Unofficialbmw.com

[dcambridge]

Hi,
I have a 96 z3. Hopefully someone on this board will be able to identify the mystery z3 part.

Here is my rather long story:
I hit some road debris some months ago. A black piece of plastic came off under the car (I thought from under the air dam portion of the bumper). The bumper looked fine (outside of a few scratches and a broken foglamp cap) and there seamed to be no other damage to the car. Later I noticed a wire hanging from under the front of the car. The wire looked like it was connected to the driver side fog lamp. ( I had a -40 degree error on the trip computer. I then noticed that the passenger side wheel well (Black Plastic Piece) was comming off. Still, the car seemed fine operationaly. However, at this point I decided to go in and consult with my local BMW dealership to see how much it would be to replace the plastic parts. They told me that the plastic piece was the skid plate and the -40 error was most likely caused by the sensor on the wheel well not being in circuit. They started to add up the parts alone which came in around $600 in parts alone, and with labor, quickly started to approach my deductible.

So, I decided to run it through my insurance. I took it to the shop the insurance company recommended (which supposedly was the shop used by a promenent BMW dealership).

When the work came back, the body shop said they ordered a skid plate, but said it didn't fit. They said they called the dealership and the dealer said that even though the part was in the computer, there was no such part. I was befuddled since there was some sort of plastic that came off besided the wheel well. Also, why would BMW list a part in it's Bill of Materials that supposedly doesn't fit?


So my question is, what was the mystery piece of black plastic if not a skid plate?