Cost to replace front parking sensor on BMW X5?

[Ashpolt]

Hi all,

First, a bit of background: on Saturday night I was involved in a very low speed (1-2mph) incident with a BMW X5 Sport. I was reversing out of a space in a petrol station, didn't have much room to manouever, and lightly grazed the front bumper. There was some light scratching, nothing too serious - again, this "collision" occurred at incredibly low speed, as I was manoeuvering out of a parking space - and so I agreed with the owner of the car to cover the cost of repair out of pocket, with an estimated cost of no more than £100 (which struck me as a lot for a bit of T-cut, but never mind.)

He's come back today though and quoted me £500 for the repair, claiming that I've damaged the front parking sensor, and to be honest I think he's having me on. Even if I have damaged it - which seems unlikely to me, given the (again) very low speed of the incident - and assuming it wasn't already damaged even before the incident on Saturday, a quick google search suggests that a replacement parking sensor costs around £20, if not less. So let's say (generously!) £100 to polish out the scratching, £20 for the sensor - to get to a total of £500, that's a labour cost of £380.

So my question is: have any of you had to have the front parking sensor of your X5 replaced? And if so, how much did it cost? Was it anything at all in this region, or is the guy just trying to pull a fast one?

Worth mentioning: I didn't take any pictures at the scene (was quite confused to be honest, never had to deal with anything like this before, and the guy was pretty aggressive) but they did - and are now notably not sending me the pictures they took, though I've asked for them. Also the whole incident was caught on the petrol station's CCTV setup, which will show that it wasn't exactly a high speed thing.

Any advice or thoughts welcomed!

[EDIT] Just to add a bit of extra info, it was a 2005 model X5 Sport D Auto.

[graemeX5]

Hi,

I had to replace one of the front sensors as it was faulty and appeared to have been as a result of the previous owner grazing the bumper and they appear to be easily damaged. the cost of the BMW original part and iirc it was about £75.00. I know that on eBay you can get them for approx £20, but not too sure how good.

Not too sure about what extent of the damage you did to the X5, but the cost of repairs would be dependant on what you damaged i.e. the foam insert or the impact bar behind the bumper or just the main bumper moulding.

I know when my corse was hit in the rear at 20 mph it was the hidden damage behind the plastic bumper that also needed replacing and that was about 1500.

Therefore, it may be worth asking for a breakdown of the costs at least that way you can see what they are fixing.

Hth