Black 2006 BMW 325xi Brought back to life! (56k beware, massive amount of pictures)

[dmw2692004]

So this customer brought me his jet black 325xi asking me to bring the paint back to life because he claimed the car looked more silver than it did black!

I was informed that he bimmer had been previously detailed about a year ago by some hack job and that he did use a compound and a "fluffly" pad polished with a regular pad. as the customer so kindly informed me. While we went over this, the owner also told me not to bother touching the front bumper because of all the rock chips and that he was going to have it repainted as soon as possible. Not having a paint gauge at this point scared me so I decided to go with the least aggressive while being most effective approach so I would not risk removing to much clear. I had to leave many RIDs behind while correcting because I didn't want to risk removing more clear than I had to.

In the end we agreed upon this:
-remove as many of the lighter defects as possible
-smooth out the RIDs so they are not as noticeable
-make the car look black again :

All I have to say about this black BMW paint is . The clear on this paint is impossibly soft. Even my green Sonus polishing MF's were leaving fine marring when I applied even a tiny bit of pressure!

My Process:
-Was with ONR
-Wheels and wheel wells got ONR and diluted Purple Power and misc brushes.
-Clay with Sonus Green Clay and ONR diluted as lube
After an hour of trying different pads and combos i came to this:
-M205 w/ white LC pad worked in at 1000rpm then bumped up to 1600rpm, then back down to 1000rpm to burnish.
-M205 w/ black LC pad worked in at 1000rpm then bumped to 1200rpm, then back to down to 1000rpm to burnish x2.
-Supernatural as LSP
-Windows cleaned with SIG

The hood and the trunk lid had a ton of RIDS and heavy water spotting. I tried a test spot with the rotary and was NOT able to finish down hologram free and at the same time I was scared of cutting to much clear:
-M105 w/orange LC pad and KB Method
-M205 w/white LC pad speed 3 to work in, up to 6 to polish, gradually back down to speed 3 to burnish.

okay, now on to the eye candy!

Washing where with the E-Z mini detail brush and purple power:


Claying



After the wash, before polishing:

[dmw2692004]

After polishing, I was using two different cameras one of the batteries died in the one I started with, and I was starting to get pressed for time, so I was just snapping as I was going, some of them have dust from polishing on them, or smudges grrr.

[dmw2692004]

By the time I finished it was dark and I had to get the car back to owner. The day after, I called the owner and asked if he would like to take pictures somewhere and he agreed! we met up at a parking garage and i borrowed my girlfriends d40x to snap pictures! He had tried to wipe the car down because of dust accumulating so some smudges might be seen again.














total time spent: 13 hours

thanks for looking! comments/CC is greatly appreciated!

[bufferbarry]

very nice detail. thats a cool car there. the d40 is great isn't it.! i just bought one 2 weeks ago.

[dmw2692004]

Originally Posted by bufferbarry

very nice detail. thats a cool car there. the d40 is great isn't it.! i just bought one 2 weeks ago.

thanks! YES! I WANT ONE SO BAD! I might just have to steal it from my girlfriend.