E30 Zone

BMW have quoted me £4.5k for the following:

Remove and refit:

M-tech kit, all exterior mouldings, front screen, lights, bonnet fittings, door handles and side windows

Repair and reshape:

NSF wing, NSF door, bootlid, rear panel, NSF door in M-TECH trim, OS qtr panel, OS door and bonnet

Note that all the above repair work is to remove minor dings, nothing major but it all needs doing if the car is to be spot on.

Panel work:

Renew NS qtr wheel arch section and OS QTR wheelarch trim (some rust that needs to go!)

Paintwork:
Prepare rpime and topcoat, entire vehicle

Labour £3255 (about 30 hours which doesnt seem excessive)

Parts:

NS QTR wheel arch section 32.50
OS QTR wheel arch section 32.50
Fuel flap (minor rust) 11.58
Sundry 12.53

Paint and materials 625.00

+VAt the whole thing for just over 4.5k

Neither the time taken, or the parts prices, seem excessive, the cost is obviously in the high BMW labour charge, can anyone reccomend a REALLY good paintshop who can do all this but much cheaper? I am tempted to go ahead with the BMW booking as I know if there are any faults I can get them to fix and it wont cost me anything but if i can get it all done for nearer 2k..well thats money saved i can spend on something else.

I'm in Norfolk if someone happens to know someone local to me.

Cheers

Tim

That doesnt seem excessive at all to me, given the BMW surcharge.

A top respray from a big bodyshop will be anything from 3-4k, without the panel work you mention. I know a couple of places, but they're both local to me (north west - one in southport, one in north wales).

A guy I know paid 10k for a respray on a Supra at the bodyshop in NW, in flip, FWIW.

As above - not completely out of the way cost wise.

i dont think that is a bad price, with a respray you get what you pay for. but a bmw respray will be spot on and i mean spot on, my friends e dirty six had some woman smash into the front of it. took it to bmw they repaired it... we went to pick it up and i swear we couldnt tell it had been hit... top quality work.

PM beardymat..........that is what he does for a living and if you have seen his sport you will know what a good quality spray looks like

yep i agree if your happy enough with the price go for it, you can find cheaper of course but the finish will be nowhere near as good

DaveD wrote:PM beardymat..........that is what he does for a living and if you have seen his sport you will know what a good quality spray looks like

Matt did the resto panel work on his car, but by his own admission he is not a painter so had someone else paint it iirc.

He can certainly put you on the right path and is exactly the person you would talk to about repair work, He is a very talented man.

I assume you're taking it to the BMW bodyshop in Norwich? They repaired my E36 when my other half decided to drive it into a metal post and done a superb job. Colour match, panel alignment etc was superb. Can't praise their workmanship enough. Even got a full interior and exterior valet

i just thought id better point out that if they have quoted you 30 hours then the labour rate you have been given is 108.50 which for a bodyshop is very excessive. the highest rate i charge is to a non fault accident management company and is £38 per hour.

there is a lot of work involved with painting an mtech kitted car as the bodykit consists of 13 pieces on its own (assuming its a tech 2 of course) and i think that 30 hours would be a little tight to make a proper job with no shortcuts. i would quote 40 hours but even at £38 per hour that only comes out at £1520 before vat for the labour.

the rest of the prices look spot on so long as youre useing good paint materials.

i must point out that the guy who did the paint on my car works for me so would be the person who paints any job coming into my bodyshop

Any chance of a pic of the car with it's pin dents - a lot of them can be taken out without painting.

beardymat wrote:i must point out that the guy who did the paint on my car works for me so would be the person who paints any job coming into my bodyshop

Nicely done Matt, That will be hell of a bodyshop with your quality control behind it all.

cheers for the bigup dave and the other dave too

im trying to make a name for quality for my shop so we will not turn out crap even if someone begs for a cheap bodge up.

Bloom_Meister, I can understand why you want to go to BMW, you appear to be that kind of Guy - I'm not knocking it either. They do good work, I used to work in a BMW repair centre. Choosing a good bodyshop can be a bit of a lottery too.

I have seen Matt's Sport and if you know anything about me then you'll know that I am extremely fussy and have a keen eye for detail. That said, I would choose Matt to do my car, because he simply cares about what he does.

If however you are simply after the kudos of going to BMW then go for it. Either way you should get a bang up job.

^^^^^ he is a fussy bugger
but also very right about matt, he simply wont churn out crap work
i've even heard him on fone telling someone to go elsewhere as he wont do bodges of any kind

also agree with chrises comment about matt caring about his work, which is a rare occurance nowdays
mat jigged mine after i piled it and im very happy with the outcome

ps matt if you read this pm/txt me the postcoode for where youve moved to, need to pop down this week

beardy mats car is amazingly smart and the respray is prefect!!! (having seen with my own eyes)

Really good advice from everyone, I guesstimated the number of hours labour myself thinking it was the usual 100+ ph BMW charge so am probably wrong there. Its good to see that the dealer route is probably best in this case and that BMW Norwich have a good rep for their bodyshop however I will be asking Matt for a quote as well.

Thanks again

Tim

BMW estimates tend to be a bit cautious as well. They quoted £1800 for my E36 repairs but it only ended up costing £1100

i got quoted £4000 from a ferrari bodyshop(thinking that there would be no better bodyshop in the area) to have about the same amount of work done as bloom meister.bearing in mind i said i would take the kit off and lights etc out for them. but the paint job would have been immaculate all i had to do was look around me to be reassured of that. so with this in mind i think that quote is a little much...but thats just my opinion....no offence

I while ago I got a quote from a bodyshop that deals with High end stuff. Think they had a contract with Porsche Guildford and Maranello in Egham. Stupidly high price! Yeah, maybe it would of been worth it, but the work I had done cost 1/4 of that and to my eyes was pretty good. My point is that just becasue they do £100K cars dont think they are great.

Decent bodyshops are virtualy impossible to find. If you tell them they can have the car for as long as they need it (to try and make them take their time) they STILL dont start till 3 days before you hope to collect On a related note, I was at a BMW show a while ago and a certain "Cover Car" was there. Fuck me, the magazine had photoshopped the shit out of it. It was battered and rusty (by my standards) yet every one crowded around saying "what a great car" etc Paint was orange peely to shit too! As an advert for a company it was the worst possible!

Matt when are you moving down south! i'm getting pissed off just trying to get my car in the bodyshop. As some know it's stripped and ready to be worked on! just a rolling shell ready for some love

well i didnt bother with the ferrari quote. i found what i thought was another great body shop had a look and some cars they were finishing and they looked awesome..all classics and the guy was clearly a nice guy. got my car back and paid £1800 for ALOT of top quality work.... i dont see how this ferrari place could have done any better.

what it comes down to is inspecting previous work of theirs....make sure they are a big enough company and cant afford to get themselves bad press and most importantly make sure the person who actually does your car has experience. or even better get a well known zoner to do it as they will know more about e30's and probly care alot more

Im a panel beater/sprayer and for 4.5 k for a respray that is a good deal as long as it is spot on.

if your planning on spending that sort of cash on a respray have any rust areas cut out and new metal fitted. treated rust always comes back.

fuzzy wrote:if your planning on spending that sort of cash on a respray have any rust areas cut out and new metal fitted. treated rust always comes back.

The rear wheel arch sections and the petrol cap was all they could find, they said they dont need to do the full arch, just put an inner section in or something as only part of it has gone a bit. Bit concerned about the windscreen tbh, its the green top tint one and i hear they are NLA if it cracks coming out or back in.

Tim

Rich_W wrote:I while ago I got a quote from a bodyshop that deals with High end stuff. Think they had a contract with Porsche Guildford and Maranello in Egham. Stupidly high price! Yeah, maybe it would of been worth it, but the work I had done cost 1/4 of that and to my eyes was pretty good. My point is that just becasue they do £100K cars dont think they are great.

Decent bodyshops are virtualy impossible to find. If you tell them they can have the car for as long as they need it (to try and make them take their time) they STILL dont start till 3 days before you hope to collect On a related note, I was at a BMW show a while ago and a certain "Cover Car" was there. **** me, the magazine had photoshopped the shit out of it. It was battered and rusty (by my standards) yet every one crowded around saying "what a great car" etc Paint was orange peely to shit too! As an advert for a company it was the worst possible!

name and shame please!!!

bloom_meister wrote:

fuzzy wrote:if your planning on spending that sort of cash on a respray have any rust areas cut out and new metal fitted. treated rust always comes back.

The rear wheel arch sections and the petrol cap was all they could find, they said they dont need to do the full arch, just put an inner section in or something as only part of it has gone a bit. Bit concerned about the windscreen tbh, its the green top tint one and i hear they are NLA if it cracks coming out or back in.

Tim

Don't worry about the screen. As long as the screen is not chipped or cracked already, only a muppet will break it getting out and back in.

The rear arches. You might like to consider what they can't see. I'm sure beardy mat will agree, once they cut that visible rot out, only then can they REALLY assess what rot is behind it. The outer rears on these always bubble but many an e30 owner has been shocked by what he's found once he cuts (what looked like minimal rust) the outer arch away. Also, they won't have stripped the headlining out and seen what state the sunroof inner panel (welded and bonded to the inside of the main roof panel) is in. These are (as Simon and BSS325i will confirm) now showing signs of being the latest worry on the e30 rot front.

BSS325i (Barry) will confirm the price you've been quoted is more than fair considering (as Matt says) it's BMW labour rates. Barry had his sport stripped and painted to a very high standard and did not need any outer arch work at all. Just ask him what that job would have cost if it wasn't done at his place of work on mates rates.

In Norfolk I went to get an idea form this guy.

http://www.classic-car-restorations.co. ... out_us.htm

he was expensive but looked very professional plus nice guy (he was too expensive for the quick blow over I was looking for). Also you could try Jamic (old BMW specialist) in Cromer. They do lots of restoration for international clients and I bet they'd be better and cheaper than a main dealer.

let me know how you get on in NOrfolk - dependining on what i decided about one of my cars I might want a respray soon.

ChrisBarns wrote:In Norfolk I went to get an idea form this guy.

http://www.classic-car-restorations.co. ... out_us.htm

he was expensive but looked very professional plus nice guy (he was too expensive for the quick blow over I was looking for). Also you could try Jamic (old BMW specialist) in Cromer. They do lots of restoration for international clients and I bet they'd be better and cheaper than a main dealer.

let me know how you get on in NOrfolk - dependining on what i decided about one of my cars I might want a respray soon.

Nice leads! i will be on the phone to them today

Dont have to worry about sunroof as its a cab but i wil definately keep in mind what others have said about any rust that may be hidden

Just took car to local autoshop to get stereo pulled out (it was in a universal cage and didnt want to move) guy there butchered the surrounding lip of the facia, I am really P*****, didnt charge me but now i have to find a new mint one so if anyone has one I'm up for buying it, needs to be genuinely unmarked though

Cheers

Tim

Additionally i phoned BMW to get a new plug for the back of the new head unit i have bought (BMW part 6512-6 909 884 Business CD (Blaupunkt) only to be told it doesnt show as a E30 part.. nevertheless I have ordered the mini loom for behind it as I am sure any auto electrician worth his salt can wire it up without problem.

Tim

tim got any pic's of the car in question? Would be nice to see it, and any problem areas you're worried about

inner rear arches WILL have rust no question about it. go to the side of the car with the petrol cap on and take the vapouriser bottle out and then see if you find rust, becuase you will if the car has been in quite regular use for the last 17-20 years. if it doesnt it is EXTREMELY RARE!!!!

Simon13 wrote:tim got any pic's of the car in question? Would be nice to see it, and any problem areas you're worried about

Agreed. C'mon!!!

Simon13 wrote:tim got any pic's of the car in question? Would be nice to see it, and any problem areas you're worried about

I'll take some pics tomorrow, not that there is actually any rust to see except for a tiny bit under rear lights which BMW say is just surface and doesnt need replacing. I checked the wheel arch inners when i got it and all seemed fine but i have to bow down to the BMW bodyshop who will hav given it a more thorough going over than i did, and doubtless from underneath.

i did find out the car has heated locks and mirrors today when i checked the vehicle spec printout from the dealer, was a nice suprise as I was goign to have them retrofitted.

Speaking of retro fitting i have bought an entire SH air con unit setup and in my naivety was expecting a couple of small condensors/heators and the like, not knowing anything about AC. You can imagine my suprise when the guy pulled several very large 'bits' out of his garage and i stood there wondering ..wtf are these all going to go!

Currently working with Birds to ensure we have all the required bits prior to the project commencing, paintjob or mechanicals first? I'm thinking mechanicals as I dont want the paint getting damaged while they are doing engine 'stuff' ,going to leave the retrim till last.

Tim

Bloom_Meister wrote:Speaking of retro fitting i have bought an entire SH air con unit setup and in my naivety was expecting a couple of small condensors/heators and the like, not knowing anything about AC. You can imagine my suprise when the guy pulled several very large 'bits' out of his garage and i stood there wondering ..wtf are these all going to go!

Tim,

I have done the A/C retrofit twice now, to be fair it's not too bad a job to do properly. Certainly not one of those jobs you can do in a rush though. The wiring is there to plug in, you just need to know where it is. If you are going to pay a garage to do it then choose a specialist that has done one before. Otherwise you will be paying for someone elses learning curve!

I would say 20 hours labour would be fair for a complete hood up - hood down job.

If you need some advice with it then drop me a line.


Dameon.