Warning: BAD quality genuine BMW chrome bumpers!

[e30Passion]

Hi all, a not to un-important note here..

In 2011 my car experienced some rear end damage unfortunatly. Thankfully though all-risk insurance took care of it and everything was fixed by a professional damage repair company using genuine parts bought at my local BMW dealer.

Some of those parts included the mid & left section of the rear chrome bumper. Cost of these 2 chrome parts at the dealers? 435 Euro's! That means the entire rear bumper, including rubber surround, brackets & mounting stuff will set you back something shy of 800 nowadays So of course you would expect a little quality for that kind of money!

Well unfortunatly that's not the case and i'd like to point out that they rust quite badly which seems a common problem lately as a fellow Dutch e30 owner who bought a new dealer front bumper has had the exact same problem!
He returned it within a few months and got a new one as a replacement.... which happened 3 times! This tells me they're ALL faulty!

Now he is told by BMW that the whole supply of (front)bumpers is beeing destroyed because of multiple complaints worldwide and a new bunch is going to be made. The dealer will mount a new one of those for him free of charge! Great service..

I, on the other hand, am not so lucky because my warranty of 3 years has just past and BMW gave me the finger on the whole thing!

So thank f*ck the insurance payed for it otherwise my 435 hard earned euro's would've been down the drain!

Long story short, beware if you're planning on getting a new dealer bumper If you allready have and you start finding these rustpits.. give it back asap!

[Z3I]

Sadly. BMW only exist to make money, and as much and as fast as they can!

We like to think that all the parts that we buy from the BMW parts department are all locally sourced in Munich, from traditional German manufacturers of the highest quality. This is not the case, as in almost everything else we buy, TV's, clothes, sheet plywood etc, an awful lot of it comes from places like China and India. If you take your eye off these suppliers for 1 second they will cut any and every corner they can. What you end up with is inferior goods, like your bumpers, and I fear most of the items that BMW are remaking are going to come from the same source.

[DanThe]

It really is a p133 take, unfortunately it wont hurt BMW as a brand/business, I just hope some suited up biro buyer/rep gets sacked because of it.

The prices they charge for these parts should make them every bit as good as the original parts they are replacing, but as said above they are not, BMW are also on the cheaply produced scrap bandwagon and are very fluent in chinese

[e30topless]

This is now commonplace with dealer parts, has been for a long time. Luckily i still have some as new 28 year old chrome bumpers !

[magpie]

the weight difference is quite substantial .

[pacerpete]

A complete rear bumper is now well over £1000

[ross_jsy]

Without knowing too much about the process, is a quality re-chrome possible?

[Z3I]

A complete rear bumper is now well over £1000

Just to clear up any confusion Peter, is that your price or BMW's??

[Z3I]

Without knowing too much about the process, is a quality re-chrome possible?

If your chrome is just dull, then yes it is. But a quality job comes at a price, its a very labour intensive process, all the plating, all layers have to be stripped, then the base metal meticulously cleaned and prepared, then all the plating layers reapplied. The plating is only microns thin, so the condition of the base metal is almost the finish you see. Any pits from rust etc, that are left from the prep stage, will still be visable.

Pop down to any plating works, and you'll instantly realise why its not being done well in Asia.

Biggest problem will be asian rubber parts. Quality rubber is so expensive, remade stuff from India will be the lowest quality they can get away with.

[HairyScreech]

BMW should have come to us, for that price we could have sorted a mirror polished 316 stainless version.

Being on the front line of Chinese quality control I can say a few things here:
The Chinese will produce any level of quality you ask/pay for, key words there are ask and pay.
The big auto makers are awful for arguing over the price and care more about price than quality.
90% of auto parts go through a middle man/company who think like the auto makers and will cut quality to save cost so that's 2 rounds of penny pinching.


We get screwed in the west by large companies. I wrote out how I arrive at the figure but I'm risking getting into trouble (don't know who reads these forums) My estimate is that these cost something like £300 per bumper from China all costs factored in and low volumes considered.

I get to see the true cost of a lot of things now and some of it makes pretty grim reading. The difference between what we pay and what things cost is huge.

One other thing is I know people who have tried to manufacture in India (the new China) and have moved back to China as the cost was less in India but the quality was shocking.
If it's got made in India on it take it back!

[DanThe]

I doubt they would cost as much as £300 even
I wonder if they are using German press tooling? The euro car parts spurious bumpers clearly didnt! They also went rusty within months

[HairyScreech]

I was basing that on 150pc per year, amortising the tooling in that time.

Highly unlikely to be German tooling, every time it has been auto for us the company wants to factory to make the tooling, 2 reasons, it's very hard to get tooling into China thanks to customs it has to be NEW untested. if it even looks used they will hold it.
Second reason is the Chinese producer is liable for any tool mods/costs if things are not right.

[e30Passion]

the weight difference is quite substantial .

I can't confirm as the repair company mounted the new bumper but that's quite interesting! It should mean the metal and/or chrome is thinner?

The other (not so) funny thing is that the right side chrome piece of my bumper is from factory and is therefore over 25 years old. It's still spotless!

I get the idea that the bad quality is not reserved for chrome parts only. 2 Years ago i ordered a new genuine front when doing a head rebuild and the damn thing looked like a pattern part that was put together by a 5 year old.

Quality control was on holiday apparently because the finish on one of these on any e30 made back in the day is on another level!




I'm having a better lookout for NOS parts from now on

[e30Passion]

Without knowing too much about the process, is a quality re-chrome possible?

I was thinking exactly that but my old man has parts chromed from time to time and it's VERY expensive. Chroming whole bumpers would cost close to the same as a new one from BMW!

My front bumper was replaced about 5 years ago and is a cheap one from ebay! The chrome finish is not that good but no rust yet

[DanThe]

The front panels are pathetic, the fuel tanks are also a poor quality pressing compared to factory.

I had a rear bumper done about 5 years ago, it had rusted through on the underside and required two plates welding in, came to £300ish I seem to remember, this was done by a place that did custom motorbike parts, the finish was better than factory

[HairyScreech]

Interesting to see the front panel, I was going to order one of those this month but cant see that happening now. I would never let something like that pass QC.

[Jon_Bmw]

There is a saying for this:

"Spares...who cares."

I.E Service part? Yes, in that case, it doesn't matter. Totally wrong, but unfortunately what happens. As long as the line fit parts are good, suppliers tend not to care for the rest. As there will be little come back compared to stopping the line.


Then add 25 years to the above, the manufacturer really doesn't care, and this is what happens

[e30Passion]

Interesting to see the front panel, I was going to order one of those this month but cant see that happening now. I would never let something like that pass QC.

You might be lucky though and get a good one made by some decent German who wasn't drunk the day before. If you do get one this bad (or worse) you can always refuse it at the dealer in the hope the next one will be better (i doubt it) or perhaps tidy it up a bit like i did because the fitment, surprisingly, was ok.

Other possibility is finding a breaker with a good one and drill the spotwelds but all the breakers i have seen were rusted inside because presumably no waxoil on the inside from factory.

[e30Passion]

"Spares...who cares."

I.E Service part? Yes, in that case, it doesn't matter. Totally wrong, but unfortunately what happens. As long as the line fit parts are good, suppliers tend not to care for the rest. As there will be little come back compared to stopping the line.


Then add 25 years to the above, the manufacturer really doesn't care, and this is what happens

Probably!

In the mid 70's BMW still was uncertain of it's future in financial term and needed to impress and most importantly.. sell! (or so i read). Design and quality needed to be up there with or above the compitition and i bet you if that front would've been made 25 years ago it would not have seen e30 fitment but a garbagecan right outside the factory together with the head of the person who made it!

The e30, amongst others, made them what they are today, a multibillion euro profit machine selling disposable transport boxes and the spares departmant of a lost generation will just be an afterthought for a service they have to comply to.

None the less, you pay big bucks for those spares and if the quality is not up to their own advertised standards they need to be held accountable!

[Jon_Bmw]

None the less, you pay big bucks for those spares and if the quality is not up to their own advertised standards they need to be held accountable!

Agree!

They are low volume 25 years later, so the unit cost is high and probably a pain in the arse for the supplier...so quality suffers.

I can just imagine the supplier that makes these trying to dig out the old drawings to make the part, not being able to find it and guessing at the surface finish and material