I Bought a Hail Damaged Z4 M Coupe on copart - build thread

[AParsh335i]

Hey guys and gals,
As some of you know, a few weeks ago a 2007 Titanium Silver BMW Z4 M Coupe went up for bid on copart and i was lucky enough to win the bid. It's a clean title vehicle and had minor hail damage and cracked windshield. It has 108k miles and was described as "runs and drives" (which it does!).

Fortunately the damage on this vehicle really is not all that bad, but since i'm going to be doing these hail repairs i ordered a variety of other replacement parts just to get it in nicer condition for me and whoever the next owner is after me.

I worked at a BMW dealership while i was in college about 12 years ago and got to drive M Coupes and roadsters here and there and always loved the feel and sound so when i saw this one up for auction I had to have it .

I do have a preliminary youtube video up from when I bought it and plan to post more. Not a great video but feel free to give it a look. I also have been posting a lot of videos lately about the soon to be released McLaren 600LT - if you are interested in that car or like fast cars and have not even heard about it, i suggest you check out some of my other videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex8XgQTel-M&t=50s

Anyway, let's talk about what's wrong with the car and needs to be fixed/replaced/repaired.

• History Report: Shows no accidents or other damages, not even the hail. 4 previous owners. Autocheck score of 88 which is pretty good. Interestingly, the last previous owner in Colorado purchased in 9/15 and at that time it had about 60Kish miles. That owner must have really loved driving the car and put on about 50k miles in the 3 years of ownership and was here on ZPOST because there is a ZPOST sticker on the window. I have no idea who the person is, if anyone can help find them i'd love to chat with that person.
• Hail Damage: The main areas of concern for the hail damage are the 2 front fenders, roof, and hood. There are a few small hail dents on the hatch and maybe even very top of the doors but it's mostly collected onto the hood/top of fenders. None of the hail damage dents are really that bad, they are all very shallow and none of them penetrated to caused an actual scratch in the paint. Consider all 4 of these panels are really easy to remove, it might make it a good candidate for a cheapish PDR (paintless dent removal). So far just basic internet quotes say this could likely run around $2500ish for PDR but i have no actual quote just yet for that and I'm not sure if PDR is what I will end up doing. There is a local guy with a different color roof and the roof is only 4 bolts, so I am debating about grabbing that roof and wrapping it either black or Carbon Fiber (with a real carbon fiber fabric/resin).
• Windshield: it had a crack, likely from the hail, and i had it replaced immediately - $300 for new OEM including them coming to my house.
• Front Bumper: The front bumper had some light damage on the bottom of the front lip - likely just from previous owners rubbing on inclines/declines etc. I would like to have the whole front bumper repainted for a variety of reasons including the lip damage, minor rock chips from highway driving, and to fill in the front license plate holes. Just overall get it cleaned up while I'm at it.
• Scratch - there is a fairly large scratch on the front driverside fender / door that i'd like to have repaired along with the bumper.
• Fender Liners: The fender liners on this car just looked bad/worn and i ordered new ones.
• Washer Sprayer Nozzle: Apparently this is insanely common, but this vehicle had the top panel that covers the headlight washer sprayer missing along with the part that sprays. The main nozzle part was still there, but apparently the part that often goes missing is not able to be bought separately. I ordered a new one but i'm thinking i may just not hook these up and just have them glued down while the bumper is repainted.
• Paint, Carbon Fiber, or Wrap? So with everything above being said, i am still a little on the fence about the exact way i want to proceed. Also different ways of moving forward will cost different amounts of money. And I'm still not sure how badly i want to keep it or if i want to just drive it for a bit and sell it. I already have other cars and i bought this as like a project/hobby thing and was just feeling like i wanted to drive stick lately. So I could do the PDR mentioned above, repaint the front bumper and fix the scratch and im guessing i'd be spending around $4k. I could smooth out the dents myself in my garage by sanding each dent, filling with bondo, and sanding smooth, then prime it all and have it wrapped. Wrapping runs around $2000ish and I actually need to get my work truck wrapped ASAP for a work related thing and I can imagine i could work a discount doing 2 at once. Alternatively i could order carbon fiber fabric and the resin hardening liquid and lay down carbon fiber over the entire body over the entire exterior. I would need to do the same bondo thing first of course. However, my friend has experience painting cars and sanding cars and said that he thinks that doing all that bondo work myself would turn my garage into a dust dumpster bin and i would end up tracking it all into the house. I wouldnt want my family breathing that dust. I could also rent a place to do it if i needed to.
• Intake/Exhaust: I've only driven my MC twice so far because i dont have plates yet, so im just asking to be pulled over if im on the road. I have to wait another week or so for the title to arrive. That being said, it's too quiet right now for my liking and I would definitely like to put an intake/exhaust on it just for sound.
• Interior: I got REALLY lucky here. I was really expecting the worse, so i figured that the driver seat would have a lot of wear on the side bolsters closest to the door - i mean it's 11 years old. But i was wrong, the interior is basically PRISTINE. No scratches, rips, tears, stains or anything on the interior. It does not have NAV but does have the CF fabric trim.
• Engine: As mentioned above, i've only driven it twice so far and everything seems to be working as it should. Not sure if the VANOS or rod bearing issue has been addressed by previous owners yet.

Feel free to shout out your thoughts and opinions
Thanks
Alex

[Finnegan]

Congrats on a steal of a deal. Even at 4K to fix the damage you're still 8-10k shy of what a perfect example costs.

[AParsh335i]

Originally Posted by Finnegan

Congrats on a steal of a deal. Even at 4K to fix the damage you're still 8-10k shy of what a perfect example costs.

Thanks man.

I also uploaded a new video today with a walk around

https://youtu.be/zbm9F1rjiqo

[wdb]

Subbed!

[KevinC]

Awesome score, congrats!

I pulled the fuse for the headlight washers on mine back in the day. They really are a nuisance and use a TON of fluid when they fire, not to mention losing the caps all the time. In SoCal you have no need for them anyways - cleanest way to disable is to go the fuse route.

I'm curious to hear whether the hail damage can be PDR'd and if so, at what cost and with what kind of results. That's some pretty serious damage, but these guys can work miracles, and I'm sure there are "hail guys" out there who specialize in this kind of job. If you can get that done for a reasonable cost, suddenly the car becomes a REAL steal. I don't think layering CF over those dents isn't going to show since some of them are pretty deep, but who knows?

Looking forward to updates. I wonder if the past owner who applied the zpost.com sticker will pop up here, since he was obviously around at some point?

[AParsh335i]

Originally Posted by KevinC

Awesome score, congrats!

I pulled the fuse for the headlight washers on mine back in the day. They really are a nuisance and use a TON of fluid when they fire, not to mention losing the caps all the time. In SoCal you have no need for them anyways - cleanest way to disable is to go the fuse route.

I'm curious to hear whether the hail damage can be PDR'd and if so, at what cost and with what kind of results. That's some pretty serious damage, but these guys can work miracles, and I'm sure there are "hail guys" out there who specialize in this kind of job. If you can get that done for a reasonable cost, suddenly the car becomes a REAL steal. I don't think layering CF over those dents isn't going to show since some of them are pretty deep, but who knows?

Looking forward to updates. I wonder if the past owner who applied the zpost.com sticker will pop up here, since he was obviously around at some point?

Yeah would be really cool if he popped up here!

And yeah, for the CF to work out i think i would still need to bondo over all the dents first, then primer over the panels before laying the CF. Could be pretty cool.

[AParsh335i]

Picked up a replacement roof from another forum member today. I think i will be doing a carbon fiber experiment on it

[Vanne]

I'd go to a wreaker and find the 3 panels, replace and repaint. Unless ofcourse your doing it to flip the car, then I'd just do it as cheap as possible. If your keeping it, do it properly, these cars deserve it.
Grats on finding a steal mate.

[AParsh335i]

Originally Posted by Vanne

I'd go to a wreaker and find the 3 panels, replace and repaint. Unless ofcourse your doing it to flip the car, then I'd just do it as cheap as possible. If your keeping it, do it properly, these cars deserve it.
Grats on finding a steal mate.

Hey Mate,
Do you happen to know if the rear quarter panels and front fenders are the same across all Z4 coupes? Or If the M Coupe is different? I know the hood is different for sure, but not sure about those other panels yet. Thanks in advance.

[AParsh335i]

Progress Update:

• Replacement Roof in hand
• Carbon fiber fabric has been ordered as well as the resin and all other needed tools to lay carbon fiber over the roof panel
• I purchased a bunch of Paintless dent removal tools. I will be trying my hand at doing some PDR on some of the panels myself.
• I got the car officially registered today and picked up plates and tags at the DMV
• AFE intake arrived today
• Ordered Euro section 1 high flow cats and likely will be ordering the euro headers
• Tons of misc panels/trims/etc have arrived to replace with new parts
• My shift knob is wobbly/loose feeling - going to do some research on this and/or possibly start a new thread asking for advice on this
• Probably a lot more to mention, but a good update here

[rockstar93]

Originally Posted by AParsh335i

Hey Mate,
Do you happen to know if the rear quarter panels and front fenders are the same across all Z4 coupes? Or If the M Coupe is different? I know the hood is different for sure, but not sure about those other panels yet. Thanks in advance.

It appears all Z4 variants/years share the same front fenders, and all E86 Coupe variants share the rear fenders.

RealOEM is a great resource for things like this.

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...diagId=41_1707

[AParsh335i]

Originally Posted by rockstar93

It appears all Z4 variants/years share the same front fenders, and all E86 Coupe variants share the rear fenders.

RealOEM is a great resource for things like this.

http://www.realoem.com/bmw/enUS/show...diagId=41_1707

Thanks for the resource rockstar. Looks like a good website to check with.

*Edit
Got the intake installed this morning. Only about a 20minute job, really easy. Sounds SOOOOO much better!