I really like the look of my 2012 Mazda 3 but it has accumulated quite a few rock chips over the last few months. I tried using a variety of products to reduce the appearance of these chips and scratches, and some of the products worked but some made it worse. That's a long story that could justify its own thread but I'm not going to go into too much detail, essentially I managed to fix most of the problems but there are some subtle blemishes that are annoying me.
I was thinking about getting my hood repainted and putting a clear bra or some other form of protection on it, but I started thinking that this might be a good time to upgrade my hood. I know carbon fiber is the popular choice for performance enthusiasts but even a fiberglass or aluminum hood would probably reduce the weight quite a bit. Does anybody know how much the steel OEM hood weighs? Is there any downside to slightly reducing the front-end weight of the car?
So I've been looking all over the internet to find a good replacement hood, but I like the style of the OEM hood and I don't really want to get a scoop or any other sort of MS3 features. The only hoods I can find for the MZ3 are similar to the MS3 hood or even ricier, and the rest are steel replacement hoods that are identical to the OEM. Where can I find a carbon-fiber or fiberglass hood that matches the OEM style? I can't find anything online and I'm about to start phoning the local bodyshops to see what they know.