Help with Midnight Blue BMW....PLEASE

[ALLMAN BROS FAN]

Hey Everyone,
My wife has worked for the same doctor for the past 28 years. He knows that I detail and he has asked me to tackle his Midnight Blue "BMW" that is a 2008. I've done several light colored cars in the past be I must admit I'm a little intimidated by the color of the BMW. Its got the standard swirls and hard water spots. I don't want to disappoint him. I really want to make a good impression on him.I plan on the wash, the clay then I'm lost as to what product would be next on this color car. Please help me out with this low confidence I have.The money would come in handy for the knee replacement I've just had. I'll be using my PC 7424xp.

Thanks so much....

[music_man185]

Re: Help with Midnight Blue BMW....PLEASE

i would start with swirl-x for the swirls and water spots. and step up to ultimate compound if needed. i have the same thing on my truck. i treated the hood and swirl-x worked very well.

[Spidey]

Re: Help with Midnight Blue BMW....PLEASE

You detail cars.. yet this scares you? or you detail your own car and friends cars as a hobby?

[ALLMAN BROS FAN]

Re: Help with Midnight Blue BMW....PLEASE

Yea Friends and mine and a few relatives.

[k3ith]

Re: Help with Midnight Blue BMW....PLEASE

Dude, what happened with the bold in the first post? You gotta get your font impulses under control

Midnight blue is pretty dark right? How bad are the swirls? As music_man said, I would start with Swirl-X and only use UC if needed. If you do use UC, consider it an added step and follow it with SwirlX or ColorX. Now, since it is dark, I would use a LSP with carnauba. Personally I would go NXT/21 topped with 26 but alternately you could double coat Gold Class Plus - depending on what you have available.

Also, BMW black exterior trim can really fade as it gets older. Be sure to apply Ultimate or Natural Shine Protectant, even if it doesn't look like it needs it. You'll be surprised here with how much this improves the overall look.

Keep us posted on your progress and post some pics if you can.

[smack]

Re: Help with Midnight Blue BMW....PLEASE

Hey bud, I have a jet black BMW 2007 and I can say the paint is rather soft. So I am assuming that this one has soft paint as well. I would personally do a test spot on it with swirlx. Swirlx will take care of the cobwebs and water spots without you needing to reach for UC. Afterwards, take a light to it or move it into the sun to see the direct effects of swirlx. It will most likely haze the paint as it did mine, but run 205 after it to correct the hazing to return it to a non hazed finish. For a finishing wax, put down a coat of NXT 2.0 and follow with Gold Class Carnauba plus. Let us know if you need further guidance.

[rapport25]

Re: Help with Midnight Blue BMW....PLEASE

Hey bud, I have a jet black BMW 2007 and I can say the paint is rather soft. So I am assuming that this one has soft paint as well. I would personally do a test spot on it with swirlx. Swirlx will take care of the cobwebs and water spots without you needing to reach for UC. Afterwards, take a light to it or move it into the sun to see the direct effects of swirlx. It will most likely haze the paint as it did mine, but run 205 after it to correct the hazing to return it to a non hazed finish. For a finishing wax, put down a coat of NXT 2.0 and follow with Gold Class Carnauba plus. Let us know if you need further guidance.

I have detailed a few Bmw's and these have very hard paint like my VW. I have found that swirl x hardly touches the paint and i step up to U/C.

Always try the least agrssive first and do a test spot to see what you can acheive with the product you are using.

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: Help with Midnight Blue BMW....PLEASE

I have only tackled a 2008 Bmw. I found that #80 was the product to use. I found the paint on the softer side.

[ALLMAN BROS FAN]

Re: Help with Midnight Blue BMW....PLEASE

Hello everyone
I was questioned about the large size of my font I use in my post, let me say that I've just completely lost one eye due to glaucoma and I don't see well out of the other one. The only reason I can practice my hobby of detailing is because I'm outside where I can get enough light on my car. I didn't realize the font police were active here. At least I'm not sitting inside collecting welfare , I'm trying to learn from from people that are far more knowledgeable than me. I'm sorry and will work on this problem. Thanks to everyone who has given information I can use.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Help with Midnight Blue BMW....PLEASE

There have been a couple of references in this thread to the hardness of BMW paint and, truth be told, BMW paint is notorious for being all over the map with regard to this. We've worked on some with crazy hard paint, and others with paint that was extremely easy to correct. BMW has several manufacturing sites in various parts of the world and they don't use the same paint in all of them, which accounts for the wide variety of paint "hardness" found on these vehicles.

So what's a new detailer to do? A test spot, of course!!

Do yourself a huge favor and start with a small area on the hood, no more than about 2' x 2', using SwirlX and a W8207 yellow foam polishing pad with the tool set to speed 5. Work it thoroughly and wipe off the residue, then move the car back into direct sunlight to re-evaluate the area. If the swirls are mostly gone then a second pass, or maybe just one longer pass with a bit more pressure, of SwirlX should do the trick. If you notice absolutely no difference at all between your test spot and the untouched part of the hood, then step up to Ultimate Compound. Do a second test spot though, adjacent to the first one you did, and then re-evaluate once again.

If you neglect to do this and just jump right in with any product, you won't know what you've accomplished until you're done, and that can lead to some nasty surprises. While it might sound like doing a few test spots is kind of tedious, in the long run it's a huge time saver.

[rapport25]

Re: Help with Midnight Blue BMW....PLEASE

There have been a couple of references in this thread to the hardness of BMW paint and, truth be told, BMW paint is notorious for being all over the map with regard to this. We've worked on some with crazy hard paint, and others with paint that was extremely easy to correct. BMW has several manufacturing sites in various parts of the world and they don't use the same paint in all of them, which accounts for the wide variety of paint "hardness" found on these vehicles.

So what's a new detailer to do? A test spot, of course!!

Do yourself a huge favor and start with a small area on the hood, no more than about 2' x 2', using SwirlX and a W8207 yellow foam polishing pad with the tool set to speed 5. Work it thoroughly and wipe off the residue, then move the car back into direct sunlight to re-evaluate the area. If the swirls are mostly gone then a second pass, or maybe just one longer pass with a bit more pressure, of SwirlX should do the trick. If you notice absolutely no difference at all between your test spot and the untouched part of the hood, then step up to Ultimate Compound. Do a second test spot though, adjacent to the first one you did, and then re-evaluate once again.

If you neglect to do this and just jump right in with any product, you won't know what you've accomplished until you're done, and that can lead to some nasty surprises. While it might sound like doing a few test spots is kind of tedious, in the long run it's a huge time saver.

I did not realise that there paint finish was not standard across the whole range. Is this model specific?

I will be detailing a 3 series in a couple of weeks so I will bare that in mind.

I got the impression Bmw paint was hard so I was expecting to move straight to Ultimate Compound. Looks like I will treat every bmw as a new car from now on thanks Michael

[rapport25]

Re: Help with Midnight Blue BMW....PLEASE

Michael does the same apply to VW's?.

Or should i just treat every car as a new project regardless of the badge it wears?.

[Michael Stoops]

Re: Help with Midnight Blue BMW....PLEASE

Paint systems can change from year to year within a specific model, so just because you've worked on, for example, a dozen 3 Series BMWs recently that doesn't guarantee that the next will be the same. Now, if you've worked on a dozen 3 Series BMWs that were all the same model year and they all respond similarly to the same input, then that gives you a good starting point for the next one.


Look at like this: say that your experience on Make/Model "A" is such that they've all had pretty soft paint. You should then have a starting point, a pretty mild starting point, for the next one that comes along assuming it's at least close in model year.

But your experience with Make/Model "B" is such that they've all been crazy hard to correct. When the next one comes along your logical starting point is likely to be more aggressive than on "A" above.

In both cases, however, these are just "starting points" for your initial test spot. It's a starting point with maybe a higher degree of confidence, but it's still just a starting point and a test spot is still recommended even if just to confirm the process.

Either situation could very easily throw a big surprise at you though, so always always always be ready for that. As mentioned earlier, having personally worked on a BMW Z4 Coupe with crazy hard paint (rotary, So1o yellow wool pad and M105 needed a few passes to correct) and having seen Smack's black 3 Series in person (where SwirlX on a D/A with a yellow foam polishing pad left the finish almost flawless) we know that this brand uses vastly different paint systems.

We've mentioned having worked on several 2009 model year Honda Civics and Fits, all with extremely delicate paint. At least all of the so far - we'll start with a very delicate approach to any of these we encounter in the future, but we won't be shocked if we find one that's not so delicate. The reverse has recently shown up with C6 Corvettes, a car that is notorious for having incredibly hard paint. Yet in a recent Saturday class we managed to easily pull out a year old bird dropping etch mark with nothing more than Ultimate Compound/W8207/G110v2/2 passes/speed 5. Nothing crazy hard about that!

Always do a test spot first when working on a specific car you've never touched before. If you have a lot of experience with cars of that make/model then adjust your starting point accordingly, but don't ever be surprised when a paint behaves differently than you expected. Just adjust your process/technique and have at it.

[rapport25]

Re: Help with Midnight Blue BMW....PLEASE

Paint systems can change from year to year within a specific model, so just because you've worked on, for example, a dozen 3 Series BMWs recently that doesn't guarantee that the next will be the same. Now, if you've worked on a dozen 3 Series BMWs that were all the same model year and they all respond similarly to the same input, then that gives you a good starting point for the next one.


Look at like this: say that your experience on Make/Model "A" is such that they've all had pretty soft paint. You should then have a starting point, a pretty mild starting point, for the next one that comes along assuming it's at least close in model year.

But your experience with Make/Model "B" is such that they've all been crazy hard to correct. When the next one comes along your logical starting point is likely to be more aggressive than on "A" above.

In both cases, however, these are just "starting points" for your initial test spot. It's a starting point with maybe a higher degree of confidence, but it's still just a starting point and a test spot is still recommended even if just to confirm the process.

Either situation could very easily throw a big surprise at you though, so always always always be ready for that. As mentioned earlier, having personally worked on a BMW Z4 Coupe with crazy hard paint (rotary, So1o yellow wool pad and M105 needed a few passes to correct) and having seen Smack's black 3 Series in person (where SwirlX on a D/A with a yellow foam polishing pad left the finish almost flawless) we know that this brand uses vastly different paint systems.

We've mentioned having worked on several 2009 model year Honda Civics and Fits, all with extremely delicate paint. At least all of the so far - we'll start with a very delicate approach to any of these we encounter in the future, but we won't be shocked if we find one that's not so delicate. The reverse has recently shown up with C6 Corvettes, a car that is notorious for having incredibly hard paint. Yet in a recent Saturday class we managed to easily pull out a year old bird dropping etch mark with nothing more than Ultimate Compound/W8207/G110v2/2 passes/speed 5. Nothing crazy hard about that!

Always do a test spot first when working on a specific car you've never touched before. If you have a lot of experience with cars of that make/model then adjust your starting point accordingly, but don't ever be surprised when a paint behaves differently than you expected. Just adjust your process/technique and have at it.

Again, thanks for the great advise