Carbon Fiber - Is it ALL the SAME?

[TakeOne]

Have you ever wondered if all carbon fiber is just the same? It appeared for a while that there were two camps of thinking.

1. The “you get what you pay for” guys
2. The “it’s all the same stuff, just different names and mark-up” guys.

Well, I’ve been wondering about this for some time, and wanted to do an experiment.
I decided to replace my current Sterckenn Bumper inserts and buy two new sets of the exact same piece, but from two different places. I go through the entire unboxing, how they were packaged, to look, stamping, quality.
Then I unbox a piece from Adro. An in-house made quality product (which is beyond amazing)

Check out the full video for everything, but it’s my conclusion there is a 3rd Option.
When you have the Original from a specific Company
A gen 1 Copy/knockoff of the original
Then the photocopy of the photocopy method.
Shoutout to Mike from Extreme Power House for sourcing me one of the sets (which is the ones I ended up keeping )

[ONEof500]

I’ll checkout the video but short answer is no. There is carbon oaverlaid on plastic or fiberglass this is the cheap stuff. Then there is 100% carbon this is the expensive stuff and it’s significantly lighter than plastic the cheap stuff.

[Clark_Kent]

Definitely not all the same. The people who say it's all the same are the same people who gladly by eBay knockoffs.

[ShopVac]

I'll just add this for context...

On my Audi S4, there was one carbon fiber part I bought on eBay...others listed issues with the polyurethane from eBay purchases, but it was the style I wanted, thus obtained.

For about 4 years, while the car was garage kept, I did not have any issues with the part...and probably would end up being one that would have said 'all parts are the same'.

Since getting the M4, the S4 has taken up a driveway spot and now the car is exposed to excessive UV. The eBay part I bought constantly fades and requires a buff to cut through the haze and restore the top coat to gloss. to add, none of other parts CF parts on the car require this level of attention and can only assume this is what others were referring to.