I went to a local tuner shop, Speedtech Racing Development, and ordered it. When it arrived two of the three mounting tabs to the latch support were broken, so I had to refuse delivery and asked them to get another... Several months later, in March, I picked up the bumper on a Friday. I checked it for damage, but when I got it home I unwrapped it and noticed something very, very wrong with it...
The fiberglass was quite 'flimsy' feeling and the edges by the grill, signal light holes and under the bottom lip weren't straight at all.
I did some additional research online and scoured my CRX picture cache on my hard drive looking for evidence of other people with this issue. The only reason I'd agreed to use a replica was because a) it was supposed to have been molded from an original Mugen piece and 2) it was temporary until I could find a genuine one. Temporary or not, I could not use this on my car. After looking at the following pictures of other ViS-equipped CRXs I started to think perhaps Speedtech charged me for a ViS JDM Techno R bumper but sold a cheap knock-off (of the knock-off).
From what I was able to determine, a genuine ViS JDM Techno R bumper came painted in a black or dark grey primer; but had no plate like their hoods did. I called ViS on Monday morning and they confirmed that they'd sold Speedtech two of these bumpers around the same time I'd ordered my two. He also confirmed that this particular bumper can come in a black or dark gray primer color. So Speedtech sold me what I'd ordered but I still couldn't figure out why the drastic difference in quality.
I called Speedtech when they opened and spoke to the owner, and he assured me he would get to the bottom of it for me. I emailed him some pictures to send to ViS and a few days later both Speedtech and the customer service rep I spoke to at ViS earlier in the week called me back to explain what had happened and what they would do to make it right...
The ViS rep explained that when they run out of stock on a popular item sometimes they sub-contract to another company who has stock to supply them temporarily until another production-run can be made. These sub-contracted items are shipped direct to save time. Apparently the quality from the sub-contractor they used for my particular bumper was not as good as they'd believed... The ViS rep told me if I could wait for the bumper until they made another production-run on the JDM Techno R, they'd send it out to Speedtech ASAP no problem.
Note: While researching this issue on the 'net a lot of people had some very negative things to say about ViS Racing and their customer service but I must say, I've received exceptional customer service from them - and Speedtech, too... Unfortunately, they have closed their Calgary branch since :-(
Finally in July it arrived, and this one was a dark charcoal/black in color and the fiberglass was much thicker, giving the bumper more structural rigidity. The edges were straight and the overall quality was more in-line with the reputation that this bumper has.
Remember, this blog was written in chronological order so, you will need to click OLDER POSTS to move forward in time, and click NEWER POSTS to go backwards.
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