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Well I took a gamble about a year ago on a eBay splitter and tried to have a shop install it. Basically they claimed it was China crap and would not fit.
The seller claims they are installing it wrong and the bumper should be removed and installed while not on the car.
Before I buy an RW Carbon one can the eBay one actually fit properly if the bumper is removed or is this a load of horse ****? I'd hate to throw it away without trying but if it's trash I'd rather not waste the time.
12 C63BS Magno Alanite Grey, 25 X5 Msport, 08 BMW E93, Ducati Hyper 698
If you remove your bumper it is flexible and of course bend to bit to the lip the. Good luck getting the bent out of shape bumper to fit the car. They are right that fits like china junk.
Looks like you should be able to compress both pieces together using some bolts and washers.
Did you ask the shop how they want to install it? Maybe they're just trying to install it with 3M tape only, that's a big no-no for front splitters. At high speeds that could fly off easily.
The proper way to install it would be to drill and bolt the bumper and splitter together using bolts and washers with Loctite. You can also add some 3M tape between both pieces to help seal the gaps better and add some strength against vibrations.
I'm pretty sure RW Carbon parts are made in China as well. I have their rear diffuser and I had to remove the bumper to drill and bolt it in place to seal the gaps.
They are all twisted slightly, but flexible so easy to manipulate. Take the bumper off and you'll get it to fit much more correctly, the flexibility between the two will help get things aligned. Use a silicone adhesive and some screws where they wont show to help tie it together. I also use a few small clamps the help align mine when I did it on my '14. It's much easier to do after taking off the bumper, even if a lift is available.
This has been covered somewhere along the way, this was the advice from my digging a few years ago before my install.
Remove the bumper and provide the splitter to a reputable body shop and they'll make it work. Have seen many AK style lips up close from an array of vendors, Darwin pro or Boca going forward.
If you don't intend on removing you can utilize windshield glue/epoxy to dodge hardware holes for a factory finish
2012 P31 C63 Coupe Trackrat, 2019 GLE63S Coupe Beast
They’re all made in the same places and all roughly the same quality. Although I will say that Matt from RW gets excellent stuff, his QC is light years beyond the standard eBay stuff. With that said, yes the bumper needs to come off to get it to fit properly. I use a combination of nuts/bolts on the corners and stainless self-tapping screws across the front, with a thick bead of silicone adhesive across the whole thing then clamped in place overnight. Any competent body shop will know how to do it correctly, it’s not difficult.
Ok at the risk of seeming stupid I'm attempting to passively straighten the splitter. It's not as stiff as I remembered, it does flex when I push down on it so I'm confident it can be fit to the bumper, however I prefer not to install it under tension.
It has about an 1-1/2" of deflection, using some dumbells to flatten it and hoping the Hawaiian sun will basically gently soften up the fiberglass over one week. I've read on some other forums that these warp from improper storage and some others had a degree of success resetting the shape by using jigs or weights in the sun or with heatguns. After I'll remove the bumper, install with well nuts and silicone then clamp overnight while the silicone sets.
So install successful. Thanks to everyone for your suggestion, y'all basically saved me 500 dollars. It definitely wasn't perfect, I needed to use a Dremel to cut some to fit and there are still some small gaps but overall it looks good enough for me.
Installed with well nuts and self tappers. Used clamps to get everything lined up. Took about 3 hours and cursing but it's in there.
Last edited by DarkMirror; Sep 9, 2023 at 11:14 PM.
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