: :tongue:
The last time that body shop gets any of my business!!

 

[NSXCessive]

I bought the WW kit from Dali about 4 years ago. Poor fit and finsh here as well, I paid way to much labour to have them fitted on my car. The rear spats never lined up correctly, and the side skirts started sagging right below the vent on both Right and Left sides. If I would have known I would have had such a struggle I would have bought something else. The front lip is the only part that seem to fit perfect. I tired contacting WW about the problem, but the were no where to be found at that time. Such a crappy job by Wings West for such a premier car, I would have expected this kind of quality for a Civic, or Hyundai kit But go figure my brother's Integra was way better fit/finish than mine, how does that work?

 

[Jeff A]

Yeah, my guess is that there are so few NSXs that the numbers don't justify the rework of the molds to build a better kit.

The place I got to paint mine had to bake them 6 times before they painted them, to drive out all the old mold release oils to get the paint to stick.

I wrote up the whole process in an article that was published in the NSXCA mag NSX Driver a while ago. Here's a link to the original article (a Microsoft word file) WW Body Kit DIY Install article

Jeff

 

[lowdwnsteve]

holy-- nice article!!! I should have given that to that body shop.. anyway, I got the kit home.. and uhh.. yeah... other than the color being 10 shades darker, it looks not bad.. though, I've only got the spoiler on so far..:tongue:

To fit the sides, I took the side vents out, and drilled holes in the lower flange of the car and then into the upper flange of the sideskirts-- I could get my air drill in pretty good into the vent holes- for the front of the skirts, I did the similar scenario- pulled back the inner wheel well lining, and drilled down into the flange of the skirt.. Do they honestly expect the 3m to keep it from flyin off?? the 3m hardly sticks the body kit alone! .. anyway,,,,they will never sag... well anything is possible...:redface:

 

[lowdwnsteve]

oops-- I never looked down the article far enough-- you already covered the proper drilling/ technique--- DAMNIT!! I thought I was being the hero!! LOL :tongue:

 

[nsxpowered]

The new Wings West stuff would likely be worse then the old ones, since it is now owned by VIS. The parts could be made in China.

 

[NSXCessive]

The new Wings West stuff would likely be worse then the old ones, since it is now owned by VIS. The parts could be made in China.

Haha... probably made in some sweat shop! Is there anything we can do, maybe notify WingWest see if they are even aware of the problem(s). I mean we do own a premier sports car that is worth some good $$$ This is not a Civic! I got caught in the in between when the company closed and now owned by VIS? There was nothing I could do there wasn't any tech support for me to complain to back then...

I don't feel inclinded to repair the sagging side skirt problem, maybe I'll pick up some Stacy's side skirts? They look great!

 

[scorp965]

I had my sagging skirts repaired, total cost to me was around $60 for parts, and $200 or so for labor, they look great now:

There are two L-shaped aluminum brackets that run the length of the skirts on the bottom, install was done by Wet Works Garage in SoCal.