Tuesday, March 4, 2014

2008 BMW e92 M3: Alpine White brought back to its true Glory...

Similar to the Porsche C4S that was in the shop for a full paint rehab and OptiCoat a week prior, this BMW e92 M3 is a long time client who drives his car daily and it shows. Since new (2008) the vehicle has been in for a biannual detail consisting of Klasse AIO and SG then topped with Zymol Titanium. Its a fantastic outcome every time, but the last two years I had been noticing a lot more scratches and embedded dirt in the paint and recommended it was time for a polish. After coordinating together to arrange a time where he could be without the vehicle over the Holidays, we booked it in for a full paint correction, clear bra replacement, and OptiCoat. 

Alpine White... Or brown?:

When the car arrived it was in quite hideous shape in terms of cleanliness. The Boston winter has been brutal this year and it really takes its toll out on the cars driving on the roads. The salt and dirt is caked onto every vehicle roaming the streets and when a car is white, it is even more apparent as the following photo shows. 

look at that dirt!   

The next step was to klay and remove the old 3M clear bra off the vehicle. This particular car has the standard front kit, side skirts, and whole rear bumper done. While I was expecting the usual hour or so to remove the old clear bra, I was soon shocked to find how hard this 3M material was to remove on this car. I could get the main bra off OK enough but the adhesive left behind was the worst I had ever seen. It was so bad it required a specific adhesive softener and remover to loosen it enough to remove it with a plastic scrapper. While I would usually be very scared to use such a tool on paint since it leaves micro scratches, I was more comfortable in this situation as the car was receiving a full paint correction anyway. After a long 5 hours I finally had all the adhesive removed and was ready to start taping up for paint polishing.

the faded Alpine White paint becomes apparent after removing the clear bra. Look at the difference on the hood...

another shot showing the paint line on the hood where the 3M was...


 not all bra comes off easy, this side skirt had paint lift with the bra even though it has never been painted prior...

this was definitely going to require touch up before the new clear bra was installed...

what your hands look like after removing 3M adhesive for 5 hours...

After removing the clear bra, it was time to take paint readings and start the paint correction process. Since this was a white car I was hoping a 2 step correction would be enough to remove 88% of the paint imperfections. Unfortunately, I was far too optimistic and had to break out the wool pad and compound to get the desired results. 


as usual, BMW gives their cars a generous allotment of clear to work with which allowed me to get a bit more aggressive with defects I came across...


prepped and ready for polishing to commence...


 carbon fiber roof giving off some nice depth and clarity after correcting the clear with a 3 stage polish correction...

 just as in life, the shop is always full of contrasts...

 halogens are always helpful, especially on light colored cars to examine for paint defects...

halogen stands brought in for all side panel inspection...

 getting there as reflections look true, unaltered, and no scratches...

cool reflection of our Ralf Schumacher's 2001 Williams BMW F1 wall poster in the passenger side door...

After a day of polishing, I was quite pleased with the outcome from the Alpine White paint. It looked fresh, had clarity, and was free of about 91% of paint defects (in white that is very good as the eyes cannot pick up scratches as easily as on dark colored cars). With that, it was time to start the OptiCoat Pro application and schedule in the new XPel Ultimate clear bra treatment.

paint correction complete and car ready for OptiCoat application...

 OptiCoat being applied to front grille and bumper...

OptiCoat curing after application...

While waiting to for the OptiCoat to cure, we cleaned up the engine bay and interior- along with all jambs and edges...

303 Aerospace Protectant was the weapon of choice to clean up the engine bay...

Final Shots:

 always hard to photo white colored cars well...

XPel clear bra providing a much more transparent and seamless look to the front end...

 reflections clear and crisp...


 carbon fiber roof protected with OptiCoat as well...


 rear bumper completely covered in XPel Ultimate as well...


the sun never lies when it comes to paint correction...

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