Hello to all,
Wondering if any forum experts can advise me here?
One of my neighbours decided to park his car without engaging the handbrake recently and his car rolled down an incline and smacked my Zed at the rear - side on. The car was knocked about 3 feet sideways but surprisingly there was no serious damage. A small dent in the rear quarter, the bumper was scratched with some cracked paint, also the wheels were out of alignment. Everything else was sound.
Anyway, the guy was a pretty decent type and offered to pay for damages on his card if it was affordable, otherwise he would put in a claim. Rather than be an arse and take it to BMW which would have definitely pushed the cost into claim territory (bad for both of us), I had an independant garage who I have used for servicing carry out the repairs.
The respray and panel work was fine, but I am not happy with the way the bumper has been refitted. Whilst it looks ok visually when you are stood next to the car, upon closer inspection there seems to be a bigger gap than there should be on the edge, and also what looks to be a rubber / plastic seal in between the bumper and car, which seems to be fractured (under the red arrow in pic).
The garage have acknowledged that the repair is not correct, however they have suggested that a bracket is loose and that bumper has simply slipped down. I'm of the opinion that its actually more a case of them doing a half arsed job as if you look closely at the 'post accident' pics vs the 'post repair' pics the lines on the join are remarkably straight in the former which were taken immediately after the car was hit, suggesting that if the force of another car hitting mine hasn't made the bumper slip out of position, why should my drive home from the garage have caused anything noticeable? (This itself would point to sub standard work anyway)
Can anyone tell me what that cracked material is under the red arrow in the pic? Is it part of the bumper or some kind of insulating insert?? Does it have an important purpose? What should I be asking them to do about it ? etc.
I'm just looking for a little knowledge that I can use against the garage should they try and BS me.
Apologies if this is a daft question - I can't seem to find anything helpful on google.
Many Thanks.
Z4 (E85) 2.0SE (2005)
Wondering if any forum experts can advise me here?
One of my neighbours decided to park his car without engaging the handbrake recently and his car rolled down an incline and smacked my Zed at the rear - side on. The car was knocked about 3 feet sideways but surprisingly there was no serious damage. A small dent in the rear quarter, the bumper was scratched with some cracked paint, also the wheels were out of alignment. Everything else was sound.
Anyway, the guy was a pretty decent type and offered to pay for damages on his card if it was affordable, otherwise he would put in a claim. Rather than be an arse and take it to BMW which would have definitely pushed the cost into claim territory (bad for both of us), I had an independant garage who I have used for servicing carry out the repairs.
The respray and panel work was fine, but I am not happy with the way the bumper has been refitted. Whilst it looks ok visually when you are stood next to the car, upon closer inspection there seems to be a bigger gap than there should be on the edge, and also what looks to be a rubber / plastic seal in between the bumper and car, which seems to be fractured (under the red arrow in pic).
The garage have acknowledged that the repair is not correct, however they have suggested that a bracket is loose and that bumper has simply slipped down. I'm of the opinion that its actually more a case of them doing a half arsed job as if you look closely at the 'post accident' pics vs the 'post repair' pics the lines on the join are remarkably straight in the former which were taken immediately after the car was hit, suggesting that if the force of another car hitting mine hasn't made the bumper slip out of position, why should my drive home from the garage have caused anything noticeable? (This itself would point to sub standard work anyway)
Can anyone tell me what that cracked material is under the red arrow in the pic? Is it part of the bumper or some kind of insulating insert?? Does it have an important purpose? What should I be asking them to do about it ? etc.
I'm just looking for a little knowledge that I can use against the garage should they try and BS me.
Apologies if this is a daft question - I can't seem to find anything helpful on google.
Many Thanks.
Z4 (E85) 2.0SE (2005)
