William's 330Ci ZHP Maintenance and Project Thread

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Originally Posted by fw_fw

I'd want it flush as you can make it, otherwise all that water that comes down that way will find a way into those replacement taillights.....

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Yeah, it's not getting anymore flush as far as I can tell, but I plan to use some silicon caulk I have lying around to seal it up tomorrow.

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Originally Posted by Sockethead

When mine leaked, it didn't go into the taillight... it filled the spare tire well full of water

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Well...that's not an aftermarket feature I'd like to have if I'm honest haha.

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Originally Posted by 330i Lover

Nice write up. That spider has seen better days!

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That it has. I'm trying to figure out how I might dislodge it, maybe try and vacuum it? Although I know vacuum + electronics != a good thing.

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Originally Posted by danewilson77

Good work.

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Thanks! One more thing down.

I removed my driver's side tail light and laid down a line of silicone caulk on the metal where the rubber gasket meets the trunk. I then reinstalled the tail light and made sure there was sufficient caulk around the gasket. It is now curing, hopefully it will make a nice, waterproof seal. The silicone I used:

http://i.imgur.com/aqxcgue.jpg

Question for you all: how much do you think it should cost to detail some minor blemishes for rear seats, seven pieces total when disassembled?

This morning I brought the rear parts of my recently purchase M3 interior to an independent shop recommended by my local dealership to get an estimate for some minor detailing repairs. They quoted me $500+ with no guarantees that they could fix it all. Does that seem reasonable? It seems pretty high to me. Seth or someone said that they had a guy at their shop who could heat stretch sagging leather for about $25 a car. I need to find that type of service local.

Link to some photos of the interior's blemishes: http://imgur.com/a/i63xd

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts!

My full set of 245/40R17 Continental ExtremeContact DW tires arrived today. I'm excited to get them mounted once my 17x8.5" ET40 APEX ARC-8 in Hyper Black arrive!

And my above question still stands, any help would be greatly appreciated!

http://i.imgur.com/BbBDEEy.jpg

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Originally Posted by BMWCurves

Question for you all: how much do you think it should cost to detail some minor blemishes for rear seats, seven pieces total when disassembled?

This morning I brought the rear parts of my recently purchase M3 interior to an independent shop recommended by my local dealership to get an estimate for some minor detailing repairs. They quoted me $500+ with no guarantees that they could fix it all. Does that seem reasonable? It seems pretty high to me. Seth or someone said that they had a guy at their shop who could heat stretch sagging leather for about $25 a car. I need to find that type of service local.

Link to some photos of the interior's blemishes: http://imgur.com/a/i63xd

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At $500, they're probably just taking a shot in the dark and guessing five hours of somebody's time at $100/hr. Basically, they probably don't want to deal with you, and they're hoping either you'll go away, or that if they have to deal with you, they'll be making good money.

I'm no leather expert, but half that stuff looks it will work its way out once it's warmed and massaged a little to take the stresses out. The little dimples, for instance... Get that in the sun or use a hair dryer on a warm setting, use some leather conditioner, and I bet it'll be mostly gone.

The bolsters that are a wrinkled and "tired"... I think that has more to do with the foam being broken down. It's squished, has lost some of its body, and so the leather is left not as tight as it once was.

Check out this video that Larry from AmmoNYC did on cleaning and restoring leather, particularly the steaming part.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Bd_IqK5ydU

You probably can't tell because the seats are black, but that leather is probably dirty on top of all the other defects.

Here's another video he did with some leather guys on rebuilding a seat... Particularly the part on rejuvenating the foam at 3:24..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUhrar9lR5Q

Food for thought.

Cheers,
SC

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Originally Posted by BMWCurves

My full set of 245/40R17 Continental ExtremeContact DW tires arrived today. I'm excited to get them mounted once my 17x8.5" ET40 APEX ARC-8 in Hyper Black arrive!

And my above question still stands, any help would be greatly appreciated!

http://i.imgur.com/BbBDEEy.jpg

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Nice.

I think we were some of the first orders in?


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Originally Posted by ecrabb

At $500, they're probably just taking a shot in the dark and guessing five hours of somebody's time at $100/hr. Basically, they probably don't want to deal with you, and they're hoping either you'll go away, or that if they have to deal with you, they'll be making good money.

I'm no leather expert, but half that stuff looks it will work its way out once it's warmed and massaged a little to take the stresses out. The little dimples, for instance... Get that in the sun or use a hair dryer on a warm setting, use some leather conditioner, and I bet it'll be mostly gone.

The bolsters that are a wrinkled and "tired"... I think that has more to do with the foam being broken down. It's squished, has lost some of its body, and so the leather is left not as tight as it once was.

Check out this video that Larry from AmmoNYC did on cleaning and restoring leather, particularly the steaming part.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Bd_IqK5ydU

You probably can't tell because the seats are black, but that leather is probably dirty on top of all the other defects.

Here's another video he did with some leather guys on rebuilding a seat... Particularly the part on rejuvenating the foam at 3:24..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUhrar9lR5Q

Food for thought.

Cheers,
SC

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Appreciate the info, definitely helpful. I'll have to think about what I want to do. First things first though is to get my passenger side bolster issue resolved.

And that was the feeling I was getting from the detailer as well. Just a lot of hesitation.

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Originally Posted by NoVAphotog

Nice.

I think we were some of the first orders in?

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I think we were. I'm excited!

It was funny, I didn't get a knock at the door but I got an email while I was upstairs that my tires were delivered. I went downstairs and opened the door but there weren't any tires or packages. I reread the email and it says "left in front of garage." I open up the garage and there they are, four tires collecting rain. The mailing sticker was just slapped on one of the tires. I had never seen that before.

Today I mounted and balanced my four new APEX ARC-8 17x8.5" ET40 Hyper Black wheels with four Continental ExtremeContact DW 245/40R17 tires. I opted to purchase metal valve stems as well since they were only a dollar more a piece compared to rubber ones. Had it done by people over at A n T Tire and Wheel since they had good reviews on TireRack. They didn't have Road Force balancing equipment, but the only place in the Portland Area had terrible reviews, several of which said their wheels were scratched in the process. These guys were very nice, quick, and wrapped up my old wheels in some plastic bags and loaded them into my car for me. Great service.

I haven't put in the hub caps because a) I can't find where I put them :facepalm and b) I am going to order BMW replica ones on Amazon. The ones that came with the APEX wheels aren't carbon fiber like they show in the pictures, they're just black with APEX's logo written on them so they're a little less nice than I expected. Oh well. I should say the wheels came packed very nicely, they had basically hairnets around the face of the wheel along with a plastic cap to protect the rim of the wheel.

First impressions: I haven't had a chance to test the setup out yet. I want to get a few hundred miles onto the tires to get through the thin film on the tires and then I'll update! Visually though, I love the look!

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EDIT: I've had about 300 miles on them since they were installed and this set up is great. The car feels more planted in the corners and manages bumps in the road much better than before. With traction control off, I can use the throttle pedal to modulate the car's rotation. I think steering response is ever so slightly decreased which probably down to both a taller sidewall and a softer sidewall. I don't mind it though, just an observation. Slightly reduced road noise. All of that with a marked improvement in ride comfort. I really enjoy this setup, it's precisely what I hoped to get out of it.

Some people say they experience a slight increase in acceleration. I haven't really noticed it but wouldn't be too surprised if it were true.

Also I like the slight increased offset, visually. The additional ~10mm fills out the wheel wells nicely.

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Some quick pics (ignore the dirt, it's been raining here :()

Continental ExtremeContact DW 245/40R17 tires:

http://i.imgur.com/BbBDEEy.jpg

APEX ARC-8 17x8.5" ET40 Hyper Black wheels:

http://i.imgur.com/6jeK6ms.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mlGveMG.jpg

All mounted (first pic is of my car being parked in by another BMW customer at the dealership this morning. Thanks!):

http://i.imgur.com/hhhKnHD.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/TwqVW2s.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/XF6kSpl.jpg

Lookin' good ;)

Looks awesome... I think you picked right colored wheels too... This is the set up i want have down the line so I'm interested to see what u have to say...


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