Anybody buy bumper fillers from 'the parts place'?

[Bruce Urie]

Toby, thanks for your excellent explanation on your flexible bumper fillers.....I've been trying like hell to get some information on them.....I am now very sure I will get them from Goodmark....

With Mike's (Spoolfool) beautiful bumper fillers, they are just great, perfect fitting but made out of fiberglass......with that in mind, I would rather stick with the flexible fillers......they were originally made flexible for the 5mph bumper test......thus, if someone backed into my front or rear bumper, there's a good chance that the fenders will not be bent/damaged....the bumpers go in via the shocks they are bolted to, and the fillers flex, saving damage to the fenders, front light bezels, rear lights, etc.

Though I'd LOVE to have Mike's excellent fillers, I prefer to go with Goodmark flexible fillers, since my Grand National is a daily driver....that's the big difference here. It's not a show car nor taken to the strip.......I can't tell you how many times idiots have backed into, or driven into the bumpers of my GN at parking lots......there's always some clown who has no depth perception when they back up.....you can tell this by looking at the black rubber bumper strips on my bumpers. Hit gouges everywhere. Front and back. Daily driver Turbo Buicks should all go with flexible fillers. This is just common sense in a world of uncaring drivers.

Thus, saving "possible" extended damage to the fenders, etc. by using the flexible Goodmarks, I'd feel a little more safer this way from the mindless drivers out there in parking lots, as the flexible ones would flex inwards when some clown hits my bumpers. Mike's fiberglass ones are very, very expensive to replace if someone were to hit my bumpers, driving them into the fiberglass thus breaking them.

This is not a negative to you, Mike..................your fillers are the best in the industry, bar none.

Again, Toby, thank you for the excellent explanation of your fillers.

To the others who had problems with the Parts Place, I'm sorry to hear. I had ordered a fuel filter from them for my '69 Vette and it arrived at my home with no problem. It fits perfect. I don't know why you had such problems with them and I do feel bad for you. What else can I say?


Bruce '87 Grand National

 

[Dennis Kirban]

Here is my 2 cents worth:

Parts Place is a huge supplier to the GM muscle car industry with probably 75% of their business catering to the older a GM muscle cars A body and f body. We buy a lot from them. The fillers they sell are the same ones that several other vendors sell including our company. We offer several versions as not everyone is building a 25 grand plus project.....one reason us and others offer several choices for brake units powermaster, vacuum or hydroboost.

As far as parts being made overseas...its part of doing business.....every new ss camaro emblem we buy from GM has a small sticker on it that reads south korea. What many people don't realize is in some cases one company makes a part and it gets packaged under different companies ever look at a Wells box and notice how similar the colors are to GM?

It can be confusing to say the least. I run into it at car shows....I amy see one of my parts on a Mustang or a Corvette and know its one of my parts yet the car owner insists it came from such and such a company and they were told it was made by them.

Take the foreign companies out of the equation, and none of us would have any cell phones or TVs.....

denniskirban@yahoo.com

 

[Toby_Goodmk]

Dennis, Thanks for the common sense approach to your message above. Maybe since it came from a respected individual as yourself, the other "nay-sayers" will will wake up and realize.

 

[Toby_Goodmk]

Toby, thanks for your excellent explanation on your flexible bumper fillers.....I've been trying like hell to get some information on them.....I am now very sure I will get them from Goodmark....

With Mike's (Spoolfool) beautiful bumper fillers, they are just great, perfect fitting but made out of fiberglass......with that in mind, I would rather stick with the flexible fillers......they were originally made flexible for the 5mph bumper test......thus, if someone backed into my front or rear bumper, there's a good chance that the fenders will not be bent/damaged....the bumpers go in via the shocks they are bolted to, and the fillers flex, saving damage to the fenders, front light bezels, rear lights, etc.

Though I'd LOVE to have Mike's excellent fillers, I prefer to go with Goodmark flexible fillers, since my Grand National is a daily driver....that's the big difference here. It's not a show car nor taken to the strip.......I can't tell you how many times idiots have backed into, or driven into the bumpers of my GN at parking lots......there's always some clown who has no depth perception when they back up.....you can tell this by looking at the black rubber bumper strips on my bumpers. Hit gouges everywhere. Front and back. Daily driver Turbo Buicks should all go with flexible fillers. This is just common sense in a world of uncaring drivers.

Thus, saving "possible" extended damage to the fenders, etc. by using the flexible Goodmarks, I'd feel a little more safer this way from the mindless drivers out there in parking lots, as the flexible ones would flex inwards when some clown hits my bumpers. Mike's fiberglass ones are very, very expensive to replace if someone were to hit my bumpers, driving them into the fiberglass thus breaking them.

This is not a negative to you, Mike..................your fillers are the best in the industry, bar none.

Again, Toby, thank you for the excellent explanation of your fillers.

To the others who had problems with the Parts Place, I'm sorry to hear. I had ordered a fuel filter from them for my '69 Vette and it arrived at my home with no problem. It fits perfect. I don't know why you had such problems with them and I do feel bad for you. What else can I say?


Bruce '87 Grand National

Bruce, you are very welcome. I am here to help to set the story straight on aftermarket items. Where as my passion was purely parts at first, then got a few Gbody cars, and now its the #1 passion with driving, creating parts, and enjoying good people here and abroad. Any vendors out there that carry a product created by us carries a damn good product and we stand behind it with our distributors 100%. Yes PartsPlace carries our products as well, but dont blame the products for inept customer service. Just choose another vendor. There is a reason I bought a completely rusted vehicle, so we could have first hand experience installing the parts on the car I own, to make sure there is no issues. Many times I said no....its not good enough, fix it. That is the reason we dont have tail lights yet for Regal and Cutass. Me and Brian just do not like the final fit...so we are fixing. The steel cowl hood for the Regal is out, it came out GREAT!....however the cutlass we failed because of design,,,,so a new version will be out soon...just a couple pics for you to see. Many sheetmetal items will be available soon and most vendors will be carrying for you to choose from. like the fillers.

 

[ITSAV6]

The quality of the spoiler was good but the service was

 

[SPOOLFOOL2]

The Spoolfool two cents.

First off. I have never met or talked to Toby that I know of. However, As a long time Turbo Buick owner, I am very grateful that he and the company he works for, have taken the huge risk, and spent lots of money on a three decades old car, to make parts that NO ONE else would have done, and keep many of our cars from being scrapped. I know that there are much larger and more profitable markets to invest money in these days. As a bumper filler vendor, I have a lot of respect for the product he's turned out. IMHO, Straight up. He and I currently have the only two "quality" bumper fillers on the market today. In this small nitch market of old Buicks, we need every manufacturer we have, if we want to have these cars around long term.

Bruce,
Thanks for the props. One correction though. Spoolfool bumper fillers will not cause your fenders or quarter panels to buckle in an accident. The filler will be the "fuse". Highway Stars did independent testing before they decided to sell my product. Also, my fillers are not "very, very expensive to replace" in case of a accident. These are hand laid fiberglass and easily repaired. So far, in all the hundreds of fillers I've made and sold, there have been four accidents that I know of. Three of which were easily repaired. Only one was replaced. I suspect that it was because insurance would pay for a new one.

My fillers aren't just on hot rods and show cars. There are at least six GNXs that I know of that run them.

Happy Spooling.

Mike Barnard

 

[Toby_Goodmk]

Mike,

Thanks for those kind words, the feeling on your filler is mutual with mine, as you make a great product as well. You are right, no one else would come to the market to make the parts. But I truly feel there is payoff in the long run for our company and MFG as well as us. Truth is we have the deep pockets and GBP bought alot and invested alot in R&D so I made sure we brought all we could to the market when we could. I wouldnt expect another MFG being able to do so in all honesty. I simply used the resources at hand at the right time to get some products rolling. As I ALWAYS state to all my MFG when selling this program...."Its the last RWD platform GM car that was mass produced that you can shove alot of engine in, transmission whatever you want....carry dead bodies in the trunk, that will be available...its done...." So I feel the GBODY as a whole is a vehicle platform which will be sought after. It's just now getting to that point where people realize it....

 

[johnnycasx]

i'll problably get both . i'm in the process of body work and paint on my car. thanks for the clarification

 

[captndave737]

A word about "One China" it doesn't exist. China wishes it did but I frequently fly to both but not between both without tech. stopping somewhere else. Non Stop flights aren't allowed since the countries are technically still at war.

When flying from China to Taiwan or Taiwan to China we have to stop in South Korea to get Immigration paperwork before proceeding. We're on the ground about 10 minutes to get this done. Of course South Korea loves this since landing and handling fees are several thousand bucks for handing me a piece of paper.