What did you do for your ZHP/ BMW / MINI today? #2

[YoitsTmac]

How do people here feel about car wraps? I've been pricing out the M-Tech bumpers but paint will be at least $500 over two bumpers. I mean for that money, I'm almost 1/4 into the cost of a vehicle wrap. Seems worthwhile to save at that point?

[roddykar]

Paint > wrap. Almost made the mistake of wrapping my car atop super aged paint. Wraps just aren’t built to last for a long time without concise maintenance and can look even worse on top of aged paint/coat. If you plan on keeping that car for a while, I’d reconsider. 1/4th $ is still 3/4ths saved. But just my opinion!

I would take the car to a good upholstery shop and have the seat redone in the right leather. They should be able to match the leather or whatever material that is in in your car.

The driver’s seat in my car isn’t nearly as bad but eventually I will drop my car off to get my seat redone at an upholstery shop…

It’s natural brown. Interesting, so you think they can get it dead on? I worry it’ll look off from the other seats that have naturally aged

[John in VA]

I've been pricing out the M-Tech bumpers but paint will be at least $500 over two bumpers.

That's cheap compared to prices in the Wash DC area.

[Vas]

That's cheap compared to prices in the Wash DC area.

If you are willing to make a trip 2 hours south of dc my paint guy is around $250 per panel to refinish and paint a panel

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[YoitsTmac]

Paint > wrap. Almost made the mistake of wrapping my car atop super aged paint. Wraps just aren’t built to last for a long time without concise maintenance and can look even worse on top of aged paint/coat. If you plan on keeping that car for a while, I’d reconsider. 1/4th $ is still 3/4ths saved. But just my opinion!

Thanks for your input - that's a good way of thinking of it. I am a little skeptical of $250 per bumper. I drove an hour each way to Umnitza to check out a bumper they had freshly painted. Little to no orange peel, strong shine, but the shine was a little "dull". As I revisit the photo, it appears there are a couple divots where dust likely hit during clear (see attached). As I left, they told me this is a "stage 1" paint, which is "good for 99% of people."

Then have a stage 2, which they say is $500 per bumper. $500/ea seems high. Feels like a poor upsell and makes me question the quality at each price point. They said they use more clear and a higher quality paint with the tier 2. So now I'm thinking, well is the tier 1 quality poor enough to chip or fade early? I may call some local people or ask my CCA chapter.

[cakM3]

Picking up a new MTEC II passenger side skirt to replace the broken standard BMW side skirt one of the previous owner had installed…



When I originally ordered my replacement side skirt the wrong part arrived (non MTEC II side skirt) so I had the dealer order the right part which shipped from Germany. It will be nice to have the right part installed


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[Will]

I got a set of OE windshield wipers (the frames). My car had a set of the "evo" blade-type wipers and always had a golfball to baseball sized spot that wouldn't wipe which was directly in front of the driver. I changed them to the Michelin wipers from Costco and the problem got worse. The baseball sized un-wiped spot turned into a grapefruit sized un-wiped spot.

I swapped my OE wiper frames from the m3 onto the zhp and voila, no un-wiped spots. Decision was made to go to the OE frames (with the wind deflector over the driver's side).

[BMWCurves]

Glad that solved your problem! I have the OE euro/evo wipers and they work great minus a tiny little 1 cm or so section that's basically covered by the gauge cluster anyways so it's not missed.

[Will]

Glad that solved your problem! I have the OE euro/evo wipers and they work great minus a tiny little 1 cm or so section that's basically covered by the gauge cluster anyways so it's not missed.

Thanks! Yeah, it was really annoying to have that unswept area in direct line of sight of the driver.

[BADCLOWN]

Picked the GFs mini clubman S up after my Indy had his computer whiz code out her passenger side occupancy sensor. Been trying various cheap solutions which didn’t work out and I wasn’t going to pay the $1400 mini was asking for the part. Coding worked like a charm, so glad I don’t have to see the FOUR DIFFERENT warning lights lit up.

Dropping her summer wheels (Mini GP) off at tire discounters tomorrow to have wheel speed sensors installed and then rebalanced. I’ll then mount them on the car this weekend since the weather has thankfully turned.