E85 and E86 spares !!!!

G

goldbcfc

Senior member
 Birmingham
I'm becoming more and more frustrated with this Z4 life. I've noticed before searching for parts is a real nightmare if you do find the right part sellers have this assumption your driving a M3 and want to charge silly prices.

So my driver side wiper arm has come loose from the mechanism whilst I could just drill a whole in the ball joint end and use a split pin to secure it. I would like to replace the wiper mechanism and do it properly. On ebay 1,3,5 series etc most mechanism are £20-30 now finding a Z4 part is the problem. There just ain't any the one I did find is in Bognor regis and he wants £130 for it a very big difference for a used part. So I've called around my 3 local city bmw spares and they don't stock many Z4 parts. Seems very odd for a car now approaching 14yrs old. I'm half thinking to start breaking them myself how cheap you can pick Z4 e85's up for now £2500 there must be a lot of profit in them. Just feels strange parts are either like gold dust to get or stupidly overpriced compared with other bmw's

Where are all the Z4 breakers people use I just cant understand why its so hard to find 1 wiper mechanism
 
goldbcfc said:
I'm becoming more and more frustrated with this Z4 life. I've noticed before searching for parts is a real nightmare if you do find the right part sellers have this assumption your driving a M3 and want to charge silly prices.

So my driver side wiper arm has come loose from the mechanism whilst I could just drill a whole in the ball joint end and use a split pin to secure it. I would like to replace the wiper mechanism and do it properly. On ebay 1,3,5 series etc most mechanism are £20-30 now finding a Z4 part is the problem. There just ain't any the one I did find is in Bognor regis and he wants £130 for it a very big difference for a used part. So I've called around my 3 local city bmw spares and they don't stock many Z4 parts. Seems very odd for a car now approaching 14yrs old. I'm half thinking to start breaking them myself how cheap you can pick Z4 e85's up for now £2500 there must be a lot of profit in them. Just feels strange parts are either like gold dust to get or stupidly overpriced compared with other bmw's

Where are all the Z4 breakers people use I just cant understand why its so hard to find 1 wiper mechanism
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It's quite a profitable business.

The guy I used for my steering assembly buys a z4 every 4 months, drives it for 4 months then breaks it down. The reason he does so is so he can be rest assured which parts are working fine and which aren't.

You wouldn't just buy a Z4 and break it down and then have people complain about parts not working.
 
Nah, mate

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/162067138972

£1200 for a couple of seats seems pretty fair to me :thumbsdown:
 
I now its just silly the prices and im sure owns just take it for granted that what they should be so just pay it. Ive seen a lot of parts people sell that I just laugh at and think owners must have no sense
 
It's a shame that a lot of perfectly good but older Zeds may be parted out when they might find new caring owners potentially.
 
TonyP said:
It's a shame that a lot of perfectly good but older Zeds may be parted out when they might find new caring owners potentially.
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New parts are far too expensive to buy. Brand new steering assembly is £2500, from a breaker around £250-£350.

Now would you rather 20 zeds get scrapped due to high cost of new parts or break 1 zed to repair 20 zeds?

It's the lesser of 2 evils.
 
russ67 said:
Nah, mate

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/162067138972

£1200 for a couple of seats seems pretty fair to me :thumbsdown:
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Read the description. That's for retrimming your existing interior.
 
I've got an old Merc.
Rang up Mercedes, wanted ignition leads (no longer available).
Distributor cap £384 plus vat LOOL

Yes, cap, not the whole distributor.

Nearly fell off my chair.

count yourselves lucky.
 
Listen to this for a laugh.

I managed to melt the coating of the large piece of plastic trim that runs up between the seats where the little coin pocket is when I left a magic tree like airfreshener in there. I checked out the part number on real oem and got a price of just under £200 for it. I then realised I had been looking at the e85 part and not the e86 part. So back to the stealers I went only to be told for the coupe the price was just under £700! After going away in shock and sadness at the thought I might have to live with the damage. I went back to have a look at the part on my car. After stripping away the top cover of it (which the convertible doesn't have) I discovered that the E85 part is actually trimmed to fit the E86 and you can see the cut marks where they trim it. I then found a pic on the net of this part showing the trim lines molded into! So, yes that's right BMW charge around £500 to do a 5 minute mod!!! That's how long it took me to cut it. You couldn't make it up! Oh and the convertible part comes fitted with the central locking actuator for the cubby hole door that isn't supplied with the coupe as it doesn't have this fitted. Who ever heard of BMW giving you more for less before?
 
srhutch said:
Think you will find you can fix for a fiver

eBay 252066359721
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This would have been perfect if I hadn't tried to press it back together on my clamp..lol

I damaged the soft black part around edge the clip would have attached too. I was going to drill a whole in the ball joint and put a split pin in. Another trick I've used before was drill a pilot hole and put self tapper screw with washer over to hold the arm. In the end I used some engineering wizardry and just stuck a washer on top and welded it together. The thing aint coming off again now that's for sure and works fine.

I honestly think its down to Z4 owners buying overpriced parts so traders just know Z4 owners are suckers and will pay it. Now the Z4 are rock bottom very cheap you might see more people snapping them up to break them i hope. I know from stuff I've sold recently parts do get snapped up quickly and get sold for high amounts. I'm not complaining selling over priced parts just finding parts is a nightmare when the cars so old now. You would think they would be more breakers of Z4's.....

is their even a trader/breaker on this forum seems odd not to have any people linked in trade. You look on other bmw's sites they all have buy/sell pages, Z4 has only one I've seen so far
 
I had a nightmare ringing and searching breakers online - I wanted heated seat wiring looms and had no luck. I soon realised that the Z4's that are advertised had been in the breakers for months (often over a year) and were stripped clean. And if you're after parts specific to a facelift then forget it!
 
Where i live in Birmingham there's 5 german car breakers all on one road in West bromwhich/Smethwick that all do merc,bmw,vw,audi etc not one had a wiper mechanism. i have no doubt theres money in breaking Z4 to start myself but id fear parts would just sit around and not get much interest for long periods which is pointless to me and slow money
 
goldbcfc said:
Where i live in Birmingham there's 5 german car breakers all on one road in West bromwhich/Smethwick that all do merc,bmw,vw,audi etc not one had a wiper mechanism. i have no doubt theres money in breaking Z4 to start myself but id fear parts would just sit around and not get much interest for long periods which is pointless to me and slow money
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if you live in a big city with a lot of z4's within driving distance you will have no issues with parts lying around. obviously some will but it's swings and roundabouts.

a lot of people aren't that clued up. you could also hand your number in to every independent garage within 50 miles radius so they can contact you for parts.
 
You would think that being in a city means more of them but I really don't see them there's one guy at my gym with a black coupe and I always see this random silver roadster at the same time each day on the way home coming the opposite way. Other than those i rarely see them when i do there normally coupes tbh. Its good as I like that, on my road there's four M3's in about a space of about 1/4 mile stretch, at least two 6 series, countless amounts of E92 id loose count and if i drove into the city id see loads of other bmw models on my way. I actually already work in the trade for Volvo trucks so have some links to people who break bmw's too. I was talking only this weekend to a guy who does well breaking bmw's and selling parts on a bmw facebook group page when buying some spare alloys to use. I asked why he doesn't mess with Z4 he just said they don't come up often to break so maybe people don't crash them as much........lol
 
Prices are going to be higher for Z4 specific parts as there are less of them around.

Supply and demand :wink:
 
reliability is another thing if they don't break they don't end up in scrap yards as much ive been to many bmw yars and never once seen a z4 seen plenty of z3 though
 
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