Yes. I bought the fronts from the dealer last time I was there, and the rears came from ECS Tuning.
Thanks, I'm pretty happy with how it came out too.
All the details of what I did are in this thread, starting at post number 20.

Basically I made a plywood form from a tracing of the wheelarch, then warmed up the mudflap with a heat gun and pushed the plywood form into it to re-contour the flap to match the form.

 

Thats an impressive amount of damage, im with zippy up here in NH, lots of salt been thrown about, and we have all the pieces of asphalt from plows tearing up the road, and my car has nothing done to it, and im running 215/45/17's on S-lites with aggressive winter tires.

there must have been straight up gravel in the road, ims ure your not the only other car looking like that, i cant imagine the PS/AS doign that

i would try to get some generic flaps and get them to stick on one way or another

 

Thanks for all the feedback. I've been to several body shops around here and none has ever seen damage this severe on any car.

Though I doubt (hope?) it won't happen again, the sides do get a good amount of debris tossed up on them and I will try The mud flap modification. Thanks for that!

Just a bit more information. My wife has a 2007 s with the same tires on 16-inch wheels. I put a straight edge across the front tire, making sure it was straight, and measured from the straight edge to the bottom front corner of the front door. Both her car and my 2013 JCW measure the same distance.

 

i wonder if somone was next to you spraying you with road salt

 

A suggestion for you: Clear Bra

My wheel arches and side skirts are painted and covered with Clear Bra.
I have two layers on the areas that get the most road rash.

When the Clear Bra gets bad just remove and replace it saving you from having to repaint.

Hope this helps...

 

But my damage in in locations not protected by any bra I have seen, even the expensive clear kits do not cover the rear where 95% of the damage is located.

 

I would get the mini mud flaps and mod them.. that really is your best bet here.. Ive seen it done as well and im also going to do it to my JCW.

 

I ordered them and printed out spiney's thread and tips. Wish me luck!

 

JohnRausch, I can sympathize with you and I know my jaw would have hit the floor if that happened to mine. Good luck with the mud flap project, and be sure to let us know how you fare.

 

The installer did mine freehand, not from a kit.
Not cheap, but cheaper than paint.

Good luck on the mud flaps...

 

+1

Anyone with modest skill installing a decal or stripes can freehand and install a clear coat film on the sides and rear to help prevent salt/stone chip damage. I had some excess 3M clear protectant film from when my clear car bra was installed on my 2010 Cabrio, and used a few pieces approx 6x12 inches to form a clear paint barrier behind all 4 wheels. Over a 4 year period, I didn't have any noticeable chips from pebbles or salt thrown by the wheels. I also bought a roll of film on eBay to use on my motorcycle tank near the fuel caps. I installed it in about an hour, was completely unnoticeable after it dried.

Sent from my iPad using NAMotoring

 

Awesome.. Keep us posted on how it goes! The force is with you! lol

 

Photo and message from the body shop:

"John, evidently the road crews had mixed gravel in with the treatment for the roads because when we removed the rocker moldings below the doors on your car a lot of gravel fell out. This explains why the damages are so extensive. I have added all the additional items found and the bill has risen to over $8200. and includes repairing the front bumper & hood and replacing the headlamps, windshield ,grilles & additional moldings."

I called to ask how this could get inside the moldings and was told that the louvers at the rear of the JCW moldings allow debris to get inside.

Further inspection of the wheels show a lot of pitting on all four wheels, another $1,300. Now close to $10,000. No one, that is NO ONE, and I have contacted body shops here and in the areas I drove through, has ever seen such extensive damage from a single 7-hour drive.

 

Holy ****. Thats nuts

 

Unbelievable!

I suppose it was like driving 70+ mph down a dirt/caliche road.

 

I-70 in MD, I-68 & I-79 in WV were wet and slushy, "salt" trucks were everywhere, but everyone was driving at 65-75 MPH. The JCW is quite a bit louder at speed than my wife's S because of the different muffler. That combined with wet road noise, the radio turned up load enough to understand an audio book I was playing combined to mask most of what was happening to my car. The occasional hit on the windshield, but I thought it was salt, which would have most likely disintegrated on impact. It wasn't salt!

The body shop taking care of my car will do a perfect job, there's no better in SW Ohio, but there is no replacing factory paint when it comes to durability. I will likely trade in my 2013 with 6,000 miles to the dealer on a 2014 S. The dealer knows what is being fixed -- I would never foist this on anyone unknowingly. I considered changing out the moldings to standard during the repair and keeping it, but that would mess up future value. I can't deal with the side moldings with the louver in the rear. It's bad enough keeping them clean let alone having them collect debris. And not being able to install STANDARD front and rear mud guards on a car where the tire extends beyond the rounded bottom edge without major surgery is nuts. I think the only thing I will miss is the black gauges.

FWIW, I am not a fan of the cloth seats either. Generally, I like cloth seats, but these pucker up and will not lay flat. It is a common problem according to what I have read. The passenger seat was replaced because the foam was hard as a rock and the cover did not fit wheel either. Perfect now.

What a nightmare this has been. My only comfort -- knowing it is not likely to happen again.

 

Ugh, so sorry to hear about the final report.. thats awful!

I was thinking about this thread last week.. I was on 611 in PA.. and the road had a literal "ton" of gravel in the center line area... PENDOT apparently dropped a bunch of gravel mixed with salt on the hilly sections..

 

I've been sweeping about a quart of gravel out of the garage every couple of weeks thus winter. Nothing as large as 1/8 inch, mostly sand and about 1/16. I think it is crushed limestone screenings - pretty plentiful around here. Everyone needed to stretch out the salt and similar supply. No damage at all on my wife's 2007 S with the same tires. There are a lot of light weight dark pieces in that pile from the moldings - cinders mixed with gravel (stones).

Thanks for everyone's input.

 

Man, that repair.. Plus the hit of a trade in for a 2014... Ugh..

 

Unbelievable! I would file a complaint with MINI USA. Not sure if it would do any good, but some, if not all of that damage is from a poorly designed body kit, in my opinion, that allows debris to build up inside. MINI should do the right thing and cover this under warranty.

 

I feel a lot the same way, though I have not complained here. I really don't have a good case against Mini, it's a freak situation and my bet is other cars suffered too.

The JCW has some very nice things I like, performance (!), black gauges, steering wheel and more but also some things I don't like. The side moldings with the louvers at the rear ( they are a pain to keep clean when they aren't catching rocks). The cloth seats are comfortable but pucker up after very little use and stay that way. One replaced twice! Still looks like and old pillow. Not making mud guards - because who would want to put those ugly things on a JCW. If I could gave bought the JCW performance is an S configuration that's what I would have.

 

I thought I would report back after getting my JCW back from Centerville Body Shop. They did a remarkable job. The car exterior was totally disassembled except for the roof and hatch and the list of parts replaced is HUGE. rocker moldings, all unpainted plastic except the back including grills, headlight assemblies, fog light assemblies, trim moldings, emblems, windshield, all four wheels, you names it. The paint is perfect - except that I know it's paint on paint. Total paid by comprehensive insurance, $10,170.48! And I have four pitted wheels for winter tires.

Maybe this is the wrong forum to post this comment, but it's part of the story. I went to Cincinnati Mini where where they have 5 2014 hatchbacks for dealer use only -- cannot be sold, but of course, can be driven. I sat in them all and drove a base model standard shift and an S with sport automatic -- is that what it's called with paddle shifters? I don't like the cars! The drive train is nice, very smooth and quiet. Even the base model is quite peppy. My biggest problem is with the high-tech interior that is a lot like riding in a pinball game. Sport seats are comfortable, more so than mine. Leatherette might be okay, but the combo with cloth looks terrible. The curved padded molding, left and right, that runs between the glove boxes comes out to a point, very prominent, very ugly. The shifter is slick plastic and feels wrong - not round, not right. The LED light ring around where the speedo used to be is over the top. You can turn it off, but it still comes on under some circumstances. Multicolored nonsense. The iDrive placed rear right from the shifter is nearly impossible to reach with the arm rest / console installed. Without it, I can imagine getting more used to it than the controls and settings on 2007-2013 Minis. I'm not sure if it's there without the nav system. If not and you like an arm rest, it's much better than the current one. Personally, I never want cars with built-in nav -- first thing to be obsolete. The gas gauge LEDs are now to the right of the speedo above the steering column. Fewer of them and bigger. More LED magic. The window controls are on the door, but not pretty -- chrome in the middle of a sea of black. Steering wheel controls (audio/cruise) have swapped sides. The door latches are no longer squeeze type, the whole handle pulls out. Though I don't like it aesthetically, it's very easy on my 68 year old hands. Because of European safety regs, there is a hump in the center of the hood required for pedestrian safety -- a struck pedestrian must roll of the hood to the side, not the front. The hood is therefore, also more sloped. The "bumper bar" across the front sticks out quite a bit -- I don't know what's up with that, but it looks like an add on. Fuel filler cap moved to the right for Europens regs too. Headlight assemblies and what's inside is more of the pinball machine. I don't get it.

Looks like I will be babying my JCW.

 

I sat in a new mini at the car show and wasn't overly impressed either. While I'm sure its better on gas, has a better drivetrain, better ride, more features etc than my R53, it just didn't feel as special to me. I remember when I was younger sitting in a first gen when they were first released and thinking it was the coolest thing ever. There was nothing else on the market like it at the time. I loved everything about it. Sitting in the F56 it just felt like I was sitting in any other trendy compact car. The styling is more generic, the interior is more generic, and it just didn't evoke the same feelings for me.