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Re: Frenchy's Audi S5
This next one should come as no surprise from the last update. I ordered these parts through LLtek (Montreal), who in turn brought it over from Germany. If I recall, it was about 6 weeks for these parts. Plus prep/paint/assembly. If anyone as ever used any of the Rieger stuff in the past they know that these parts don't exactly come ready to assemble. Also... Everything was in German including the instructions which was a real PITA to figure out.
Bumper came out pretty rough and had to be hand sanded down in specific corners, dry fit, re-sanded, another dry fit. This was a long and arduous process. If I had to do it again, I might get a body shop to do the whole thing.
Luftseiden skirts out of the box, pretty rough, but they cleaned up nice. Required rivets and automotive grade silicone to replace OEM side blade rockers.
I think the lower grilles were the only thing that was actually manufactured by Audi/VW in this kit.
Lower lip spoiler on top of underbody panel replacement. Nothing was included and all of these were sold separately.
Fog light delete resistors. I despise having CEL or any warnings on the dash, so to avoid the "fog light out" warning (yah, theres a warning for that!), you need the resistors. Admittedly it was a bit of a struggle to push through cutting perfectly good wiring plugs out of the car, but this would allow me to get rid of the non functional fog light paneling that mimicked a grille.
There was one thing included for free... these LED lights from china. I wasn't really sure that I wanted them, but I installed them behind the lower grilles anyways just for kicks
Had to rob the headlamp washer doors from the old bumper. They didn't look that great on the dry fit, but once the new bumper had paint on it, the fit was much better.
Old bumper headlamp washer door. I tried not to destroy everything taking the doors out. This was an exercise in patience and having steel fingers will help you out if you ever have to do something like this.
This is one of many holes I had to drill to get the grille to mount with the new bumper. It was not plug and play, The kit required cutting, drilling, riveting and gluing (automotive silicone) to be assembled. It was alot of work, but pretty fun too if you like tinkering.
Final assembly, now just to shave and fit on the car. Note: the hole for the tow hook on the new bumper is not reusable, it has been melted in place by Rieger. I plan to retrofit a clasp or pin on the back to make it reusable. One of a few things I have to do the next time I take the bumper off.
I had to dry fit the bumper about 43 times before I had it sanded and trimmed enough to get a good fit. There were many piece to trim, glue, rivet etc. I believe this was the final dry fit before going to paint.
The final result. I was super happy with the way things turned out despite the amount of fiddling around to get the kit together.
The bumper goes about 1" lower to the ground, and originally I hadn't considered replacing the side blade rockers, but I was worried that the different height would be noticeable before and after the front wheel.
And with the Chinese fog lights lit up...thoughts?
This next one should come as no surprise from the last update. I ordered these parts through LLtek (Montreal), who in turn brought it over from Germany. If I recall, it was about 6 weeks for these parts. Plus prep/paint/assembly. If anyone as ever used any of the Rieger stuff in the past they know that these parts don't exactly come ready to assemble. Also... Everything was in German including the instructions which was a real PITA to figure out.
Bumper came out pretty rough and had to be hand sanded down in specific corners, dry fit, re-sanded, another dry fit. This was a long and arduous process. If I had to do it again, I might get a body shop to do the whole thing.
Luftseiden skirts out of the box, pretty rough, but they cleaned up nice. Required rivets and automotive grade silicone to replace OEM side blade rockers.
I think the lower grilles were the only thing that was actually manufactured by Audi/VW in this kit.
Lower lip spoiler on top of underbody panel replacement. Nothing was included and all of these were sold separately.
Fog light delete resistors. I despise having CEL or any warnings on the dash, so to avoid the "fog light out" warning (yah, theres a warning for that!), you need the resistors. Admittedly it was a bit of a struggle to push through cutting perfectly good wiring plugs out of the car, but this would allow me to get rid of the non functional fog light paneling that mimicked a grille.
There was one thing included for free... these LED lights from china. I wasn't really sure that I wanted them, but I installed them behind the lower grilles anyways just for kicks
Had to rob the headlamp washer doors from the old bumper. They didn't look that great on the dry fit, but once the new bumper had paint on it, the fit was much better.
Old bumper headlamp washer door. I tried not to destroy everything taking the doors out. This was an exercise in patience and having steel fingers will help you out if you ever have to do something like this.
This is one of many holes I had to drill to get the grille to mount with the new bumper. It was not plug and play, The kit required cutting, drilling, riveting and gluing (automotive silicone) to be assembled. It was alot of work, but pretty fun too if you like tinkering.
Final assembly, now just to shave and fit on the car. Note: the hole for the tow hook on the new bumper is not reusable, it has been melted in place by Rieger. I plan to retrofit a clasp or pin on the back to make it reusable. One of a few things I have to do the next time I take the bumper off.
I had to dry fit the bumper about 43 times before I had it sanded and trimmed enough to get a good fit. There were many piece to trim, glue, rivet etc. I believe this was the final dry fit before going to paint.
The final result. I was super happy with the way things turned out despite the amount of fiddling around to get the kit together.
The bumper goes about 1" lower to the ground, and originally I hadn't considered replacing the side blade rockers, but I was worried that the different height would be noticeable before and after the front wheel.
And with the Chinese fog lights lit up...thoughts?
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