Need some help. Has anyone seen this before?????

Flygti32

New member
This is a 2006 BMW 3 series with 24,000 km's. The dealer calls me up wondering if I can fix this problem for them. I said I'll see what I can do. They dropped off the car with thsi problem on the roof. Now they tell me that they have tried to wet sand this with no luck. Something has obviously dropped onto the surface and etched it but WHAT! would make the surface this bad. I have bever seen etching like this before. What could have caused it? I am little scared to wetsand much more. I am going to get them over to the shop in the morning with a depth gauge to see what is left.



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Well I don't know what can etch a car so deep but after some wetsanding most of it came out but not all. I can't go any furter which leads me to believe the etching is down into the paint and possibley the primer in some spots. Looks like a repaint is all that is going tofix this car:sadpace:
 
Looks like serious acid rain etching. Try to hide it with a good glaze until you can get it in a paint booth. Looks like a car that's been parked at a foundry/coal power plant/etc. If that's the case, the owner might want to pick up a beater to take to work and keep the beamer garaged.
 
Well we live in a climate that is quite clean. We do not get any acid rain out here so it leaves me to wonder about clear coat failure or hard water stains. Maybe parked at a golf course and the hard water from the sprinkler sat on the car all day and baked in?



That being said only the roof of the car had the etching. If it had hard water it should be on more than one flat surface shouldn't it? Once I polished it I found some dents on the roof to. I think there is more going on here than the dealer is letting on. The only alternative I see is for them to repaint the roof. Such a shame on a new car
 
Flygti32 said:
Well we live in a climate that is quite clean. We do not get any acid rain out here so it leaves me to wonder about clear coat failure or hard water stains. Maybe parked at a golf course and the hard water from the sprinkler sat on the car all day and baked in?



That being said only the roof of the car had the etching. If it had hard water it should be on more than one flat surface shouldn't it? Once I polished it I found some dents on the roof to. I think there is more going on here than the dealer is letting on. The only alternative I see is for them to repaint the roof. Such a shame on a new car



I did see something similar actually. It was from a truck that was parked near a "White Pine tree", the sap dripped on, the weather turned bad and froze, the particles/sap, fell off, one real mess. it didn't look exactly like your pictures but somewhat close.

Changeling
 
themightytimmah said:
Looks like serious acid rain etching. Try to hide it with a good glaze until you can get it in a paint booth. Looks like a car that's been parked at a foundry/coal power plant/etc. If that's the case, the owner might want to pick up a beater to take to work and keep the beamer garaged.



I agree. But it *could* be really bad hard water spots. I'd ask the owner if that could be a possibility. Acid rain is everywhere, some areas of the country/world are just alot worse. Is this problem just on the tops of the horizontal panels(hood/roof/trunk) and not on the sides??? If it's all over, it's not acid rain, but it could be fallout.
 
It was just on the flat surfaces. I found nothing on the hood, I fixed about 6 spots on the trunk but the roof!!! it is just rank!!!!!
 
Flygti32 said:
It was just on the flat surfaces. I found nothing on the hood, I fixed about 6 spots on the trunk but the roof!!! it is just rank!!!!!



Is the hood the panel where the dealer already wet sanded?
 
David Fermani said:
Is the hood the panel where the dealer already wet sanded?



No they had done the roof once already and that's it from what they tell me.



They also stated it has not been repainted
 
I'm just grabbing at straws here. It definitely looks like something corrosive dripped on the paint, but only a limited area. Is there a possibility that it was parked somewhere, like a parking garage, where there was a leak in the roof dripped water mixed with something nasty? I'm picturing a wet spot on a ceiling that's spread out over a few square feet, dripping occasionally. :think:
 
I am at a loss myself. There is so much more going on on the roof of this car than the dealership is letting me know. The BMW dealer here is 1 of 10 dealers in there company. The detail dept is massive so I'm sure it's possible some young kid working in there sprayed something or parked this thing under somethign nasty and didn't tell anyone.
 
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