Hoods, Grilles & Header Panels in Dallas, TX

Six things worth knowing before you order

• Hoods are the one panel where a bad aftermarket part is genuinely dangerous. CAPA found one of six non-certified hoods it tested was missing the reinforcement plate between the striker and the outer skin entirely.
• We put a light behind the striker area on every hood that comes in. If the reinforcement plate is not there, the hood goes back on the truck.
• Aluminum hoods weigh roughly half what the steel equivalent does, which matters because the factory gas struts were valved for the original weight.
• Header panels crack at the headlight tabs long before anything else fails, and most of the ones we sell go to people replacing a tab, not a whole front end.
• Grille chrome is plated plastic, not metal, so a heat gun and a plastic pry tool get the clips loose without turning the surround into confetti.
• Hood insulation pads are cheap and everybody skips them, and then the paint on the underside cooks and the engine bay sounds twice as loud.
• Hood struts are matched to the panel weight, and fitting a new hood without new struts is how a hood ends up resting on somebody's head.
• Grille surrounds with chrome plating and grille surrounds with painted trim are different part numbers on the same vehicle, and photographs online rarely make it clear which is which.
• The hood latch support is a separate stamping on most vehicles and it takes the whole load when a bonnet is forced. Check it before blaming the latch.
• Radiator core supports come in steel, composite and hybrid depending on the model year, and the mounting points move between versions.
• Active grille shutters are fitted to a lot of recent vehicles for aerodynamics, and they are a motorised assembly that has to move across to the new grille.
• Hood hinges bend before hoods do in a low-speed frontal impact, and a bent hinge is a twenty dollar part that saves a two hundred dollar panel from being blamed.