How to use RealOEM.com

[Robert T]

HOW TO USE RealOEM.com

Having regurgitated the same info quite a few times recently, I thought I would write up a few notes on using RealOEM. Although I'm posting this in the Z3 Knowledge Base, much of this can be applied to any other BMW car, including the Z1, Z4 and Z8. Note that the Z1 us listed under Archive rather than Current. For brevity, I'll refer to realoem.com as RealOEM throughout.

What is RealOEM
RealOEM is a web version of BMW's ETK (or EPC - Electronic Parts Catalogue - in English). This is the system used by BMW dealers to lookup parts information. It contains a massive amount of information, down to which parts are appropriate to which models of each car and even to production dates of those parts.

There are some drawbacks to the web version. First off, the prices are given in US dollars rather than local currency - as a very rough guide, divide by 2 and add VAT to get a price in GBP. Some of the more useful features of the ETK are also missing like the Part Use option which shows you which other vehicles a part is used in (we'll see how to work around this later). The Part Information is also missing, and this contains some useful info which is not listed elsewhere e.g. fitting time or amount of paint needed to spray a primered panel, as well as things like part supercession details. The auxiliary information is also missing, like spring tables, filling quantities and standard parts (mainly nuts, bolts, washers, gromets and the like). Even without those features it is a very useful tool.

Why would you want to use it? Well, every BMW part is identified by a unique part number. You can then go to a dealer and order that part having some idea how much it is going to cost. You can then take the part away and fit it yourself. Even if you don't want to buy a new part it can be useful to know which parts fit which cars so that you can find a suitable donor vehicle, or know whether something on fleabay will fit your car.

Getting Started
First off if you visit http://www.realoem.com you will be greeted with a page of text, which at first glance does not look very interesting. If you click the "Click here to enter" link, you will see the Select your BMW Model page. This is where you must enter your vehicle details, right down to the build date. You can't start browsing until you have entered enough information. There are two ways to procede:

1) If you know your VIN (Vehicle Identification Number), then you can enter the last seven digits into the Serial Number box and press Search and this will lookup and highlight all the information for your car including: Series; Body; Model; Region; Prod Month; Engine; Steering. You can then click Browse Parts and you're away.

2) If you don't know your VIN, or you want to look at parts for a different car to your own, you need to enter all the information for your car by hand. It's pretty easy going until you get to engine, and then you need to have a vague idea of which engine you want to be looking at, unless of course you only have a choice of one! Steering and Transmission do not always need to be entered. AFAIK everything else does. As you select each detail, you will notice a slight delay before the next set of options are presented, and you will also notice that the web address changes with each thing you select. This is useful, as having selected the vehicle you want, you can bookmark the page and come back to it later.

Browsing for Parts
Parts are split into groups. These are very broad categories and not everything is where you expect to find it! With use, you get to know where things are. Select a main group e.g. 51 VEHICLE TRIM and you will then be presented with a list of sub-groups. Select a sub-group e.g. 51 15 BUMPER and you will then see one or more thumbnails appear in the lower portion of the page. You can now select a diagram e.g. BUMPER TRIM PANEL, REAR and this will change to a page with a larger version of the diagram and a list of numbered parts.

Finding a Part on a Diagram
Each part on a diagram is numbered. If you see a number with a bar and several numbers above it, then this means that that part comprises of all the others. The numbers are then listed in the table below with a description, part number, price and so on. If the numbered part is missing from the table, then it usually means that it is not applicable to your vehicle. If a number parts appears more than once, it means there is a choice and you need to start reading the descriptions carefully to see which one you need.

In the example with the bumper trim above, you can see there are two options for numbered part 1 - a primed bumper and a painted bumper.

The code column is not often very meaningful - most of these refer to options codes for when the car was specified - they can mean things like NATIONAL VERSION JAPAN or ELECTRO/MECHANICAL ROOF.

Qty is quantity (as needed for every occurrence of that part in the diagram).

From and To are the production months that this part applies to. For the Z3 you will often see 04/99 which was the changeover from pre- to post-facelift.

Part Number is exactly that, though it is shown unformatted. BMW often write these as 51.12.8.398.768 for legibility (2.2.1.3.3).

Price is given in US dollars. If no price is given, then this often means that the part is no longer available.

Notes contains some odd bits of information. ENDED is important as it means that this particular part is no longer available - though it may have been superceded by another part.

What other vehicles does this part fit?
Having found the part number of the bit you want, copy this to the clipboard (Ctrl+C) and click Select another car at the top of the page. Click Search by part # and paste the part number into the box. Make sure you tick the Euro box and then click Search. You can then see exactly which models the part is used on, and if you follow the details links, you can get to the diagrams showing that part on another vehicle. You will find that some parts are unique to one car, others to a model like the Z3, yet more to a particular engine and some to an entire series like the E36. Usually the more cars a part applies to, the cheaper they are, as they will have been produced in greater numbers.

Can't find that part
First try looking under a different, but related part of the system. I have sometimes found a part under a different section than one might expect. For example, you might expect to find the headlamp washers on a diagram of the front of the vehicle, but they are actually listed under VEHICLE ELECTRICAL SYSTEM, as part of the system is electrical. I have also found that some diagrams can be missing for a particular car, so it can pay to have a look at where the part is shown on a similar car e.g. one with a different engine or different body.

Make use of the diagrams
The diagrams usually show exploded views, but they do contain some valuable information about how the parts fit together. This can be very helpful if you are trying to figure out how to fit or remove something. Beware that some of the diagrams do show the wrong vehicle e.g. some E36 parts show a 3-series body rather than a Z3. Other diagrams can occasionally show the left-hand-drive version of the car, even if you have selected right-hand-drive, but the part numbers in the table *should* be correct.

Posting links to RealOEM
Having found a part, or diagram that you wish to discuss in the forum, you need to copy and paste the web address into your post. To do this, select the address bar, making sure it is all highlighted, and press Ctrl+C. Now put URL tags into your post {URL=http://www.realoem.com/...}linky{/URL} replacing { and } with square brackets. "linky" will then become a link to the RealOEM page.

You can also display a diagram directly in a post by right-clicking the diagram on the RealOEM page and selecting "Copy Image Location". In your post add an IMG tag like {IMG}http://www.realoem.com/...{/IMG} again with { and } replaced by square brackets. I'm not sure of the netiquette of doing this (it isn't always polite to link to an image on someone else's website), but it works! If you do post a diagram in this way, please also include a link to the page as well, as finding a particular diagram on RealOEM can take hours.

More Information...
Well that's my tuppence worth. If you have any more tips about RealOEM, please feel free to post them here. The same applies to any corrections to my wafflings.

Cheers R.

[Kiwi]

Sure your guide will help out out a lot of people - good on you for taking the time to write all that up.

People might also like to use BMWfans as an alternative - the advantage it has over Realoem is that it shows the weight of all parts and pricing is in Euros:

http://bmwfans.info/original/

As for figuring out the price of parts, I use this website - UK BMW dealer which does online ordering - once you have the part number, search for it (they tend to have most parts listed):

http://www.cooper-bmw-parts.co.uk/

Having said that, I buy most of my parts from the States as it is always cheaper (and they have most Euro parts) - this site:

http://www.trademotion.com/partlocator/ ... eid=214760