08' Jet Black 335i BMW - The Anti-Christ of paint

M

MusicMan

New member
Ever since we started detailing I've heard 2 things..Corvettes have ROCK hard paint...and Jet Black BMW's are the most difficult to finish down. You can always cut harder with rock hard clears...but finishing down soft paint...thats a specialty all of its own.



We got a call to do this car last week. As soon as the owner said the words "Jet Black" I said "Ohh man..." lol. The owner too was well aware of its infamous history. We agreed to set it up for a little over a week from that day (yesterday)...and so for the last week or so Dani and I have been a bit stressed anticipating this car. We have dealt with INSANELY soft paint before, but this one came with a long history that we were more than aware of.



After spending about 8 hours polishing and Opti-Coating a Mini Cooper on Saturday, that night the owner of the Jet Black came to drop off his ride...and we got our first chance to see it.



I'll just say, it needed help...LOTS of help! It was 5 years old but the local car washes had it looking like it had driven through rose thickets for 10 years.



Then we got another kicker...we found out that one of our past clients referred the BMW owner to us. Our past client was INSANELY picky about his FR-S, but was very please with the work we did for him...please enough to refer his friend to us. That was flattering but very good to hear.



We talked about process, what to expect and the time frame it would take for us to finish. After talking for about 30 minutes the owner left. We had planned to prep it that night (at least washing/claying it), but seeing how bad it was we knew it would take us a couple of hours to get ready and didn't want to be making noise late at night. Instead we parked it and got up bright and early the next morning to being a 25 man hour restoration.







There she is. It was dirty, swirled, covered in bugs and had NO protection on it (the water ran totally flat!)



Few bugs for good measure were on the mirrors and front bumper:













The swirls were very bad, but we couldn't get a true feel for how bad due to all the dirt that was on it:



















Did I mention it had dirt? Cause if i didn't tell..yeah it had lots of Arizona dirt all over it. And this time of year we hit 80 degrees at the crack of dawn...during the washing process we passed 90 for sure.







Black paint and Az sun = 3rd degree burns! It also equals a very difficult wash...have to make sure the water doesn't dry during the rinsing, washing and re-rinsing...lots of fun.



Oh, and it had dirt:









And water spots:









The side yard allowed us partial shade on the passenger side, so we began there...with the tires and wheels as always. Using a non-acidic cleaner on the rims (uncoated metal) we sprayed and scrubbed...and scrubbed and sprayed with our brushes, wheel woolies and pressure washer.















The tips...well I dont even wanna talk about the tips lol:

















We'll go back to the wheels for now...tires needed a good cleaning, Power Clean ate up the road grime that covered them:









Each wheel looked about like this:













P21S...first time using it...liked it quite a bit...actually did 'cling' to the wheels much better than our other wheel cleaners...did a nice job too:















Atlast Soft Tip Brush...most durable brush, ever?









And of course the wheel woolies. The barrels of the wheels came out much better, but the REALLY needed to just be pulled and given a full restoration...we did what we could with what we had to work with though:















Now even after thoroughly washing, spraying, and cleaning the rims..they were still not up to par with what we wanted...so..we broke out the good stuff:









We soaked each wheel with Iron-X to help break down the grime that even P21S wouldn't touch...and it did:









The rear wheels were bad...but the FRONT...oh my lord...Dani said it looked like it was oozing grape juice:















Personally i thought it looked like we had just run over Barney:











We had a RIVER coming out!











Ive never been a heavy iron-x user but on the rims it really made a HUGE difference. The wheels were much better after the initial clean but after the IX it truly did make a night and day difference.





As the sun...and temperature...came up further...the damage this car had because more and more apparent...even dirty:









Ouch...











The passenger rear quarter was the one area the owner said REALLY looked horrible to him...we could see why.















Remember earlier how i said the water ran FLAT...well i wasn't lying. I don't think this paint had seen wax in a long...long time:









By this time the sun was nice and high in the sky (even at 9 a.m!) So we had to get the EZ-Up out...it doesnt shade the whole car but it does make washing POSSIBLE at least:









Notice the bottle of dawn in my hand lol. Usually we'd foam the car...in this case though...we just squirted the soap directly onto the paint after rinsing.





Wash time...









We had to do about 1/3 of the car at a time...then move the tent...do another 3rd...move it again...



Dani rinsing:









The wheels and wash took us just shy of 2 hours...thats 2 people working...4 man hours just to wash the thing. Even after all that, it was a far cry from being ready to polish....we had a lot of claying to do. The surface felt like we were dragging our towels over sand paper. LOTS of bonded contaminants.



I got this off of just the trunk...nothing else, just the trunk:









While i was doing that...I asked Dani if she could go around and take note of all "Pre-existing Conditions" the car had:









Those were some of them lol.









What the...!!









She also took note of things we COULDN'T fix...like the split bumper:









And gouges up front:











After about 10 minutes or so all of the sudden she said "The who car is a pre-existing condition!" ...yeah i about died laughing lol. Luckily most of it we could cure!



The paint wasn't just swirled, it was faded too :















The clear bra matched the rest of the car as well (but we had something for it too...just keep reading)

















ANDDDD i was still claying....











Love these towels:

















Roof was REALLY swirled and REALLY grey looking:







Trunk was a MESS:









Pilliars...well, yeah...











The higher that sun got the worse that quarter panel looked:









Who am i kidding? The whole car looked like that:













ANNNNND...i was still claying:









Got that off just the hood!





Glass needed claying badly as well:











YES damn it im still claying! Leave me alone!







 
Finally we got to the point where we could start the REAL work (yeah, the other stuff was just an opening act).



With lots of pads, polishes and machines to choose from...we decided to not go super aggressive to start out with. Being that this paint was notoriously soft, a hard core combo wasn't what was on the menu for our first attempt.





As always, we taped off a test spot...a couple actually. I figured 205 and megs MF finishing pad to cut with (sounds hypocritical right?) would be a good start...and Dani suggested a Buff n Shine Green to polish with...so...we took a shot to see how it worked out.



We went ahead and did our test spot outside under the tent. I did that while Dani got the garage all set up with every thing we'd need. The 205, Rupes 21 and Finishing pad cut the hell out of the defects. It had a few deeper scratches left over (as in you could count them on one hand) but a MASSIVE improvement. Of course...using a pad like that and on soft paint..it marred/scoured it up pretty good. Thus the reason for the 205 and foam pad to follow up.



I thought the green pad might be a bit too aggressive to finish with but, Dani knows her stuff and really likes those green B&S pads...so thats what i went with. She made a damn good call:















Under sun gun and LED light....the finish looked on point. The road rash (pitting, whatever you'd like to call it) was a serious eye sore but...welcome to black paint in Az where sandblasting your car is free!











This was outside though...and even though we were under the tent...there was still lots of indirect light coming in...so once we were all set up in the garage, we pulled it in...shut the doors and worked under just our own lighting (as much as humanly possible).





We taped off another spot on the hood just to see if we could repeat the results of the first test spot. Well...even with the not so wonderful over head lighting...the improvement was obvious:









And under LED lighting...even more obvious:









The tape line now stood out like a horrible hood stripe gone wrong lol:







The surrounding paint looked beautiful though:















And i was still claying:













No just kidding hahaha.







Ok sorry about that...my ADD got in the way for a sec. Anyway, back to the detail.





Next we taped down the center of the hood ....then cut and polished half...again...results speak for themselves. Left side done, right side not:













And remember that nasty clear bra....well it took some extra doing (damn polish kept wanting to stick to it!), but it had a drastic improvement as well:











Now of course while it looked great inside under multiple light sources...we had to pull it out to REALLY check our work. Also note...the polished areas had been wiped down and stripped of any polish residue so that we could see the TRUE outcome of what we were getting....no fillers or false results.



Survey says?



















Haaa, tape line was still there...man it looked funny but really showed what a huge difference we were getting.











And to think the WHOLE HOOD looked like that little strip just a short time ago.











Clear bra was looking on point too (with the exception of all the pits and nicks it had in it.)













THIS, was the money shot. I went and got my butt up on a step ladder just so i could share this with you all

















Not sure whats more attention drawing, how good the left side looks or how BAD the right side still was.





Back into our cave we went lol. We had crossed over 100 degrees by this time and with all the door shut well...we were in our own personal Easy Bake Oven!



While i continued cutting the paint, Dani attacked the wheels which STILL needed additional attention (selfish little suckers).



I got over to the passenger door and again was able to get some great 50/50 shots:















Haaa, this is just wow















Dani still had this crap to deal with...nice staining and dullness:













By hand she went around and 1 by one polished each wheel (even though wheel polishing was not suppose to be a part of this detail...it would have made the rest of the work look bad if it hadn't been done). She also dressed tires and wheel wells. Rims came out lookin' nice:













Again, nothing we could do about the curbed spots...but the stained/dull look was gone and the wheels had some 'pop' again.







By the time she had finished up the wheels i had 1/2 the hood, front quarter panel and most of the passenger door compounded and ready for her to start polishing. While the product, pad and machine was very important....technique and working CLEAN was ULTIMATELY important. Any little bit of built up polishing residue or contaminant on the pad could scour the hell out of what we were trying to polish to a serious shine.



After EVERY section we did, we had to stop and clean our pad...every section. But, in the long run it saves time and improves results.



After i did my compounding pass, the paint was cleared up...but under careful LED light inspection you could see the marring left over from the microfiber pad:







This is what Dani had to chase after. I knocked the swirls down but she had to finish it off...and on paint thats jet black and difficult to finish down..thats no small feat to say the least.



Can you sayyyyy, concentration?















Onward to the lower portions of the rear bumper. Any detailer will tell you this is one of the ugliest areas on a car. Low to the ground...RIGHT behind the rear wheel and receiving the brunt of all sorts of abuse always leaves you with this:







And this:









(Note the wheel covers...gotta keep those rims Dani worked on for so long lookin sharp!)





I had to go over it a couple of times but...even these heavily damaged areas came out very well (hazy and needing to be polished but the swirls were gone)















The lights go love too:













Finally got to the back of the car! I was feeling pretty good at this point and decided to have a little fun...so i taped off a "W" on the trunk (for Windows & Wheels) and polished all around it.









Rupes = awesomeness:











We branded it...haaaa!









HAD to pull it out in the sun for this one:



















And while we were out there we figured, while the sun was still up, we'd get some shots of the side of the car we had corrected:









LOVED that pic.











As i said above, there were some RIDS left (deeper scratches), but compared to the ..millions?...that were there to begin with...i'd say this was a good out come:















It now deserves the title "Jet Black"









I forgot to get after shots of the tips but...you can kinda see them here...they DID have metal under all that grime!









And the polishing continues!











yeah it was starting to get dark now. We had already dropped 10 hours into this baby and still had a few more left to go.



Fun camera time was over and we really hit it hard (hah, as if we weren't before...)



We swung around to the drivers side and repeated the same process on that end. Got it all finished and then had to do the dreaded front bumper. It by far was the LEAST appealing of the car...simply because you can't polish gouges in the clear bra. We did get it to look MUCH better though (as seen in the pics earlier).



Now the time had come to clean her up and get ready for sealing it up. We had JUST gotten ready to start waxing and all of the sudden a light went on and i said "Oh S***"...Dani asked what...and i told her I had forgotten to do the damn rocker on the drivers side. So OUT came the cutting and polishing pads and product again. I would have noticed it while going around and sealing it (since i'd be using a light) so there was no risk that we'd actually forget it...but it's always aggravating when you THINK you're onto the next step and then have to go back and re-do (or do) something you thought you'd finished lol.



So i spent the next 15 or 20 minutes laying on the ground working on that rocker.



Before the sun totally set, Dani managed to grab a couple of photos before i started sealing it up and she started doing the final touches (door jamb, windows etc)













It was a bit dark and not the best 'finished' photos ever, but the owner said he'd snap some pictures of his own and send them over to us once he does..so i'll get them up as soon as i get them.



In the mean time....this is all i've got! Hope you all enjoyed the write-up and the pictures...and hopefully i'll have some finished pictures to add to this soon :)



Take care all.
 
Bravo! Really like the W there as well , nice touch. Once again you guys did an amazing job. Keep up the great work.
 
BMW Jet Black=SUCKNESS! But when finished down it looks like water in a tank! Wet looking, nearly RID free! Hopefully the owner discontinues "Scuff-N-Buff" washes! Nice work as always guys! Are there any cars that don't need full corrections in Arizona?? lol
 
Francisco said:
Bravo! Really like the W there as well , nice touch. Once again you guys did an amazing job. Keep up the great work.
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Lol, Dani looked at me like "What the hell are you doing?" hahaha, but she thought it was cool too. Thank you and thanks for reading.



maxepr1 said:
BMW Jet Black=SUCKNESS! But when finished down it looks like water in a tank! Wet looking, nearly RID free! Hopefully the owner discontinues "Scuff-N-Buff" washes! Nice work as always guys! Are there any cars that don't need full corrections in Arizona?? lol
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He said he'd either have us do it or he'd do it himself from now on...so hopefully the swirl monkeys wont get a chance again to touch that paint. And yes, there are a few...the one's we've worked on no longer need full corrections :)
 
I am the owner ( and long time lurker on these forums) and I could not be happier with the job they have done! Nothing but self washes for THIS guy going forward. :clap::clap:
 
Scottwax said:
Nice job as always. Done enough of those to know how hard you both had to work to bring it back.
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It made us sweat (literally)...thats for certain. I was glad we were able to crack the code and get it to come out how we wanted ...but man what a lot of stress (both physically and mentally).



sogone said:
I am the owner ( and long time lurker on these forums) and I could not be happier with the job they have done! Nothing but self washes for THIS guy going forward. :clap::clap:
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Glad you joined! And very glad you were happy with the job. Self washes should really help to keep it in good shape longer...and when it needs a touch up..you know where to find us :)
 
Applehugger said:
Great job as usual! Why don't you invest in an Autoscrub? It would cut your claying time at least in half.
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We have one...and didn't use it for 2 reasons...first...i just dont trust it on super soft paint...seems to always mar the paint some. 2nd reason is, when it gets HOT like this...its very difficult to keep the surface wet enough, long enough...for the autoscrub to do its thing without the lube drying all up...even when i constantly spray sometimes a spot gets just a bit to dry (like the last wash n' wax we did) and then i end up with rubber crap on the paint (this usually happens on vertical surfaces).



So with clay or a clay towel (i had one but it died lol), i can at least have a better feel for if an area is getting too dry or not...and its less aggressive than the autoscrub so i dont worry about adding MORE defects to have to deal with while polishing.



mikenap said:
Killing it yet again! Great work and another entertaining write-up!
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Mr. Mike, thx for checking it out. I owe 90% of my stress and worrying to YOU my friend hahaha. It didn't take years off my life but im sure it took a few months...and it also made me dream about swirls again (i literally dream about this crap...thats a bit concerning huh?)
 
"YES im still claying" that was some funny **** when you threw that pictures in there!



Was your P21S just the wheel cleaner or gel? If you liked the wheel cleaner you really need to try the gel!



Looking forward to more afters.
 
That condition was just unbelievable. I hope the owed plans on either coming to you for maintenance washes or learns the proper car care method after all that time you put in on the car. Stellar job.
 
mrclrider said:
"YES im still claying" that was some funny **** when you threw that pictures in there!



Was your P21S just the wheel cleaner or gel? If you liked the wheel cleaner you really need to try the gel!



Looking forward to more afters.
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Hahaha, i was wondering how many people would catch that...probably just the ones who read it all the way through :) I used the gel...i did like the dwell time a lot...but man Iron X really knocked the crap out of the left over grime. Hopefully the owner will send me some pics today :)



Evan.J said:
That condition was just unbelievable. I hope the owed plans on either coming to you for maintenance washes or learns the proper car care method after all that time you put in on the car. Stellar job.
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He said he'd do it himself from here on out according to the post he made on this thread...thats a relief :)



Thomas Dekany said:
Great job, but you are lucky that car wasn't from 2006/2007! :D
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I heard that the ones prior to 08' were the worst...looks like we JUST got over that hurdle. After seeing we can do it though...i'd be up for the challenge :)
 
Wills.WindowsAndWheels said:
We have one...and didn't use it for 2 reasons...first...i just dont trust it on super soft paint...seems to always mar the paint some. 2nd reason is, when it gets HOT like this...its very difficult to keep the surface wet enough, long enough...for the autoscrub to do its thing without the lube drying all up...even when i constantly spray sometimes a spot gets just a bit to dry (like the last wash n' wax we did) and then i end up with rubber crap on the paint (this usually happens on vertical surfaces).



So with clay or a clay towel (i had one but it died lol), i can at least have a better feel for if an area is getting too dry or not...and its less aggressive than the autoscrub so i dont worry about adding MORE defects to have to deal with while polishing.
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Well that makes sense. I feel pretty bad for you if it gets so hot you can't use an autoscrub lol. You know you can use it by hand as well as with DA, right? I find that by hand, it causes almost no marring. However, I have very little experience on BMW paints.
 
Applehugger said:
Well that makes sense. I feel pretty bad for you if it gets so hot you can't use an autoscrub lol. You know you can use it by hand as well as with DA, right? I find that by hand, it causes almost no marring. However, I have very little experience on BMW paints.
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Lol your sympathy is appreciated. I have used it by hand and it seems to work well (especially the little 3" guy)...it just sometimes hear 'dragging' and it kills me...i dont SEE anything on the face of the pad but i swear i hear it. I wish they made the pads WHITE so you coudl SEE any contaminates that were on the face...then again its a bit difficult to clean the face of the pad cause thigns seem to like to STICK to it (doesnt clean off as easily as advertised thats for sure)...so i pick and choose when i use it. Ill probably get another SSPT soon....i liked my old one quite a bit.
 
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