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Fibreglass v's Plastic
There are now a few copies of our famous flare kits starting to hit the market.
They are all made of plastic and claim to be better than the fibreglass variety.
We have been producing flares for over 15 years.
| Commonly asked questions |
Plastic variety |
Fibreglass variety |
| Strength | The plastic flares are not very strong. They do flex very easily as they are made from thin plastic sheets. They are not very strong around the fixing screw holes and the flares change shape if over tightened. They offer absolutely no support to the panel they are attached to. | The fibreglass flares are much stronger than the plastic variety. This has been one of the main reasons for sticking with the fibreglass product. The flares can be tightened to the panel work without distorting. Most importantly once the original panel has been cut the flare has no strength left and relies on the flare to support the panel. |
| Durability and Repairability | More flexible to than fibreglass and less likely to break. If they get ripped off they can not be repaired. | Easier to crack and is less flexible than plastics but is stronger and will take a fair bit of punishment . They can also be repaired, painted etc. |
| Can I replace a single flare? | No these kits are sold as kits only | Yes we sell all the flares individually |
| Resealing the rear door on a 4 door vehicle and overall finished quality |
The plastic flare kits have no provisions for covering the inner / outer door skins. The cut ugly panels are left to be covered by the individual
A;so finished fitment / overall quality is a bit so so.
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This is one area where the plastic flares have nothing on the fibreglass. We have specially made a cup flare to cover all panel cuts and resealing the door itself reconnecting the inner and outer door skins.
A cup flare shown above shows the outer flare to the left and the inner flare that mounts under the rear door "painted gold" A colour coded and installed flare shown above right. "Neat and Tidy" |
| Cost of flares | Plastic flares we have seen should be cheaper as they are made from very thin plastics. |
Mostly more expensive than plastic moulded flares as they are labour intensive to build and the rear door cup flare is a 2 piece mould that has to be joined. Just the labour unfortunately will make these more expensive. That said, we recently re visited the use of plastics and have found a newly released plastic that is 3mm thick, flexible, took a pounding in testing and has enough strength to support the panel work. We were very excited. They when we costed them out were no cheaper to make and had very expensive tooling costs associated. |
| Can they be modified ? | Only trimmed. | Fibreglass can be reshaped, cut and ground, extended, polished,painted etc. They really have no limits. |
