So I recently hit a fox at ~45mph and on his way through my grill he hit my hood. There is a small section of the front lip that has been rolled in and I am getting quotes between 600-800 to fix it and I am a bit leery of how well the repair might turn out. I have been thinking about buying and installing some vents on my hood to help with under hood temps and I am wondering if maybe I should consider an aftermarket hood at this point. I was wondering if anyone had any experience with aftermarket hoods on our cars. It seems that my only real option would be carbon fiber and I see that hood pins are recommended with those, but I think hood pins look tacky. What do you guys think or recommend? At the moment I am looking at https://www.carid.com/seibon-carbon/...lxis-tsii.html but I would prefer a less aggressively styled version.

 

If you don't like hood pins, you could go with something more low profile.

 

 

I'm not too worried about the weight, I just figured if I'm going to spend about that much money either way that maybe I'd go with something different. Does anyone have any bad experiences with carbon fiber hoods? I'm kind of looking for someone to talk me out of it or suggest a better option than the hood I linked to.

 

I had a VIS carbon fiber hood on my WRX years ago...2004 to be exact. I got it for pretty much the same reason as you, accident damage and yes stock subaru hoods are also aluminum so no weight savings there. I did not use hood pins because the stock hood latch transferred directly over to the carbon version. It was pre-drilled and re-enforced to accept the oem plate. No probs at all even with a giant scoop.

I did get rid of it however after only about a year. I got tired of the look and the hood gel coat finish wasn't completely smooth. "Wavy" if you caught it from certain angles, something common in aftermarket CF hoods. Can't comment on if it would have faded or spider cracking since I didn't own it long enough. IMO, I wouldn't do it, and if I did, I'd paint the hood. Maybe leave the vent area CF exposed.

On a side note, my buddy did have a Seibon CF hood on his MK3 Supra. He didn't put hood pins and it did fly up and smash his windshield. Not sure if the stock latch was used, or if it came with it's own. Also it looked like crap when the hood was popped open. Since Supra hoods are so long, it would sag and bend like a wet noodle with it resting on the single arm hood prop.