Umnitza experience
 

So I bit the bullet and ordered a Hamann style front lip for my E60. I'll comment on Umnitza and the actual lip separately.

Umnitza - I've read about a couple of members having a difficult time with Umnitza, I had nothing but a good experience. I ordered my lip online, and within a few hours I had a PM from Tim telling me that they were out of stock. I told him it wasn't a big deal, just ship it when you get more in. He went out of his way to find another vendor that did have one available, and coordinated having that outfit ship the lip to me. After he managed to get it on the way, I had another PM with all tracking info. Two days later, the lip was on my front doorstep. Tim was incredibly helpful, and I would definitely order from Umnitza again. This all took place within a span of about a week to 10 days.

Hamann style lip for M Technic cars - I bought this for the sole purpose of being a 'consumable'.. I had lost my front bumper to an unfortunate incident with a parking block. I wanted some sort of lower splitter that I could mount to the bottom of the bumper and act as a 'bumper protector'. If I'm going to inch up to a curb and brush against it, I'd rather do it with a $150 peice of black plastic rather than an $852 painted bumper. The replica lip fit the bill. When I unpacked it, I noticed it was a bit misshapen in the center. I put a heavy case of tile on top of it and let it sit there for about a week. It helped quite a bit, but it's still not 100% straight. It didn't really matter to me since I only need it to act as a cow catcher, but if you're looking for this style lip to have perfect fit and finish then you probably should go with the OG Hamann lip ($$$$$). The material it's made from is almost like a rubbery plastic; if it were made out of something more rigid it wouldnt have this problem. Again, for me it wasn't a big deal, but for others it might be. Even with it not being 100% perfect, it still looks pretty damn good and it certainly serves its purpose.

Thanks again to Tim K from Umnitza for going above and beyond.

Pics?

coming soon.....;)

Thanks! :D Will let Tim know his work is appreciated!

Please do, it was greatly appreciated. He could very easily have just said "sorry Kyle, it's on backorder, I'll let you know when we get more in". Instead he went above and beyond to hunt one down for me.

Here's one photo showing where its a bit misshapen in the center. for me, meh, not a big deal since I just need this thing to act as a curb feeler so I don't lose another bumper. Plus, it's raw black plastic and it blends into the road surface. But obviously if I were to paint this thing silver it would stick out like a sore thumb. Could just be a one off defect, but it's there on mine:

Attachment 152047

And a shot of it on the car. Even with the defect, I'm happy with it. It serves its purpose, and makes the car look a bit more aggressive. Jeez, I think this is the first time I've ever posted pics of my car on this site. I have a set of 19" BBS CK Airs that I have to get tires for once I wear these down a bit more.

Attachment 152048

Looks good. Tim is a good guy and every time I went to their shop he would always take care of anything I needed for my ride.

*****update*****

well, it looks like the KyleB cow catcher is no more. A road trip to Miami produced this:

Attachment 152025

I did not hit anything with this. Basically what happened is that the material that this is made from is so flimsy that after several hundred miles on the interstate the splitter sagged, and sagged, and sagged some more until it got to the point that it was literally on the ground if I hit a slight undulation in the road. I was literally dragging this thing home up I-75:

Attachment 152026

I mounted it properly with the hardware that was supplied. It would be very easy to get upset with Umnitza, but the fault lies with whoever is manufacturing this thing. It needs to be made from something with a lot more rigidity to it (CF, dense fiberglass, SMC, anything other than whatever this stuff is). I don't fault Umnitza for this any more than I would fault Target if I got a defective coffee maker; Umnitza is just the middle man, and again the service I got from them was excellent.

I had contacted another site advertiser about this splitter and was told they didn't sell it any longer due to poor quality. I gambled, and lost.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it at this point. I may take a mold of it and make my own out of a different material, or I might remove the center section and make something a bit more rigid. I only posted this to show my experience with it.

cheers.

You may not fault Umitza, but I think it would be their responsibility to take note and discontinue carrying the product.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us, Kyle.

Unless I'm the only one that's experienced this (I don't think I am) I would definitely recommend taking this one off of the shelves, if for no other reason than to save Umnitza from the headache of having to deal with customers that are maybe less forgiving than others.