'09 Fit Wide Side Moldings from Zeta Products

[manxman]

I have been promising Angelo Marzullo, GM of ZetaProducts.net (our new forum vendor) that I would post photos of his product for months. Some hit-&-run a**hole in a parking lot ruined the entire driver-side set of moldlings, so now that the car is back from the body shop with a new set of Zeta moldings, for your enjoyment, here they are.

Unfortunately, these great moldings don't stand out very well on a dark color like the Blackberry Pearl, but the mere fact that they can be hard to see accentuates the exact color match of the factory paint.

Unlike most side moldings that are made from soft PVC plastic (and allow door dings to be transmitted through the soft molding causing a dent in the door sheet metal), the Zeta Wide Moldings are made from ABS plastic. This harder plastic spreads the impact over a wide area, and prevents damage to the door. The moldings carry a 5-year warranty.

I installed my moldings by using the crease in the middle of the doors as the top edge of the moldings. If you want instructions for installation on '09 Fits using this position on the car, PM me and I will tell you how in foolproof instructions. THIS IS EASY!! If you pay someone else to do this, you are CRAZY!

Also, the first photo is of the Zeta Products Chrome Hatch Accent. Sorry for the blurry photo- I needed a tripod, but didn't have time to find mine. I like the chrome strip because I feel that the factory black plastic strip across the hatch looks very bad in the middle of a dark color paint. It would be OK on a lighter color, or a black car, but the black across a purple car just looks bad to me. Aaaand, the red inserts in the rear Honda badge come from TFBDesigns.com, in Morgan Hill, CA. They match the red "H" decals that I have on my wheel hubs to cover the stock black "H", and also match the red decal inserts that I have on the steering wheel "H" emblem- all from TFBDesigns.. Tell Tim that maxman sent you.

Click on photos to enlarge on ImageShack

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/7870/imgp1154.th.jpg (http://img440.imageshack.us/my.php?image=imgp1154.jpg)


http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/5822/imgp1142.th.jpg (http://img262.imageshack.us/my.php?image=imgp1142.jpg)

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http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/7294/imgp1160.th.jpg (http://img119.imageshack.us/my.php?image=imgp1160.jpg)

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/9296/imgp1159i.th.jpg (http://img38.imageshack.us/my.php?image=imgp1159i.jpg)

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/2581/imgp1158i.th.jpg (http://img38.imageshack.us/my.php?image=imgp1158i.jpg)

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/3963/imgp1157.th.jpg (http://img515.imageshack.us/my.php?image=imgp1157.jpg)

:D :D :D :D :cool:

[claymore]

Looks good. They are worth the effort of putting them on.

[manxman]

Looks good. They are worth the effort of putting them on.
Side moldings are meant to provide as much protection as possible from dents being put into YOUR doors by the doors of cars parking next to you. The Zeta ABS plastic moldings do a good job in that regard, but nothing is going to prevent damage in a sideswipe gouge across the side of the car.

If you have a '09 Fit and you don't have moldings, future dings in your doors are guaranteed, and they will all occur right at the crease in each door. The crease is the widest part of the door, and that's where other doors will hit yours.

I was the test subject, and installed the first set of these wide moldings on my '07 Sport BOM about 1 year ago. I felt that they actually added style as well as protection. But on the '09, with taller doors and the horizontal crease in the middle of the sheet metal, I at first thought that the wide moldings would not look as good as the Honda stock narrow moldings, or the original Zeta narrow moldings. So I bought and installed the narrow Zeta moldings. But the lack of protection provided by the softer plastic bugged me for about a month, and I decided to buy the Zeta wide moldings anyway.

To me, the wide moldings look much better than any brand of narrow ones, and more than justify the small increase in price with the extra protection of the harder ABS plastic substrate.

Here's a tip for anyone who wants to remove large objects that are attached with adhesive to the sheet metal of a car: FORGET trying to use dental floss to cut the glue bond between the molding or emblem stuck to the paint. Instead, use 30 pound test nylon fishing line. Cut a piece of line 18" long, make a loop at each end for your hands, wear leather gloves, and run the line behind the molding (or other object_ and the painted surface. Saw the line up and down while pulling it along the molding, until you have cut the adhesive along the entire length of the molding and it falls off the car. Use a stiff pencil eraser and the edge of a credit card to GENTLY scrape and peel off the adhesive that remains stuck to the painted surface of the doors. This will give you a smooth surface on which to stick the new moldings or emblems.

[zetaproducts.net]

Dave:

Thanks for all the work, again! The car looks great. Will use some of these images on my site.

[manxman]

Dave:

Thanks for all the work, again! The car looks great. Will use some of these images on my site.
You are welcome for my efforts, Angelo. I like having my car featured in your ads on forums and on eBay. You sell great products!!

[zetaproducts.net]

Your car is all over the place .... ;-)

[sam24]

Your car looks awesome..Thanks for sharing this details,its informative to know.

[manxman]

Thanks Sam. I knew in advance that these moldings were excellent quality, because Angelo used me as a "guinea pig" when he sent me the prototype set as a test. I installed that set, painted to match the factory BOM paint, on my 2007 Fit. The BOM GD3 that you see on the Zeta web site used to be mine. Unfortunately, it got wrecked. When I got the GE8 as a replacement, I had to have the wide moldings for it too.

[claymore]

They are good to have on the GD3 here they come preinstalled from the factory and you can see little scuffmarks on them that would have been a mark on the door without them.

[manxman]

It's nice that the moldings come standard in Thailand, but they are not the wide ones made of ABS plastic that Zeta Products offers. The ABS material spreads the impact from another car door over a wide area thus preventing the underlying door skin from being dented. The stock Honda moldings are made of a much softer plastic, like PVC, that does not prevent impacts from denting the door.

[MzFiT]

Hey Manx Nice Fit I like the Purple People Eater color! I tested a 08 that I drove home to show my Bride and we both liked the purpleish black with the fine blue metalic. BBP

[manxman]

Thanks Mike, but I wouldn't pick this color again. It is NEVER clean, even five minutes after a wash. But living in the country doesn't help- it's either pollen in the Spring/Summer, or road silt the rest of the year. If they had still offered BOM for the '09s, I would have picked that color because I liked it on my '07, and dirt was not quite as apparent. I didn't like the "sherbet" orange of the GE generation.

BTW, as a name, I like "The Omnivorous Prune" because it will swallow almost anything.