Interior customisation- grey plastic!

S

Swami

Member
Hi all!

Have just got a 2003 Z4 in sterling grey with red leather seats and the grey plastics... while I am head over heels with everything (mainly the straight six!) I can't escape the feeling that the grey plastic would probably look better in black.

I love the black and red interiors and a search on here threw up the member's pic of black plastic, piano black fascia, read seats and red mats which was more than a little exciting!

Can anyone post pics of an upgraded grey interior? I'd love to see the possibilities!
 
Well I can post pictures of a Sterling Grey 2003 with the interior upgraded to Red ///M seats and with original black plastics.
I have thought about the piano black but in the end considered it woudl be too much and take away the 'lift' that the various bits of silver and alloy give the interior.

Food for thought?

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I also wanted to do this as I'd like to change my brushed aluminium trim for the piano black stuff and I think the black plastic goes better. As far as I can tell, the plastics were changed when they did the facelift and for most items it's easy to get the parts from the dealer. The biggest problem will be high-value parts such as the stereo and the LCM.

From what I can tell, the parts needed are:

Centre vents
Stereo
Trim surrounding heater controls
Light control module
Ashtray, switch panel and surround
Gear lever surround.
Door speaker surrounds (I think)

It's a lot of work, so I'm pretty sure I won't bother when I eventually get round to sorting out the piano black trim. What I'd actually like to see is photos from anyone who's changed their interior to piano black (or carbon leather), but left the grey pieces alone. At least then I can get a feel for how it looks.
 
Food for thought? That's food for self-love!

Other than the seats, i think mine is the same except for the plastics- mine look like the interior of this one: http://search.autotrader.co.uk/es-uk/www/cars/BMW+Z4/Ne-2-4-5-6-7-8-27-44-49-53-61-64-67-103-133-146-236,N-240-4294965351-4294967202/advert.action?R=200850324941084&distance=99&postcode=wf15+7qp&channel=CARS&make=BMW&model=Z4&min_pr=&max_pr=&max_mileage=

Yours is sweet, a bit like showing me what i could be enjoying! :headbang:
 
cj10jeeper said:
Well I can post pictures of a Sterling Grey 2003 with the interior upgraded to Red ///M seats and with original black plastics.
Click to expand...

You say "original black plastics", but those are actually what I'd call the grey plastic interior (in fact, your photos just reminded me that I left the window switch panels off my list of things that would need changing). Are we all talking about the same plastics here? The ones I'd like to change to black (but probably never will) are the pieces like the stereo and center vents, etc. The colour of these was tweaked with the facelift.
 
I can see where you are starting from. I actually started with a standard black leather interior however IMHO changing the interior from grey to black is out of the question due to cost. IIRC door cards alone are £500 per side, before you even start to mess with the centre console and entire dash. I'd bet that the cost of all the parts from BMW would towards the value of the car!!!

Only way maybe to find a wrecker and move the entire interior over.
 
The problem would be how many pieces of grey trim you'd have to replace if you want to go totally black.

I'm looking to get a ZHP gearknob that only comes in black, and having it next to the grey leather gator would be enough to annoy me so I've bought black ones in preperation, including hand brake gator which includes the arm rest pad. I need to get the actual handbrake handle too though.

I like the look of the piano black dash trim but think it would look odd on the grey dash. I'd be interested to see the carbon leather on a grey interior though, since it would naturally look less black than the piano black.
 
To be honest, the doors wouldn't be on my list of things to change... the colour is pretty dark already (in fact I wasn't sure if it was any darker on the facelift cars because I've not had a good enough look). It's mainly the pieces of much lighter grey plastic around the dash and center console that I think might jar slightly with the piano black trim.

That being said , even those pieces will be too expensive, as they include the stereo and LCM and if you're changing the LCM, why not change to facelift xenons too... Maybe facelift the rear while you're at it... (You see, insanity isn't a big leap, it's just a series of perfectly rational steps).

Back to reality, I'd still like to know if anyone has any photos of a piano black interior on a pre-facelift car so I can see how much the grey stands out.
 
I think you're right- changing the grey plastics would be a nightmare!

Spandex- As for the black fascia on the grey plastics, check out this thread which i think is a bit like what you are considering...

http://www.z4-forum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7114&p=108933&hilit=grey+interior#p108933
 
Thanks for the link Swami, although that's actually made me realise that I'm not talking about exactly the same thing as everyone else. I had to have a quick check on the BMW parts catalogue to be sure what the options are as far as colours... It was my mistake, as I didnt realise there was an entirely grey interior

So, I have what I think everyone calls the black interior (the main part of the dashboard is black) but I'm still concerned about the pieces of trim I mentioned above which are a mid-grey colour (as opposed to the black used on facelifted cars).
 
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