Review Seibon Carbon Hood and Trunk/Spoiler
02-09-2009, 09:24 PM
#1
Seibon Carbon Hood and Trunk/Spoiler
Here is a quick review on CF products from Seibon,
Short review: I HATE Seibon products
Long review:
Hood
So I bought the TS style Seibon hood from Showstoppers and got a great deal on it, props to them. Now for the bad news, the hood does not come with any hardware. The OEM hood has studs already as a part of the hood that you tighen the nuts onto, the Seibon hood has holes to screw in new bolts. Now the hood itself comes with wood planks screwed into the hinge points so that it can be shipped without putting pressure on the tips of the hood. DO NOT REUSE THE BOLTS to mount on your car. When we were mounting the hood, a buddy accidently screwed in the bolt too far and cracked the resin. Since there were no bolts included and no further instructions, this is the way we thought it needed to be done.
Once the hood is on, the fitment is horrible. The biggest issue (as you will see in other photos on this forum) is the center of the hood above the grille bows and does not sit flush with the body, allowing you to stick you fingers through. Since the latches are on either side of the hood, you cant pull the hood down any further to mitigate this problem.
Trunk
The trunk is where the weight savings are! I did not weight either the oem or the CF, but you can tell by lifting them on and off the car that the cf is way lighter (as opposed to the hood which really felt the same weight). The trunk requires cutting to allow the spoiler (or chrome piece), camera, and 3rd brake light (if applicable) to be mounted. The trunk requires some...playing with to get the fitment to a point where it doesnt look like a special ed 3rd grader did it. The trunk bows outward around the drivers side tail light but on the passenger side it fits better. In order to combat some of the misfitment (and to make it easier to close the trunk) you should remove the dampers that prop the trunk up, simple to remove as they snap onto ball joints. If you plan on putting the carpet liner back on, then be prepared to leave off the emergency trunk latch as the pre drilled holes are about 1/4" off (the two holes are drilled too far apart) and wont let you install the latch. All the other clips go on fine and the carpet covers the Seibon logo...
Spoiler
It seems im the first person who got the spoiler and who also has the camera. The Spoiler is hollow... there are no OEM mounting points (OEM has 3 bolts, plus two clips that go into the spoiler and it is all sealed with 3M double sided tape). So for a piece of CF that costs $350+ you get a twisted piece of crap. I had it installed by a professional body shop who has worked on many tuner cars and has delt with CF a lot. He couldnt keep one side flush without the otherside not fitting right. Seibon's answer was to "play with it". Don't get me wrong, I know CF is difficult, but please tell me how you justify charging someone so much money for something that doesnt come close to working out of the box. The spoiler had to be mounted via glue/resin which is noticable from the outside. If you have a camera, you need to make your own mount since there is no place to mount a camera like the OEM. This wasnt explained to me when i bought the part. The spoiler does not come with a template to drill the camera hole, and therefore you're on your own with that. The 3rd brake light doesn not sit flush, BUT! hardware is included to mount it.
I will take some close up pictures to show you all what im talking about, but I am seriously against buying anything related to Seibon in the future! You really get what you pay for, so if you want CF for the look (which I assume you do) then spend the extra amount and get a well built product from Top Secret or something like that.
I really dont have anything positive to say about these products so if this has turned into a rant, i hope you can see why!
Short review: I HATE Seibon products
Long review:
Hood
So I bought the TS style Seibon hood from Showstoppers and got a great deal on it, props to them. Now for the bad news, the hood does not come with any hardware. The OEM hood has studs already as a part of the hood that you tighen the nuts onto, the Seibon hood has holes to screw in new bolts. Now the hood itself comes with wood planks screwed into the hinge points so that it can be shipped without putting pressure on the tips of the hood. DO NOT REUSE THE BOLTS to mount on your car. When we were mounting the hood, a buddy accidently screwed in the bolt too far and cracked the resin. Since there were no bolts included and no further instructions, this is the way we thought it needed to be done.
Once the hood is on, the fitment is horrible. The biggest issue (as you will see in other photos on this forum) is the center of the hood above the grille bows and does not sit flush with the body, allowing you to stick you fingers through. Since the latches are on either side of the hood, you cant pull the hood down any further to mitigate this problem.
Trunk
The trunk is where the weight savings are! I did not weight either the oem or the CF, but you can tell by lifting them on and off the car that the cf is way lighter (as opposed to the hood which really felt the same weight). The trunk requires cutting to allow the spoiler (or chrome piece), camera, and 3rd brake light (if applicable) to be mounted. The trunk requires some...playing with to get the fitment to a point where it doesnt look like a special ed 3rd grader did it. The trunk bows outward around the drivers side tail light but on the passenger side it fits better. In order to combat some of the misfitment (and to make it easier to close the trunk) you should remove the dampers that prop the trunk up, simple to remove as they snap onto ball joints. If you plan on putting the carpet liner back on, then be prepared to leave off the emergency trunk latch as the pre drilled holes are about 1/4" off (the two holes are drilled too far apart) and wont let you install the latch. All the other clips go on fine and the carpet covers the Seibon logo...
Spoiler
It seems im the first person who got the spoiler and who also has the camera. The Spoiler is hollow... there are no OEM mounting points (OEM has 3 bolts, plus two clips that go into the spoiler and it is all sealed with 3M double sided tape). So for a piece of CF that costs $350+ you get a twisted piece of crap. I had it installed by a professional body shop who has worked on many tuner cars and has delt with CF a lot. He couldnt keep one side flush without the otherside not fitting right. Seibon's answer was to "play with it". Don't get me wrong, I know CF is difficult, but please tell me how you justify charging someone so much money for something that doesnt come close to working out of the box. The spoiler had to be mounted via glue/resin which is noticable from the outside. If you have a camera, you need to make your own mount since there is no place to mount a camera like the OEM. This wasnt explained to me when i bought the part. The spoiler does not come with a template to drill the camera hole, and therefore you're on your own with that. The 3rd brake light doesn not sit flush, BUT! hardware is included to mount it.
I will take some close up pictures to show you all what im talking about, but I am seriously against buying anything related to Seibon in the future! You really get what you pay for, so if you want CF for the look (which I assume you do) then spend the extra amount and get a well built product from Top Secret or something like that.
I really dont have anything positive to say about these products so if this has turned into a rant, i hope you can see why!
02-09-2009, 09:47 PM
#4
The trunk was scraped the other week when someone tried to park behind me and messed up my bumper and trunk. Granted the trunk could have been repaired for less than the $1000 it cost for the trunk and spoiler, but again I wanted to have something different.
Here is the hood at its best:
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02-10-2009, 12:07 AM
#8
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yeah we need more pics post up all you have to help everybody out. (your kind of like geico right now)you pretty much just saved me alot of money. please post up pics..
02-10-2009, 12:29 AM
#9
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Wow bro...sucks to hear you went through all that trouble. I was pretty much a week away from buying this thing and had already put it into my budget, but now hearing the problems you've been having makes me completely put an end to my decision to buy the hood. Damn...I really wanted it!
Last edited by machinist; 02-10-2009 at 01:04 AM.
02-10-2009, 06:18 PM
#11
Here are some pointers for the hood. Rather then adjusting your side latches, there is a front latch mechanism that is attached to the vehicle. There are generally 2-3 10mm bolts that hold the mechanism in adjustable slots. If you loosen those bolts you will be able to adjust the actual catching of the hood latch. If this fails, you can try adding shims to the rear to even out the front. As a last resort, hood pins will fix any fitment problems.
02-10-2009, 06:25 PM
#12
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not to be a **** but why cant a product just be produced that does not need all this adjustment. since seibon is suppose to be such a good product. there is no reason for this. there has been plenty of time for R&D to fix this problem...
Quick make the hood so we can sell it!!!