NaterGator
New member
So, my dad got this 2001 540i used in 2004 and it appeared to be in pretty good shape. It's a nice car, pretty zippy, has a few touches I really like (like M color stitching on the steering wheel) and used to be a pretty car when he got it.
Long of the short is it seems the dealer used a hell of a lot of durable fillers to mask something seriously wrong with the paint. I'm not sure what happened to this car's paint job, or if it is even really original BMW Jet Black paint. It dries out, oxidizes, and absorbs moisture like a single stage, but in certain areas (like around the taillights) there is evidence of clear coat peeling. It is perhaps a really cheaply done respray touch up, and due to the IMSA sticker on the window, I wouldn't be surprised to find out it was used on a track and had a little run in with a safety barrier or other track day participant that prompted the paint job.
But I digress, this summer when I got home from college and laid eyes on the car I almost fainted. To say my dad had "let it go" would be an enormous understatement. He parked on the street one night about 6 months ago in front of a house that uses Florida well water for their yard. If you're not familiar with Florida well water it is some of the most mineral filled water I've ever seen, reeks of sulphur, and stains pretty much everything including plants, sidewalks, windows, and houses. This was pretty much the coup de grâce for the car, and after letting it bake on he proceeded to not wash it. He took it to a local big car wash to try and get the stains out, which obviously did jack other than damage his paint even further.
Now, I'm not sure what the hell he was thinking, but this was the condition of the car when I got to it. Like I said, it hurt to see this:
I tried using megs aggressive clay to test the surface and see if it remove the water staining, it didn't:
So I threw up my arms, clayed the rest of the panel with a lighter clay, and hit it with Klasse AIO on a LC white OEM, then SFX-1+SFX-1 pad, M83 on a LC white OEM and this was where I stood:
Not defect free, but a whole hell of a lot better. Here's the rest of the panel:
Ok, so by this point it was clear what I had at my disposal was not going to get it done. My old PC7424 from years ago is aging and doesn't quite have the oomph it used to have, but luckily I live in Tampa and can just drive over to CMA and get what I need, so I picked up a Flex 3401 (I've been afraid to try rotary for fear of damage, but in retrospect this was probably my prime chance to learn rotary and wet sanding, since the finish couldn't get that much worse), M105 and M205, Megs #3 to "feed" the drying finish, some Collinite 476s since my dad obviously neglects the hell out of the paint and I wanted more durability than 845, as well as a few other goodies. This was all after consulting with a body shop who estimated that a full repaint would be in the ballpark of $3500+... sinking $400 into new supplies seemed like a good idea.
I don't have picture of the process, but I found the paint extraordinarily inconsistent and unpredictable. Even on the same panel, some sections would polish easily and swirls would disappear just leaving RIDS, while on others I could hammer away with M105 on an orange pad with the Flex at 4.5 and nothing would change. Confusing as heck, but since I don't have a thickness gauge and I have no idea about the paint's condition other than "bad" I didn't even think about attempting to get any better than removing most swirls and water staining.
So, after 3 days of work here is where I stand before applying collinite:
Bounce flash:
Direct Flash:
Note these photos have no photoshop applied... heck they were imported and uploaded in Gentoo Linux.
I'm a total amateur and constantly improving my technique, but I think this turned out pretty ok all things considered (this is really only the 5th-6th paint I've worked on). I don't have a clue what the deal with the paint is, and intend to have a pro come out and assess the situation and hopefully clean things up a bit better than I did, but at least now it is not a ruined looking paint surface and has some protection on it.
Today I took the wheels/tires off, sprayed, cleaned, opti-sealed, and dressed them. Shampooed the floormats and vacuumed the carpet, and will finish up with an interior QD wipedown and apply aquapel to the windows. I still have some staining on the windows that nothing has gotten off so far... not vinegar, AIO, ammonia, IG, IPA, dawn, etc. I'll just keep trying to apply Zaino glass polish and see if it ultimately gets anywhere.
I've never experienced paint in this condition before or water staining that bad, so if anyone has further tips for me re: working this paint into better condition I'm all ears.
Thanks for looking,
-Nate
EDIT: Years ago I posted about this same vehicle, having troubles with it. Thread here.
Long of the short is it seems the dealer used a hell of a lot of durable fillers to mask something seriously wrong with the paint. I'm not sure what happened to this car's paint job, or if it is even really original BMW Jet Black paint. It dries out, oxidizes, and absorbs moisture like a single stage, but in certain areas (like around the taillights) there is evidence of clear coat peeling. It is perhaps a really cheaply done respray touch up, and due to the IMSA sticker on the window, I wouldn't be surprised to find out it was used on a track and had a little run in with a safety barrier or other track day participant that prompted the paint job.
But I digress, this summer when I got home from college and laid eyes on the car I almost fainted. To say my dad had "let it go" would be an enormous understatement. He parked on the street one night about 6 months ago in front of a house that uses Florida well water for their yard. If you're not familiar with Florida well water it is some of the most mineral filled water I've ever seen, reeks of sulphur, and stains pretty much everything including plants, sidewalks, windows, and houses. This was pretty much the coup de grâce for the car, and after letting it bake on he proceeded to not wash it. He took it to a local big car wash to try and get the stains out, which obviously did jack other than damage his paint even further.
Now, I'm not sure what the hell he was thinking, but this was the condition of the car when I got to it. Like I said, it hurt to see this:
I tried using megs aggressive clay to test the surface and see if it remove the water staining, it didn't:
So I threw up my arms, clayed the rest of the panel with a lighter clay, and hit it with Klasse AIO on a LC white OEM, then SFX-1+SFX-1 pad, M83 on a LC white OEM and this was where I stood:
Not defect free, but a whole hell of a lot better. Here's the rest of the panel:
Ok, so by this point it was clear what I had at my disposal was not going to get it done. My old PC7424 from years ago is aging and doesn't quite have the oomph it used to have, but luckily I live in Tampa and can just drive over to CMA and get what I need, so I picked up a Flex 3401 (I've been afraid to try rotary for fear of damage, but in retrospect this was probably my prime chance to learn rotary and wet sanding, since the finish couldn't get that much worse), M105 and M205, Megs #3 to "feed" the drying finish, some Collinite 476s since my dad obviously neglects the hell out of the paint and I wanted more durability than 845, as well as a few other goodies. This was all after consulting with a body shop who estimated that a full repaint would be in the ballpark of $3500+... sinking $400 into new supplies seemed like a good idea.
I don't have picture of the process, but I found the paint extraordinarily inconsistent and unpredictable. Even on the same panel, some sections would polish easily and swirls would disappear just leaving RIDS, while on others I could hammer away with M105 on an orange pad with the Flex at 4.5 and nothing would change. Confusing as heck, but since I don't have a thickness gauge and I have no idea about the paint's condition other than "bad" I didn't even think about attempting to get any better than removing most swirls and water staining.
So, after 3 days of work here is where I stand before applying collinite:
Bounce flash:
Direct Flash:
Note these photos have no photoshop applied... heck they were imported and uploaded in Gentoo Linux.
I'm a total amateur and constantly improving my technique, but I think this turned out pretty ok all things considered (this is really only the 5th-6th paint I've worked on). I don't have a clue what the deal with the paint is, and intend to have a pro come out and assess the situation and hopefully clean things up a bit better than I did, but at least now it is not a ruined looking paint surface and has some protection on it.
Today I took the wheels/tires off, sprayed, cleaned, opti-sealed, and dressed them. Shampooed the floormats and vacuumed the carpet, and will finish up with an interior QD wipedown and apply aquapel to the windows. I still have some staining on the windows that nothing has gotten off so far... not vinegar, AIO, ammonia, IG, IPA, dawn, etc. I'll just keep trying to apply Zaino glass polish and see if it ultimately gets anywhere.
I've never experienced paint in this condition before or water staining that bad, so if anyone has further tips for me re: working this paint into better condition I'm all ears.
Thanks for looking,
-Nate
EDIT: Years ago I posted about this same vehicle, having troubles with it. Thread here.
