ds33gt

Bought a set of oem gm fenders as I had some damage that shattered rhe lower section of the driver fender. It us a late build 2010 so therefore no marker hole.

The driver fender has what appears to have damage that was repaired, but the standard mold marks that are throughout these fenders go over the top of the potential fix. Any with experience with these fenders in the past have any insight if this could have been a fix at the factory that produced these. The fender shows no cracking/loss of structural integrity and did not want to sand it down as I would then have no means to return.

If you do please PM me your contact information so we can discuss in detail.

I paid a good amount for these and before I take next steps wanted some feedback from you all.

First 5 are details of the issue. As you can see the mold/bag seams over the top of the repair. Also not sure how carbon could crack in this type of manner. My damaged fender has only straight shards of damage following the carbon weave.

6th picture is an overall view of the issue.

Last compares driver side fender to passenger, clearly showing a clean underside without the repair.

chinmasterflex

I really don’t think those were repaired, it would be more obvious. Even the some parts of the oem CFZ aero sorta looks like that on my own car and I initially had the same concerns.

ds33gt

Thanks for the feedback. I'm wanting to be in agreement due to a few reasons.

1. The mold/vaccuum process marks being over the top of the potential fix/correction.
2. Would think it to be almost impossible for a carbon fiber part to crack in this s pattern fashion. Any carbon or glass repair I have seen involves some type of fiber/glass applied along with an epoxy type substrate for increased structure.

Would be interesting to get feedback from someone who knows the production process from when these were produced back in the 06-13 and if they were all produced by the same manufacturer.

68sixspeed

If you want to go to my part-out thread from a 2011 there is a link to pictures of the body panels, the RF is unhit and has a lot of what I assume are wrinkles from the vacuum bag process on the inside. I'm thinking that is all you are seeing but unless you take the paint off the outside it would be hard to tell if there is filler or a repair.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...-part-out.html

-Dan

Hib Halverson

I'm thinking like others here–that those panels were not repaired.

That said, they are clearly "blemished". What sometimes happens is blemished panels will come in the assembly plant and get rejected for use in production. In this case, I bet they were rejected for production because of the difficulty the plant's paint shop would have in painting those panels. If the blemishes are just cosmetic, sometimes parts rejected for production are put into the parts system. Considering the cost of CF panels, it would not surprise me to learn that GM took cosmetically-blemished parts rejected for production and sold them as replacement parts.

It would be far easier for a body shop in the field to prep and paint those than it would to do them with the robotic sprayers in the paint shop at B.G. In fact, if those were used for production they'd likely come out of the paint shop looking like crap. They'd get put on a car and then that car would have to go to the repair area after it came off the line to have the paint problem solved, a potentially costly process, so GM avoids that by selling the panels as replacement parts and letting the parts customer deal with the problem. Maybe not the best "deal" for the parts customer, but it's the reality of volume production of vehicles.

As all Z06es are now at least 11 years old, the front fenders are bound to be discontinued fairly soon so, I wouldn't look a "gift horse" in the mouth. Soon you may be lucky to have even blemished, replacement C6 front fenders.

larsofvt

All OE C6 Z06/ZR1 fenders were made by one manufacturer.
The vacuum mold bags were a re-usable silicone. It appears the imprint is from a repaired tear in the bag.

ds33gt

Interesting insight.....

Some additional info. The pair of fenders I have were off a SSB car not replacements. I needed the driver side to replace the fender on my 2010 due to an unfortunate incident with a peice of metal falling off a truck and shattering/splintering the bottom portion.

The replacement SSB fender was sanded down by the body shop and resprayed with no signs of repair however that inner structure really had be worried at first...