Our Mini has the aero kit with the black arch wheel well and some have the "full" aero kit/painted wheel arches including my brother-in-law. Is it PITA to go for the full aero kit after the install? If anyone has done this how much did it cost?

After only 3,000 miles our black painted arch in the front already has chips. Todays paint just does not seem to hold-up to anything. Same thing on my GMC...rock chips in places I would have never thought.

Thanks for reading.

 

Actually, the painted arches are not part of the aero kit. They are completely seperate. If your aero kit is already painted, then you will have to get all the pieces repainted if you want to paint your arches too. The reason being is because the arch pieces that are on the aero front bumper, rear bumper, and side skirts, do not come off, so to get rid of the textured look that is already on them, you would have to completely respray them, in addition to getting your arches painted as well.


It is pretty expensive modification. Plan on spending anywhere from $700 to $1500 depending on the body shop. In order for the paint to properly adhere to the plastic arches, the body shop needs to know how to do the correct prep work.


I would highly recommend www.lambspeed.com . They did my arches for me and they came out awesome. I paid just around $300 for JUST the arches (6 different pieces total). I paid an additional $200 to a local body shop to paint my rear bumper, as well $400 for the side skirts. I still have not gotten the front bumper resprayed yet (I was quoted $300 though). As you can see...it adds up pretty fast, but I did this all over a period of a year so as long as you can pace yourself it can be affordable, I gues . Good luck!


By the way...here is a picture to showing the difference between the painted arches and the textured paint that is STILL on my aero front bumper. On the left: Top is painted...bottom is still textured.



And for good measures, one more picture :

 

Thanks for the reply and all the details, that is what I was afraid of. I wish they came this way in the first place. I doubt we would be reading posts on how to make the arches a cool plastic flat black.

Are the aero kits also textured to match the factory wheel well arches or is the texture a paint trick? Ours is chipping real bad with very little mileage.

 

If the paint is chipping and you didn't do anything abusive then under warranty you might be able to get it repainted if the aero kit was purchased at the time when your MINI was new.

If the plastic parts are not prepped enough the paint won't stick.
Any dents or dings to the wheel arches can crack and flake off the paint.

Many owners choose to paint the arches at the time of adding the aero kit bumpers and side skirts. Could be body colored or black but I have seen dark silver arches and lower bumper trim on a black MCS or red arches and bumper trim on a Pepper white MCS.

 

If you plan on painting the arches its best that you buy new ones to prevent them from chipping. Check out Classic Mini for a good price.

 

The arches in the aero kit are smooth. Textured paint must be used to match the factory arches.

 

Thanks everyone for taking your time to reply and for passing along some godd information. I will ask the dealer about the chips...it does look like they did not prep it well enough, who knows maybe we can work something out on changing the color. I will not hold my breath I will be lucky they even acknowledge the poor workmanship in the first place.

Thanks again for everyones help.