I just got new tires put on, was feeling good, and drove to the carwash. Then the damn pressure washer snapped both of my hood louvers. I looked at replacements and they cost 400$

Where can I find them cheap, or should I just get a new hood with a 2 inch cowl? This sucks haha, I should of hand washed my car

Wow.They shouldn't cost THAT much. You should sue.

$300ish for the IROC style.

http://www.moderndaymuscle.com/inc/sdetail/163/860

JamesC

Sue for what? If it was an automatic car wash, they say right as you drive through that they aren't responsible for any damage to your car. If it was negligence or defective equipment at the car wash, they will fix it, but not by just running the car through.

If it was a "U-Wash" style car wash, then the user needs to be careful. It IS pressurized water. The louvers are plastic and plastic gets brittle with age. Too much pressure could easily break them or the studs that hold them on.

To the OP, why do you want "cheap" replacements? You get what you pay for. A cheap set will be similar to what you have now. If you buy quality replacements, you will pay more for them, but they should also last longer too.

You can find them around. Check eBay, Craigslist, Classifieds etc. Or you can buy them brand spanking new like the link JamesC provided.

I lost a louver, recently driving down the highway. It sucked bad. Found a decent pair on ebay that just needed some paint. Spent $80 shipped to my house.

I agree with Scott. Although, my grandma had a 2004 accord and took it through an auto car wash and when she emerged from the wash,the whole roof was covered in dents.The gas station took responsibility and paid to have her roof repaired. I was surprised. But,ive heard of the same thing happening to other friends.

There is a guy listing a entire hood with louvers on Tucson AZ CL for $150.. Maybe he will take them off and ship to you.

Did they break where they attach, or did the louvers that are showing get broken?

http://www.Camaroheaven.com I'm actually going there Saturday to look at Front Clips from the Nose with the Firewall attached. They sell new and used Stuff. they ship all over. Very very Reasonably Priced.

I'm not one to sue. It was my fault.




But I'm just wondering If its really worth it to pay 300-400$ for some plastic?

when you're talking about 3 and 4 hundred dollars you might as well go for a cowl hood. I think you're cars style fits better with a cowl than louvers

I'd get replacements (not a fan of the cowl hood)
There is always some in the classifieds section on the board

Yeah, I think i should go with a cowl hood

There are some nice looking hoods in Rick's Camaros. SS style, Corvette style, etc. They look nice, and are functional.

Did you break the studs off, or the louvers??

I applaud your honesty, Nathan.

You could probably purchase a complete OE hood, the flat type, and have it painted for less than the louvres. That said, I prefer them from a styling perspective.

JamesC

For 400 bucks you could buy a whole Iroc Parts car

I agree, honestly if you are restoring the car back to factory original, i can see spending 300-400 bills on the new louvers. You could get a brand new cowl for a lil more cash and be better off in the long run

James, there just aren't many of you left.

Until you decide which route to take, I would simply reinstall them. Loctite makes a 'super glue - for plastics' which works wonders (speaking from experience). Since they're off, a shot of black trim paint wouldn't hurt either. Obviously, if you are about to order a new set, then leave them be (you could always sell off the intact piece on ebay) but if you are indecisive and don't want to drive around with that naked hood.....

I always thought they were aluminum, were they always plastic?

Because he is a thirdgen owner. Sad, but true. We are the cheapest auto community of all that are out there. Nobody wants to pay for anything.

Billet louvers now theres an idea, maybe functional?

Yes.

JamesC

Sue? How can you sue for something you did your self. That's the problem nowadays everyone wants to blame someone else. These cars are old, plastic gets brittle and breaks. Watch Craigslist for used parts, etc. Just replace them or change the hood.....

Oh get real. I don't like the idea of paying 400$ for plastic. If they were metal, then by all means I would have gotten them. Your statement is false.

I agree. That was quite disparaging.

No offense, but Puma is right. Most of the 3rd gen community want fixes for things the cheap way. There have been many posts on TGO where people are asking where they can buy cheap replacements. The biggest one is with weatherstripping. As I said before, you get what you pay for. Cheap replacements are just that, cheap. They may fix the issue now, but they won't last very long or might not be the best fitting part.

We're all guilty of not wanting to spend more than we need to, but when a thread is started asking where can I get these things cheap, well, it leads people to believe that we're all cheap.

I don't know if I would go that far. How much cheaper could you make the hood louvers. 400 dollars is just assinine, but they charge that because they can. Now with mechanical parts, yes that logic hold true, you get what you pay for. But with thing like louvers, because there are now cheap alternatives , you pay what the want. Perhaps in 20 years or so, there will be more aftermarket vendors, but untill then it is what it is. It is far cheape to reatore a 1st gen then a thord.

I can't believe a moderator would chime in on this. Nobody wants to pay unreasonable inflated prices for replacement parts no mater what kind of car you own or want to refurbish.

As a moderator, I'm still a third gen owner and put myself in the category that we don't want to pay more for things than we need to. Maybe it's the way the question is asked. To the OP, instead of asking where he can get $400 worth of a product, cheap, he should've said that the asking price of $400 is out of line. Then ask where can he find some that are more reasonably priced so he doesn't get ripped off!!

I will never consider myself cheap, but I won't spend $400 on these either. I will look around and see where I can find them for a more reasonable price. If I find that there aren't any brand new ones left anywhere out there for less than $400, then I will bite the bullet and buy them, but the first $400 option I see will not be the item I jump on quickly to buy.

We need to change the way people think about 3rd gen owners. We ask for "cheap" parts, we spray paint our cars with rattle can paint or rig things to fix it instead of spending a few extra dollars to fix it correctly. Just read the body and interior board and you'll see alot of these come up. Look at the appearance board and see what others have already done. Together, we can change our image.

Catagory? What catagory? My concern isn't changing what others think of me or my Camaros.

It's really not false, if you spend any time here, and then spend time on other auto community forums.

Thanks, and this is the thing. Nobody ever asks where to get something, they always ask where to get something *cheap*. Now, saving money is one thing, but you have people who would rather buy garbage off of junkyard cars rather than anything. Look at the outer window felts, people would rather pay $5 for rotted 4th gen ones that don't even fit our cars and hack them to fit rather than pay the $60 for the genuine NOS GM ones that are for thirdgens, which IMO is a steal for genuine NOS. Heck, even the aftermarket ones are only like $30 or something in that range. Now I can understand wanting genuine GM parts instead of aftermarket, but rotted weatherstripping not designed to fit at all from day one vs. possibly not the greatest fitting weatherstripping but at least designed for our cars and brand new? I'd rather part with the $25 more, personally.

It's just rattle can after rattle can after hack job after hack job, but this is a dead horse and it hasn't changed since I signed up here in '99. I have a thread in Auto Detailing and Appearance for the latest haul in detailing stuff, and I'm amusing myself by being the only person who posts anything. Every other website I see has an active detailing forum, or at the very least a thread to post detailing purchases, and the threads go for pages with product purchases, product reviews/questions, etc. Here, I'm the only person posting in it. I can't say I wonder why. I mean this is a community of people who would rather buy junky, sort of working gas hood shocks from the yard for $2.50 each rather than $20 for new aftermarket ones from O'reilly's. It's like man, just buy the ones from O'Reilley's and be done with it.

I love these cars as much as the next person, but once in a while it would be nice to see us pick ourselves up, stop dumpster diving, have a little class and a little taste, do something right, and be proud of it. How many builds can you count that are high-end (note I didn't say high-dollar), high caliber builds? I can count them on one hand on this site. Everything else is rattle can this, junkyard beater that, and it's disenchanting, to the point I more or less take breaks from the site and hang out on other community sites so I can get my quality build fix, which is kind of sad I have to do that. We are cheap as a whole, that is not disputable, but this is a tired discussion and my views are well known by this point in time. FTR OP, I'm not talking about/to you directly on this.

Good luck to any of you guys, getting sand in your vag over what puma or scott having to say, owning a real classic car.

It's easy to b-tch about price when you're not smart enough to realize the cost to make something not in demand.

Do you honestly think some company is going to stockpile these non-demand parts ?
Do you think a company is going to make 100 pairs a year and sell them for $100 after having spent $1mil in tooling/machinery, a few thousand a month in electricity to run the machine, at least one guy and a tool and die man their salary, maintenance, supplies, etc. and then sell a dozen or so a year for $100 ? Even at the high price, there probably isn't much recouping the cost of having made the part.

That's why quality reproduction items ARE expensive. This sh-t isn't made for free but, you expect it to be $1 like cheap china knock-off garbage.

Everyone wants a steak on a spam budget.

When I said "cheap" And i probably should have been a little more clear, I meant cheaper than 300$ off hawksthirdgenparts. I still wanted them new, but at a cheaper price? Understand?

But its all good, I decided to just bite the bullet, and order some new ones.

I understand completely. Even a very clean third gen isn't worth that much on the market. Too much brittle plastic is everywhere on these cars. I should say it becomes brittle. It makes sense to me to look around for the best buys since it is easy to put more into these cars than they are worth. It's just common sense to me.

That's the right way to do it. It sucks, but buying a used part for cheap (DEPENDING on what it is, buying used is not bad by any means) might just end up having the same issue again and now you've wasted money. Ironically, I'm making the same decision as you, but in a different light. If you want it done right, then usually it involves spending money in greater amounts. If this weren't true, everyone would have nice things because nothing would be worth anything.

post pictures when you get them and get them on. would be nice to see what new louvers looks like.

Will do.


I'm sure they are just like the old ones, only not dry rotten and brittle.