BMW Carbon Fibre Repair
BMW Carbon Fibre Repair
Giving Your BMW Carbon A New Lease Of Life
BMW is one of the most common cars to see carbon fibre installed, main reason being is most M Power cars have M Performance carbon options and there have been a huge amount of M Power cars made over the years. With BMW being a drivers car, these high performance vehicles get used properly which can make them susceptible to picking up damage ranging from heavy stone chips to being cracked and split from impacts. BMW generally use a 2×2 twill carbon for the majority of their carbon parts which is ready available, this helps come the time for any renovations. Here at Carbonwurks, we have specialised in BMW carbon for over a decade, if there is carbon we know well, its usually got a BMW stamp on it!
Whilst every carbon fibre piece is unique and every damage is different this will massively influence the time involved for the repair as well as the costs.
As we are repairing more high performance carbon fibre than we ever have done, we wanted to really drill down into some of the repairs of these parts to show case the before and after of them as well as explaining what’s involved in the repairs. Below are just a couple of examples of BMW Carbon Fibre Repairs that we have completed recently and a brief explanation about what happened and what was involved with the repair.
We can within reason repair any carbon fibre part on any BMW from exterior parts such as front splitters, rear diffusers, side skirts & rear spoilers to interior parts such as centre consoles & dashboard trims.
BMW M3 E92 Coupe
£50,625, 2009, 4.0L S65 V8, 420PS
Carbon Fibre Roof
Original Part Cost: £4,600
Repair Time: 7 Days
- BMW carbon roofs are becoming a very common occurrence for having issues. Often the lacquer gets hit by powerful UV rays which over time will deteriorate the finish. The roofs also get hit by general fall out from bird droppings to acid rain which causes breakthroughs in the lacquer. Once the lacquer has been blown through, the roof should be stripped back and refinished to avoid staining or UV damage to the carbon itself.
- With any carbon part, we strip down the lacquer and resin to get to the carbon fibres themselves so we can address any damage first before making the carbon cosmetically perfect.
- This roof had quite an affected area which was badly stained. Once UV damage has yellowed carbon fibre it’s near enough impossible to completely remove. Working carefully with this roof, we managed to rid a lot of the damaged carbon and address the exposed fibres which required resin infusion. Once flattened and smoothed, the roof was ready for lacquer.
- With all lacquered carbon parts, we flat and polish the finish to give as best as possible shine and obtain surface smoothness. This roof also received an optional upgrade with a 7 year Ceramic coating to give future proofing to the finish. A massive improvement to the ruined finish and a huge amount cheaper than replacing the entire roof panel.
BMW X5 G05
£85,000, 2023, 4.4 L Twin-Turbocharged V8 Engine, 523PS
Rear Carbon Fibre Diffuser
Original Part Cost: £1200
Repair Time: 12 Days
- This particular repair is part of a series of repairs from the same car. Not only had this X5 been reversed into a concrete pillar, it also managed to catch a wall when manoeuvring around. Not a great day out for this car but fortunately all in a days work for us here at Carbonwurks.
- This diffuser had taken quite an impact in 1 particular place which caused a large split/crack in the panel itself along with taken a chunk out of the top leading edge which is required to keep good fitment as well as obviously looking smooth and complete.
- This diffuser had to be made structurally sound before we addressed the cosmetic elements. With a chunk missing out of the top leading edge, this was the first element that needed rebuilding. Although it’s not always possible, on this occasion we managed to build this section up with several layers of reinforcements while keeping as close as possible to OEM tolerances. It took several days building this section alone, the cracked sections were also reinforced at this stage.
- With the structure of this part being addressed, the cosmetic elements could be looked into. With the X5 being a big car it had chucked up a lot of stones on the underside of the diffuser. As a matter of procedure, the lacquer and excess resin was sanded all the way back to the bare carbon which allowed resin infusion to take place and smooth the entire part over.
- This diffuser was re-lacquered to bring back a high lustre finish.
Rear Carbon Fibre Winglets
Original Part Cost: £1100
Repair Time: 5 Days
- Following on from the main diffuser panel, this set of rear winglets were struck quite hard which fractured through the part and created a reasonable amount of damage. The drivers side was the worse and although the passenger side was relatively mild damage wise, it made sense to repair as a pair to get the best level of finish.
- In a similar fashion to the diffuser, we had to rebuild the inside of this part to ensure it was structurally sound before addressing the cosmetic elements. with the design of this part, gaining access to the inside was near enough impossible but with certain methods we could ensure the carbon was pushed back in place and set solid with an infused resin & carbon composite.
- The heavy gouges had fractured the carbon itself which meant levelling the part with a reasonable amount of very high clarity resin. The risk is causing a glassing effect where the resin content was high that could cause a cloudy finish or depth difference, this however was avoided.
- As with the diffuser, once repaired these parts were re-lacquered to bring back a near as new finish.
BMW M4 F82
£71,260, 2019, 3.0 L Twin-Turbocharged S55 Engine, 425PS
Front Carbon Fibre M-Performance Splitter
Original Part Cost: £1225
Repair Time: 4 Days
- This particular repair is for a BMW M3/M4 F8X that had suffered scrapes and cuts in mainly the underside of the splitter. For once, this was a fairly straight forward repair.
- Although the damage was fairly light, it’s best practice to repair the part as a whole, this ensures the highest quality finish and a uniform and consistent look over the entire part.
- The splitter didn’t require and reinforcements, we stripped all lacquer back to the bare carbon to get rid of all stone chips and gouges, after which resin was applied to smooth over splitter and give a level finish.
- Once smoothed over it was time for lacquer. Post clearcoat, the splitter was treated to a flat and polish to give further surface levelling. Complete and ready for refitting in only a matter of days.
BMW M4 F82 Carbon Fibre Front Splitter – Half & Half Comparison
BMW M3 E92 Full Carbon Fibre Roof Repair
so here's what's
Needed From You!
If after reading all the above you want to proceed with getting us to repair your damaged BMW carbon fibre part then we’ll need a few things:
Pictures of the damaged part
We’ll need high quality close up and far away pictures of the item in question so we can see the damage and the overall part. Please ensure you take as many pictures as possible from different angles. If the damage goes through the part then we’ll need to see the rear also
Send over the pictures
Once you have all your pictures you can email them to us at [email protected]. If there is a lot or the files are too big then your best solution is to put them all into a folder, zip / archive them and send them to our WeTransfer Account – WeTransfer.com
Vehicle Info
When you send the photos it would be great to include as much information about the vehicle as possible such as what BMW it is along with Year / Reg or VIN Number. We’ll also need to know how the damage initially occurred.
Once we have all of the above our team of fabricators will look over all the information provided and then come back to you with costings and timescales involved.
Please try to be as accurate as possible with the pictures and the information provided as if we don’t get all the facts prior to the part arriving it may be that extra time and materials may be required which will increase the costs.
For some of the more serious damaged parts it may be that we can’t offer any quote or timings until we have physically seen the item. There is also the possibility that the cost of repair is not financially feasible but we will certainly try to cater as best as we can.
The next step is to get in touch with us using our contact form below:
Frequently Asked
Questions
Often when carbon has damage, the fibres themselves can be fractured and torn. We can bind the part back together along with making it structurally sound but normally if the carbon has suffered cracks, splits or is missing carbon, there will be what we call a “Witness” mark. The best way to think of it is tearing a hole in your jumper, you can stitch it back together, but you may still see a small line where the fabric has been bound back together. Most of the time the witness mark is very small and unnoticeable, other times it can be slightly more obvious depending how bad the damage was. Regardless of this, the end result is as good as can be achieved and saves considerable amounts over replacing the component.
Generally, most repairs do look very good and, in some cases, do look brand new. To re-skin the entire part can be very complicated and very expensive. We try not to go down this route as it’s not always cost effective to do so. We work around the carbon that is there to give the best possible outcome. It’s rare that we would need to consider re-skinning the entire part.
The short answer is yes. We can fabricate small sections and if you still have the snapped off or damaged carbon, we can often make use of this. Depending on the part and the desired end result, sometimes this isn’t cost effective or viable but all the same, this is a type of repair we carry out often.
Very much so. We offer a range of different tinted finishes so if your carbon has a tint to it, we can normally refinish in the same colour.
This will vary massively on the part in need of being repaired. Often aftermarket parts are cheaply made which likely would be cheaper to replace than repair. For higher end, more expensive or rare carbon fibre parts, more often than not it absolutely does make sense to repair as the cost to replace is extremely high or the part is no longer production. We try to cater a repair to the budget of the customer, but we won’t offer a cheap solution if it means compromising the end result.
Sometimes yes depending on where the damage is and the possibility to reinforce. If the part is enclosed, it makes it very difficult to repair behind the damage point and reinforce to suitable level. More often than not however, if we can gain access behind the part, we can make the part as strong or even stronger than before. Carbon manufacturers will only use a handful of layers of carbon, we can add many more layers if required which will increase strength massively.
You can either drop the part off yourself or choose a courier to transport the part to us. We use Parcelforce large for most UK items as they will accept parts up to 2.5 meters in length. If being shipped to us, we do recommend using bubble wrap to protect the part itself along with a cardboard box to ensure the part doesn’t suffer any more damage during transit. If you need help with this element, please do get in touch to discuss as we may be able to help.
Sadly not. The repair process even if it is a simpler and more minor amount of damage, it will still require days of sanding, resin infusing and lacquering. In some cases, we can remove the part from your car here at our workshop (for an additional charge) and you may be able to drive away for a number of weeks until ready to refit.
Although we are capable of removing and disassembly, we prefer not to store any other parts and request the carbon is delivered or dropped off to us in bare form. By this we mean any other elements removed that could get in the way (fog lights, brake lights, trims, cables, fixings etc).
We get asked this quite a lot and the answer is mostly yes. We use specialist high temp resin and cure the part to have the ability to cope with high temperature demands. Often re-finishing/lacquering can be more complicated, but we do have methods to manage this depending on the application.
