B7 Audi A4/S4 Carbon Fiber Rear Valence – Pics & Install Tips

UPDATE: I have now removed this valence – after a few months, the finish of the carbon fiber quickly deteriorated, and it is now cloudy & hazy, and doesn’t even really look like carbon fiber anymore in some areas (especially around the exhaust tips). In other areas it is kind of yellowed. I think the heat of the exhaust also warped it some, as the fitment wasn’t very great either. For all of the reasons, it simply didn’t look good any more so I took it off. I really wouldn’t recommend this valence unless maybe you were using it for as a show-only piece and removing it for daily driving…

I recently ordered and installed a carbon fiber Audi S4 rear valence and installed it – and I think it turned out great. The finish is awesome and it definitely brings out the quad tip exhaust a little better. The price was great too ($180 shipped) but when I got the product, the fiberglass work was a little sloppy – essentially it didn’t fit very well. I emailed the seller and he told me to take it to a body shop – which I scoffed at because the valence can normally be installed in about 60 seconds by a total moron. You simply remove two screws, one at each end, then it pulls right out. To install the new one, *normally* all you’d have to do is reverse that process – snap it in, then replace the two screws. However, the tabs that snap in were a bit too thick, so I couldn’t get it to snap in and fit flush.

To fix it, I used a dremel tool and smoothed down all of the tabs a little bit. Essentially, too much fiberglass was used, so the tabs are to thick, wide, etc…just all around a few mm too big. Dremel it down on each side (be sure not to dremel anywhere visibile, and then try again – it took me a few test fits before I was happy with the install. Here is what it looked like after I dremeled it down (the white area is where the dremel was used):

As you can see in the pic above, the weave is pretty nice and this is definitely authentic carbon fiber. Here is another shot of the corner, probably where I had to do the most dremeling:

In the above pic (sorry its kind of blurry) I actually dremeled too much and it was kind of visible, so I covered the visible area with black electric tape, which hides it perfectly – so if you screw up and go too far, black nail polish or electric tape are good ways to cover it up.

Overall, I’m super happy. The finish looks great and really stands out. I’ve gotten a few compliments on it already and I also think it helps accent my quad tip Billy Boat exhaust better, so it really works well with the whole rear end of the car.

A few more pics of the finished product: