Urethane Body Kits
If you take pride in your car (and its appearance), there's a very good chance you've at least considered buying a body kit for yours. For those not in the know, body kits are a set of items that modify the outer appearance of your car. Virtually everybody gets body kits just for appearance purposes, but savvy buyers also make sure that they also get features that can actually improve the performance of their cars as well. That's not to say that anybody should buy body kits for performance, as they won't give any great performance boost. But seeing if you can get a boost while you’re at it is well worth it.
Urethane body kits are a type of kit made of polyurethane (urethane is usually just a sort-hand). Other materials that body kits can be made of include fiberglass, carbon fiber and ABS plastic. Each of these materials has defining characteristics, and which you'll want depends on the type and intensity of your driving. Carbon glass is generally very lightweight, hard and expensive, while ABS plastic is hard, but otherwise fairly un-extraordinary. Fiber glass is the most popular material used for body kits, as it's the cheapest material of them all.
Polyurethane, or urethane body kits both very durable and very expensive, and that's because they're very high quality. It's also very easy to install on a car, which means that for the extra money spent, you'll probably save nearly as much time. Urethane body kits are very flexible compared to any other body kit, and that’s what makes them so easy to install – they fit onto cars very easily. Most body kits are chosen specifically for their hardiness, but urethane kits take the entirely opposite rout, and it makes for an easy alternative if your budget is high enough to absorb the cost hit.
On the other hand, the composition of urethane body kits has its definite drawbacks. Urethane kits are impossible to repair. So if you every have a really strong impact on one of the urethane body parts and it breaks, you'll have to purchase that part all over again. And as it's expensive, that's quite a hit. A typical urethane body kit will cost about $1,000, and if you have to get it custom made, it can cost more than $20,000. And because these types of kits are so rare, there is a good chance that you might have to get it custom made.
In addition to being easy to install, urethane kits are resistant to most damage. Because of their softness, urethane kits are fairly flexible, and it probably won't break on most impacts, so the chance of having to completely replace them isn't as great as it would be with a fiberglass kit. However, the finish on fiberglass kits actually looks better, so the value of a urethane body kit is questionable. After all, even if you end up having to replace a fiberglass kit, it still might not cost as much as a urethane version.
Whether or not that's true depends on whether you have the capability to install it yourself. Even for a professional, installing a body kit is not an easy job, and for the vast majority of car owners, it's a long project and best and virtually impossible at worst. And while a urethane body kit might be worth a lot more to you if it saves you the price of hiring a professional to install it, that won't usually be the case. A urethane kit will be worth the most to people who frequently get in small accidents, but for most drivers, it's really just an unnecessary expense.
