Lightsaber

So I ordered a Rexpeed V-Style gurney flap and a duckbill spoiler, both in non-carbon fiber and painted in Mercury Gray. After they arrived from Rexpeed, I brought them to my shop last Tuesday to have them installed, which was supposed to be finished within the day.

My shop had problems installing them and had to use a heat gun to reshape both, so I had to take the subway home. The next day, Wednesday, I called my shop and they told me they couldn't close the gap on the gurney flap and had to send it to their body shop to bend it. On Thursday late afternoon, I took the subway to my shop and they told me they were able to close the gurney flap's gap and install it, but the gurney flap cracked after the mounting tape cured. Therefore the shop took off the gurney flap and now it sits in my home. As the result, it took my shop long hours of labour, but as courtesy they charged me a total of only $461.79.

To to summarize the problem at this point:

V-Style gurney flap: poor fitment, material quality that caused it to crack
Duckbill spoiler: fitment is okay after a little gun work

Then I took a closer look at the installed the duckbill spoiler. The surface is not even smooth! It's like some poor molding done by a blind child! The service manager advised me to get the OEM MR lid instead, but I asked him to give me a day to think about it. The next morning, on Friday, I took the car to a park after breakfast, thinking about three options:

1) Just remove the duckbill spoiler. No lid. No duckbill spoiler.
2) Take off the duckbill spoiler, have my body shop to re-surface it and re-paint it.
3) Take off the duckbill spoiler, get the OEM MR lid like service manager advised.

After staring at the car for an hour (the group of people having a picnic at the park must think I was crazy), I decide to schedule a new appointment to just take it off and have nothing. Everything on the Evo speaks of high quality except this, and our friend NFSLancerRA's word has been echoing in my head since that day:

I originally bought these parts because I just got a professional license in my industry after studying for it forever. I wanted to buy myself a gift, but it turned out I bought a trouble. At the end, this costed me so much that I could have just got an authentic Voltex CF wing flap, and I as I am to take off the duckbill spoiler too, I will end up with no material gain. Thus, my shop lost labour income, I lost money, got nothing, and it ruined my mood to celebrate.

The good thing is, at least, I originally wanted to buy many things from Rexpeed including the V-style fender vents and brake cooling guides and thank God I did not buy them all at once. Now with the gurney flap and duckbill spoiler I know they would be the last Rexpeed parts I bought.

Lessons to learn here:

1) Demand only the highest quality authentic parts;
2) If you have to buy Rexpeed, buy unpainted body parts and have a body shop to bend, modify, surface, and paint the parts before installation.

Pictures I took last Thursday afternoon before picking up my car:


^In the picture, the crack on Rexpeed V-Style gurney flap. It appeared after the mounting tape cured.


^Looking up to the factory spoiler and Rexpeed V-Style gurney flap. You can see the gap between.


^The same gap from a different angle.


^Rexpeed painted duckbill spoiler. The roughness is particularly obvious at this edge. Not all roughness is bad, but a look like this indeed speaks of how the owner uses cheap parts to modify his car.


^Rexpeed duckbill spoiler's surface is short of smoothness, very different from the OEM paint surface that mirrors an undistorted image. In person, the duckbill spoiler's surface reflects a distorted image, In the photo, it looks as if it is a "satin" finish.

Here are more pictures I took today:


^Rexpeed duckbill spoiler installed.


^A close-in shot that shows the roughness of Rexpeed duckbill spoiler


^Rexpeed duckbill spoiler looking from behind, showing the surface imperfections.


^The molding of Rexpeed duckbill spoiler is somewhat mushy, like molten or something. You can compare it to the sharp lines at the end of the OEM rear fender.


^Another angle of the Rexpeed duckbill spoiler, showing its poor molding.


^The uneven surface of the Rexpeed duckbill spoiler.


^A close-in shot of the uneven surface and distorted reflexion of the Rexpeed duckbill spoiler.


^Overall look of the Rexpeed duckbill spoiler. This isn't exactly bad if you don't look too closely.

All images are taken with an iPhone with NO digital alteration. They are copied directly from the phone and resized using MS Paint to keep the fidelity at maximum.

As some people have been asking, yes, I have been talking to Derek of Rexpeed a lot since last week. He keeps asking me to send him more picture and denies this is bad. So whatever, I mean, even in the best scenario, it makes no financial sense for me to freight this back to Taiwan for a refund. The stupidity is on mine to buy Rexpeed so they can continue to sell many more lessons to car people. LOL at myself.

MisterRegato

iTrader: (4)

yikes im staying far away sorry to hear about your luck man.

Kada__85

iTrader: (4)

Why did you pay for a shop to install these parts? I wouldnt think the install would be that difficult with these. Anyway, sorry to hear about your misfortunes, hopefully it works out for you.

shekaar

iTrader: (3)

Rexpeed isn't known for quality. That said, people usually install this stuff themselves so it doesn't cost them nearly as much as it cost you. Sorry to hear!

Lightsaber

I'm still thinking about NFSLancerRA's words... spend the money, do it right, the first time...

I tried to install myself first before taking them to my shop. I found I simply couldn't install the Rexpeed gurney flap and duckbill spoiler because of the gaps. The gurney flap's two tips didn't stick down to the spoiler surface and were like float, and there was that lower middle gap. The duckbill spoiler had gap on two tips.

So at least my shop was able to bend the tips surprisingly well so they stick down. If I had a heat gun and industrial mounting/fixation equipments I would do it myself.

kpt6

iTrader: (126)

Sorry to hear that this happened to you... I agree with the quote you posted above about cheap stuff. And people want to act like my asking price on my clean and lightly used IX MR AS OEM vortex generator is too high since I'm asking for a little more than a new painted replica would cost from Rexpeed. Quality is the reason for the price!

FossilAus

I always wonder what the guys at Voltex, Varis etc (i.e. the same guys that get ripped off by Rexpeed and other vendors of the same broth) think of these situations... Would they chuckle away at the sheer amount of stupidity -or- would they shed a tear at the sight of some half-baked imitation of their product? Or perhaps they don't give a **** either way because they are too busy investing time and money into new products (only to be recreated again by a Taiwanese sweat shop for the penny conscious car enthusiast)

You get what you pay for. Unfortunately you had to learn that the hard way

Ev0ikon

iTrader: (18)

So what does Derek say after seeing these pictures?

Lightsaber

In his words, "The pictures of the trunk spoiler look fine to me. [...] The paint on the trunk spoiler is normal because of the curvature of the spoiler. Its normal to see some wavy paint."

Lightsaber

Conclusion

So I have been talking to Derek and he wants to ship another gurney flap to me. Nevertheless, since I no longer want to install a Rexpeed flap and I am planning to remove the duckbill spoiler as well, we settled on a partial refund. I have received the refund today, so the story ends.

Lesson of the day: