BMW Mini Cooper - Caution!

toby tyke

New member
Detailed a BMW Mini Cooper S this weekend. I dont know how frequent you lads in America come accross them but a word of caution!, the clear coat aint all that tuff. I only use Sonus Ultra Fine clay to do my cars and I am now finding that a lot of the modern european cars with water based paints have a soft clear coat/ piant. Even with loads of lube, constant needing etc the clay bar left some mild marring. It polished out no probs with the rotary, a white pad and 3m ultra fina, just made the job that bit longer. Watch out for those decals on the bonnet /hood too, they dont like clay bars either and scratch easily as well, you usually fine these on the two tone paint jobs.

After looking after a clients Chrysler Jeep its obvious American paint is far tougher in general, from a previous post I know a clay bar is an abrasive but when the instructions say "use every week safely" for the inexperienced expect to do some mild polishing now and again to remove marring.

Regards from accross the water.
 
I noticed the same problem on an '08 Mini that I detailed about a month ago. The paint was incredibly soft. Using a new clay bar (purple clay from TOL), the clay actually left some marring. Here are a pic of the marring caused by the clay (there were also previously installed swirls from the dealer):



IMG_3869.jpg




After polishing with Poli-Seal/Blue pad/Flex:

IMG_3871.jpg




IMG_3872.jpg
 
PT 91, Sunshine

The Mini was on a 06 plate and half an hour before it had just snowed, so the temp was about 3- 4 deg. I did the very same detail this morning ( rinse, foam and wash, clay and wash again, apply Klasse AIO etc) on a 57 plate Merc, no marring whatsoever, job done in approx 3 hrs.
 
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