PNW Chit Chat thread

[spiDmang]

Rebuilding an 88 325iX at the shop.

Just received a brand new camshaft from BMW Seattle that arrived from Germany. Wholesale price was 704.88 - List is 1144.29. I tried pushing for a Bimmerheads cam but customer wants what customer wants. Same customer that also bought a brand new viscous coupling. My iX is super jealous.

fuuuuuuuuuuu

[kid325e]

iX goodies from Germany



Apex Wheels for one of the SPEC46 cars. I wish they had the proper size/fitment for my iX! I love these wheels!



Can you guys see these photos? Been awhile and I always seem to have trouble when trying to use Google Photos.

[IronJoe]

I see em, I like the wheels too.

[cbouchez]

very nice

[BraveUlysses]

i just put a set of arc-8's on my e46 and they're great

black chrome is fantastic

[Metallated]

Why don't we have a seattle sightings thread? Been seeing a lot lately :D

Parked behind a clean white coupe at Redmill this afternoon, saluted a d-schwarz coupe the other day, and talked with some nice young ladies driving a bronzit parked by my house this morning.

[Henna30]

Anyone have any nice used lowering springs for a vert that they'd be willing to let go? Ive been going back and forth on leaving it stock height or lowering the altitude just a bit...

[Mlarsen]

Rebuilding an 88 325iX at the shop.

Just received a brand new camshaft from BMW Seattle that arrived from Germany. Wholesale price was 704.88 - List is 1144.29. I tried pushing for a Bimmerheads cam but customer wants what customer wants. Same customer that also bought a brand new viscous coupling. My iX is super jealous.

You think that's bad, you should here some of price quotes I give out for Jaguars...

Regardless that's a silly notion to go with a OE BMW part with a vehicle of that age. It just doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't you get a aftermarket you could do a super mild cam upgrade and its less money with performance gains

[e30austin]

Hey, I get it. Some older customers are super weird about that shit. Can't say the extra peace of mind is a bad thing, especially if you have the extra cash to spend...

[Mlarsen]

You are correct in that people make poorly formed decisions on a notion that OE parts are always better than aftermarket and if the dealership is charging an arm and leg for a part it must be legit. However as an advisor you need to be able talk that person off the ledge and tell them they're making a fiscally irresponsible choice.

[TobyB]

Nah, it's their money- some who have it have lost the ability to listen...

Schrick is 6x as powerful as a regrind, right? And a 288 is a 'massive' cam?

t

[djjerme]

It's not even that often. With my buddy Ryan, it comes down to can he warranty the part. If it's something OE, then it's not an issue (usually) if he installs it and the customer comes back with an issue. He can send the part back and charge the labor..etc. If it's some random independent supplier like CatCams or something, they may not or will put up a fight if a warranty issue comes up.

It's not always about quality, but what happens when something breaks. CYA.

That's why many shops won't install or make you sign waivers if they install customer supplied parts.

[e30austin]

That's why many shops won't install or make you sign waivers if they install customer supplied parts.

Yup. I don't wanna hear shit if the part they bought off Amazon for half price decided to fail a month in. Most times, I won't even deal with it...just isn't worth it.

[kid325e]

You are correct in that people make poorly formed decisions on a notion that OE parts are always better than aftermarket and if the dealership is charging an arm and leg for a part it must be legit. However as an advisor you need to be able talk that person off the ledge and tell them they're making a fiscally irresponsible choice.

This iX is getting the drivetrain pretty much completely rebuilt. Customer wants what he wants, couldn't talk him out of going OE on most everything if I wanted to. Plus, it's not my business and if we want to honor our 2 year 24,000 mile warranty on parts and labor we are only installing parts we trust. Invoice is already roughly at 16k with half already paid as down payment. I can't say i'd put this amount of money into my iX but if I had the means, I wouldn't say it'd be a bad idea either because i'm very passionate about my car.

Regardless of what it costs, I feel honored to be a part of rebuilding this thing.

[kid325e]

It's not even that often. With my buddy Ryan, it comes down to can he warranty the part. If it's something OE, then it's not an issue (usually) if he installs it and the customer comes back with an issue. He can send the part back and charge the labor..etc. If it's some random independent supplier like CatCams or something, they may not or will put up a fight if a warranty issue comes up.

It's not always about quality, but what happens when something breaks. CYA.

That's why many shops won't install or make you sign waivers if they install customer supplied parts.

We don't install customer supplied parts, for warranty issues. More often than not what we find is customer supplies part - or we order aftermarket part from company with no real reputation or rapport - car get's held up on the lift because customer wanted to save 50.00 and ordered the wrong part, aftermarket part is missing something or additional information needed to install, etc. etc. - it just makes running an efficient shop that much harder.

Some customer's get it, other don't The ones that don't aren't our type of customer and we are okay with that.