Chrome plating of rear bumpers.

Rek

Rek

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Has anyone got any experience of this in the UK and know a good plating company? I would also like to know the likely cost. I have had mine pre-polished by a company that does all the polishing for chrome plating companies but the plating company is asking for £1,100 for each of the two pieces plus VAT at 20%. Ouch!

If I say yes, then am I being skinned, or is that what it costs now?
 
The quality of the stainless bumpers are lacking along with poor fitment at least as reported on the 2002 Forum. Replating the rears in the US would cost around $800 for the two pieces.
 
my experience,
i did my rear bumpers in 2013 it is actually four pieces when incluying the overiders
the right process, this is removing the chrome in acid products, welding the cracks, plus copper plating, plus chrome, plus nickel
absolutely top
less than 1000 euro
be aware of cheaper places that do not do the copper layer
 
And I count 5 pieces :). Don’t forget the “finisher”


51125770161
 
Rek said:
the plating company is asking for £1,100 for each of the two pieces plus VAT at 20%....am I being skinned, or is that what it costs now?
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Chrome plating can be breathtakingly expensive, but 2 x £1,100 x 120% x $1.32/£ works out to $3,485! That's 4-1/3 times the $800 that Chris quoted. From my experience here in the States (I live pretty close to Chris), I'd agree that $800 would be a typical quote from a high-quality plater. But things may be very different in Britain.
 
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proper chrome plating is very important for longivity and look of the finished products. More and more chrome shops are doing away with copper plating underneat it all. A true chrome shop for classic cars must have the copper plating. As DeQuincey mentioned the process starts with removing the original chrome in some form of acid bath. Then inspecting it for flaws that could include welding and grinding, to hammer work/ dent removal or shaping the peice ... cleaning it again and preping it for copper plating with rather conciderable amount of copper . Then polishing it to its final shape . After this stage almost all of the laborious work is done. Next step is Nickle plating. nickel is soft metal (not as soft as copper ) has also several properties that helps the end result much better, such as adhesion to copper and chrome.....
Last step is chroming.
So if your peice is already polished and does not need the other laborious steps the shop should not charge you much for just plating it.

Some shops do not want to stand behind thier work unless they go through all of the steps but if you release them from that liability they will work with you for fraction of the cost of complete process!
Because of Enviromental hazards and the Governemental enforcement and rules a lot of small shops are going out of business and it is becoming more costly for chrome shops to stay in compliance.
 
I would just make the point that the original abiding characteristic of the e9 chrome bumpers is the poor quality of finish of the underside of the sections beneath the rubber strip. I have a number of bumper sections, front and back, and they are all the same in this respect. It seems to me that they were never finished/polished properly by BMW in the first place. I have always held back from having these pieces re-chromed because I don't think that the chrome shops could turn them out with such a poor finish as to appear OEM. Best wishes, John
 
My stainless rear bumper actually fits ok, but it did require some fiddling to make it so. The finish is excellent, but the underriders are not avail from the seller. It's a viable alternative if you want to save $.
 
Thats exactly what I have done. Once they arrive I will let you know how I get on. What was the fitting issue and how did you resolve it? It might save me staring at the pieces for 2 hours scratching my head.
 
Rek said:
Thats exactly what I have done. Once they arrive I will let you know how I get on. What was the fitting issue and how did you resolve it? It might save me staring at the pieces for 2 hours scratching my head.
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I found that the left-right spacing wasnt quite even and the right side end was just slightly angled (I don't remember if it was up or down). So I put the car between two posts (posts hold up two stories of barn so they are very strong) then i loosely mounted the bumper (middle joint loose too). The ends were not yet attached to the sides of the fenders. Use lots of tape to protect the bodywork. Then I put a ratcheting cargo strap on each end of the assembled bumper and tied each to the left/right posts. The straps could be individually tightened for L/R bias, and put higher/lower on the posts to angle the ends up/down. When i was happy w the fit I tightened it all up. Same thing could be done with spaces for L/R alignment and a friend to push down and pull up on the ends as you tighten the mounting bolts.
 
My stainless steel rear bumper arrived from Vietnam a few days ago, through 02bumpers. The workmanship seems very high and the gloss is rich.

No only did this include the bumper itself, but also the rubber over trim plus the carrier for this already fitted. There was also a SS centre bracket for where the two parts meet and a whole heap of nuts and bolts.

This was way over what I expected for the money paid.

The next task is to fit it. I will report back.
 
Rek said:
My stainless steel rear bumper arrived from Vietnam a few days ago, through 02bumpers. The workmanship seems very high and the gloss is rich.

No only did this include the bumper itself, but also the rubber over trim plus the carrier for this already fitted. There was also a SS centre bracket for where the two parts meet and a whole heap of nuts and bolts.

This was way over what I expected for the money paid.

The next task is to fit it. I will report back.
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Hi Rek, I just had a look on their 02bumpers website, they seem to only have photos of various 1600/2002 bumpers for sale? Are they also doing E9 rears now? Or did they do a custom job for you? If it's not rude to ask how much did they charge for an E9 rear bumper ?
 
Mal CSL 3.0 said:
Hi Rek, I just had a look on their 02bumpers website, they seem to only have photos of various 1600/2002 bumpers for sale? Are they also doing E9 rears now? Or did they do a custom job for you? If it's not rude to ask how much did they charge for an E9 rear bumper ?
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02bumpers had it listed on EBay. I think it was around $600 plus carriage.
 
Fitting was not that straightforward but it does go on and looks good.

  • The main holes to the rear of the bumper did not line up with the holes in the body. There was not much in it but it did require new holes.
  • The rear bracket attached to the bumper to which the bolts go through from the trunk stands a little more proud of the inner line of the bumper than the original.
  • The side brackets are smaller bolts, than the original.

I used the OEM rubber strip I already had and my original centre piece as the SS one was much harder to manipulate. The chrome on my centre piece was pretty good anyway.

I will post photos once I have adjusted the stance of the bumper correctly. Overall, its a great fix and a cost effective alternative to losing an arm to re-platers (at the least ones who quoted the job for me)..
 
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