Appearance of hood
Hood photo 1,
Hood photo 2,
Hood photo 3
IMO, I am VERY happy and thoroughly content with the hood.
Quality of hood
Now I'm no fiberglass hood specialist, but I did give it a thorough inspection. I held it up to a bright light and the fiberglass is well-evenly spread throughout. No cracks, noticeable thin spots or anything major. However, there were 1 or 2 small (about 2" in diameter) places where the gelcoat was a little thin (almost not there). So I wonder how that's gonna work out when I go to get it painted....
Price of hood
By credit card, it costed $360. If I had done it by money order (which would have taken longer), there is a small discount, it would've costed $330. (OOoooohh, big deal
!) These prices include packaging fee, but
exclude shipping. We'll get to that in just a few...
Quality of shipping service
Now this is the part that pissed me off the most. Shipping was
$100 and was by Wilson Trucking Corp. This is the first time I have had anything this big shipped to me, but that does seem a little steep in $$$ if ya ask me.
So you add $100 to $360 and you get a total of $460.
Amount of prep work
Hood prep photo 1. I had to shave 4 areas of the side lip so that the hood would clear the rubber hood stops;
Hood prep photo 2. I had to shave around alot the back inside of the hood so it would clear the breather;
Hood prep photo 3. There is no hood prop hole in the hood. The hood spring and hook did bolt on with no problem whatsoever.
Prep work wasn't bad at all
considering:
1) you already own a dremel with the correct shaving head
2) the 4 clips in the new 'glass hood that the 4 bolts go into accomodate the same size bolts that go into your original hood.
3) a dust mask would be nice
This took me a few hrs. If I had to do it again, it'd take much less time.
Wasn't hard at all though.
The thing that pissed me off about this though is that I ask the guy on the phone at MPP if it was "fully bolt on." I specifically asked him, "So, all I have to do is take off the old hood and put on the new one." He replied, "Yes, that's right." ....That wasn't true...
The clips on the hood that the bolts go into were a different size (bigger) than the the original bolts and MPP didn't send any bolts along with the hood, which the SHOULD HAVE. That means I had to go to Advanced Auto Parts and fish out (trial and error-- bought 3 diff, size and thread bolds) the right bolts. Turned out to be a metric size that fit. Hmmmm.
All in all, I am very happy with the hood. Both it's quality and appearance. I am still pissed off about the shipping arrangement though.
My rating of MPP's hood and service-- each on a scale of 1-10 (10 being best)
Appearance of hood = 10
Quality of hood = 9
Price of hood = 9
Quality (and price) of shipping service = 7 (took
2 weeks to get here and the shipping was a little pricey IMO)
Amount of prep work = 9 (really easy for me and this was the first time I ever did this)
Total = 44 out of 50 possible points
Score = 88%
When I scored this, I kept raising each individual score until I could not allow myself to raise them anymore. I would like to say that it scored about 99%, but that's how it added up.
NOTE: Now, if the shipping wasn't included in the rating, the hood itself would've scored
92.5%. That is very good.
I hope this info can help someone even if it is only added knowledge or just a reminder (if you already knew it all
)