KHw31

Hello, ok has anyone had isues with ram air hoods from the parts place. I purchased a ram air hood like my original one and when the body shop installs it I get a call saying the hood does not fit. He says the body fits ok close to windshield but in front by the headlights the hood sticks up 1 inch from front to middle of hood. He says there is 3 things he can do 1 cut the fenders peel them up to meet the hood flush. 2 cut the hood re shape it to meet flush to the fenders.and 3 return the hood to the parts place. So I choose 3 return the hood to the parts place. So I call and yes the say no that I must have bent the hood. Well this goes on for almost 4 months finally I talk to someone and he says bring the hood back with receipt and we will give you store credit. Ha so I bring the hood back and lucky me I get the owner he says that the have never had a problem with these hoods in the 12 years they have been selling them. I show him the pictures that the body shop guy had taken which ended up being someone he knows so he changes his mind says I don't do store credit but I will give you another hood I carry one in stock always be says let me go look and make sure one is here. I mention tbe store credit that the employee said he would give me when I spoke to him over fhe phone. Owner says I did not authorize that. He sad let me check the warehouse and be will give me another hood. While be is in the warehouse the person bebind the counter says oh yes we keep a hood in stock just for instances like this. I chuckle. So he comes back from the warehouse and says sorry I don't have one we must have allready sold it. I will give you another hood when they get back in stock. So j Can't get mad atleast he is Giving me Another hood. That I have to drive a hour to go pick up when it back in stock. Thank you for hearing me out. Ok now here is the question has anyone ever heard of a place named Thornton someone has told me about them. I called them and they said yes we have that hood that person tells me you buy the hood ship the hood body shop installs the hood primers and paint the hood and your done. They guarantee that the hood is better more reinforced and nicer the the original hood. Has anyone ever delt with this company or heard of anything. Well thank you and please reply with any info.

bccan

In my 30 years of body shop experience I have NEVER once had an aftermarket fiberglass or molded body component that fit properly or was ready to use as received, including my own aftermarket OAI hood. We have had to bail out of using parts, make jigs/strap them down on frame machine while heating, sometimes even breaking the material to move it far enough. These instances are not occasionally, it is EVERY time to some extent. The very best parts I've seen have needed tweaking, usually some plastic, always a heavy prime & block out, usually 2. It depends on what you expect for a finished product. The full fiberglass parts will still revert somewhat towards their original skewed shape over time but don't seem to go fully out of whack. I just had a kid w/ a Mustang that we painted/installed his very high quality hood appx 3 years ago come back pissed because they put gas springs on the hinges which have now totally deformed the hood @ back corners & raised the sides in relation to the fenders. It was damn near perfect when it left the shop.


The aftermarket hoods are not stocked in numbers because they will deform from their own weight when standing upright. If the guy said he never had complaints or problems with those hoods he is FOS.


The Thornton hoods have earned a sterling reputation and the price reflects that quality. I would guess even those could stand a prime & block if you want a really nice uniform surface.


Hopefully PP will come up with a replacement that is better than the one you received.

My442

In order of what to do:

1. Find a nice original GM hood.

2. Buy one from Thornton.

3. Buy a repro hood and pay the $$$ to get it to fit.

Thornton's stuff is A+++++

PS - The $800 repro hood will cost you at least $2,000 before you are done.

"Cheaper is more expensive in the long run"

Gary's 2 442-S

I have one of the Thornton's Hoods. When I was in the market for a hood I had read many horror, fitment problems others had with other vendors. I went with the Thornton hood and could not be happier. As mentioned previously all I had to do was to prime it and block it. and was good to go. The only downside I had when I got mine was that it took me over a year to get one because at that time they had only one mold and had quite a bit of a back order for one of their hoods. I do believe now they have more than one mold and the delivery time is just a few weeks. A couple of weeks ago their were a couple of cars that had just had Thornton hoods put on their cars and both looked great.

KHw31

Hello. I would like to thank you for your input on my post. I am waiting for the PP to call me when the replacement hood comes in. I will check it to see if it fits any better than the first one . It was nice to see the PP was at least replaceing the hood. I was told that the Thornton hood was reinforced and is very nice. Thank you for your reply.