I was parking my V12V the other day and pressed the parking sensor button on my way forward into a parking space. Unfortunately, the sensor didn't activate or immediately deactivated and it didn't warn me before I ran into the curb in front of me.

Although the sound was horrible, as if the splitter had indeed split, what happened was the splitter jumped up over the curb. That's the good news. The bad news is that one of the screws that threads up into the splitter from below punctured through the top of splitter, leaving a small puncture hole where the vertical "strut" of the splitter meets the horizontal plane of the top of the splitter (see image).

I have no plan on paying $4k+ for a new splitter. However, I feel like I do need to seal up the polymer (epoxy?) that encases the carbon fiber weave to prevent delamination that could occur due to water and dirt ingress. My thought is that I could probably sand down the portion of the polymer sticking up from the top surface of the splitter and then fill the small hole/cracks with epoxy. My concern though is that the epoxy could yellow over time due to UV exposure. Has anyone ever had this type of damage repaired? What's the best fix? FWIW, the carbon fiber appears to be undamaged.

 

So sorry to hear of the scrape. In my experience, the delaer will have the best solution as they deal with these problems all the time. Get it to the AM service dept asap.

 

Spoke to the dealer and they said they could sand the excess polymer off and then clear coat over the hole. I'm thinking it may make sense to use epoxy as a bulk material to fill in the hole and then apply a UV resistant clear coat on top to protect the epoxy from the sun's rays.

 

epoxy then clear coat then cutting a small piece of matching vinyl carbon fiber pattern and color, align the pattern with the background and camouflage!

 

I feel for you. I pulled too far forward the other day and, very luckily, the splitter just cleared the top of the curb.

I purchased my car from dealer inentory and for some reason they didn't order the front parking sensors. I figured all V12Vs and V8V Ss would be ordered with the sensors. My laster interceptor HPs have parking sensor function, but I don't think they cover the lower part of the front of the car. No problem if I am parking up against my garage wall, but curbs are still an issue.

Good luck with the fix.

 

seek out an expert on carbon fiber before you add epoxy which may not be a compatible material.

 

Good idea, but if I knew a carbon fiber expert I wouldn't be posting here. Not sure where to find one of those.

 

I'm not sure what part of the US you're at, but I would suggest looking for some custom high end bicycle builders. This industry is accustom to repairing all sorts of items from crashes people get into, especially with frames easily fetching $10k plus - Good Luck!

(Try Calfee design first & see if they can give you some leads)

 

Okay, found a couple of possible leads for CF manufacturers. Will report back if I get some good info.

 

Best of luck, please report back for those with CF Front Ends.

This sort of problem reminds me of the time I stalled out into a curbed, with the M3 of course... I woulda died if it was the Aston.

 

I had a RSC front splitter on the V8 which angled down at the corners. I gave up trying to avoid scrapes turning up driveways. I had a local body shop look at it and they applied some kind of thin fiberglass tape on the under side and gave it a coat of clear for about 100 bucks and it looked new. I'm sure that there is a reasonable solution with out the 4K fix. At least now the pressure is off. I was turning over a dip and heard the scrape sound. Fortunately it was a screw head from that piece of steel on the underside. The fear however is always there.

 

Yes, the good news is that the splitter is designed to take some abuse. There is a layer of plastic and screw heads below the carbon fiber that take on the pavement when you bottom out and I was really impressed by how well the splitter handled the curb front on. Although I wish the screw head hadn't popped through the CF, I feel like the damage could have been a lot worse, in which case I would be just replacing the splitter.

 

Right here!

 

Small shop, great parts, outstanding repairs...Kip Ewing.

 

If you ask your local dealer which place is there authorized Aston body shop(for warranty work, not customer pay issues)...there authorized shop is required to take a carbon fiber repair course from Aston Martin or have taken a similar course that is recognized..I know are shop is certified to do these repairs