From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

[the_invisible]

I have a BMW 335i that served a very unique purpose in the past. I will not go into the details here, but this car had NEVER been clayed, polished, or waxed since it was purchased, the proper way to rock a dedicated track car.

The car had a lot of HEAVY swirls and deep scratches that are hard to remove. Couple these with the infamously HARD BMW paint makes defect removal a real challenge even with the most aggressive and powerful tools.

For starter, I washed the car TWICE using Meguiar's Deep Crystal Wash via the two-bucket method. Then I used the Mild Clay on the entire car with Last Touch as Lubrication. The car was then washed again twice to remove the lubrication and clay residue.

Upon further inspection, the car had some extremely deep swirls and scratches. Scratches of this magnitude would be hard to remove even on the soft Toyota paint. You can imagine how hard it would be to remove these defects on the BMW.

For defect correction:
Meguair's Maroon Solo pad with M105 on a Makita at 2000rpm...

Here are some before/after pictures on half the car:














The above pictures are simply done with M105 and the wool pad. No Polish or LSP yet. I am pretty pleased with the results. The maroon pads are barely aggressive enough to remove the deep scratches in two passes. So Meguiar's, if you are listening, please make a more powerful wool pad and a more aggressive compound for paints like these.

Even with the Solo pads, I needed two passes to completely remove the defects. These defects exist on the ENTIRE vehicle, so it would take a while to do the entire car. Just the side alone took me 5 hours.

The fenders are made of plastic, but the paint is noticeably softer in those areas, so I used a foam cutting pad for those areas. Even on the softer plastic panels, it required 3 passes using a cutting pad to remove those swirls. It was ridiculous. lol

I will finish the process up with a polishing pad with M205, and then another pass with M205 with a finishing pad. I will then top it off using the M07 Glaze, NXT 2.0, and then M26.

[agp56]

Re: From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

Excellent work, sir!

[KC's]

Re: From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

Awesome, i can see the metallic flakes pops out

Congratulations, finally you have got Makita (welcome to the club)

finishing No#9 work better for black on DA....

I would use LC double sided 1st & i find it works better for me compare to the burgundy wool

& LC yellow has better cutting strength (ccs technology)

[J. A. Michaels]

Re: From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

Looking very good.

[KC's]

Re: From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

Insane twin-turbo engine, sleek yet stealthy styling, spot-on steering and handling,

blazed from zero to 60 in 4.8 seconds

mit twin-turbo engine and Steptronic six-speed autobox should make that trip in 5.5 seconds

Contorted canyon roads are no match for it either, as she slices cleanly through corners like a Ginsu knife and sticks like Super Glue


certainly u like speed

[Michael Stoops]

Re: From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

So Meguiar's, if you are listening, please make a more powerful wool pad and a more aggressive compound for paints like these.

W5000 Double Sided Wool Pad.

And don't forget, not all BMW paint is that hard! We've had several late model BMWs come through the Meguiar's Garage and have gotten rid of many defects with just M83 on the G110, or M205 on a W8207 polishing pad via rotary at fairly low speed.

It is a bit surprising that you didn't spot wet sand the worst of these areas. You've shown a great interest in wet sanding recently, and proven yourself a very quick study on the subject too. Severe, isolated defects are usually the perfect candidate for wet sanding, to be followed with the rotary/wool/M105 approach in order to pull out the sanding marks. You've been developing your wet sanding skills, now you possess a rotary - and the pictures you've posted show you're doing quite well with it - so we're curious as to why you decided to dispense with the sanding and use just the rotary?

For those of you considering something like this in the future, we are NOT making a blanket recommendation to wet sand whenever you've got a defect that you're struggling to remove with a rotary buffer. It is a very advanced process that can quickly turn bad (and very expensive) if you don't know what you're doing.

[MrCLRider]

Re: From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

What amazing results, good job bro!

[the_invisible]

Re: From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

thanks... the car was stored in my warehouse and was washed along with other business vehicles using a brush!

I will do some wet-feathersanding to remove the RIDS. I never really knew they existed until all the swirls are removed. I am a little concerned that the paint would be thin on this car. BMW has reduced the weight of the same generation M3 by using very thin layers of paint. The performance-oriented 335i coupe has similar treatment in that it uses plastic panels throughout the car for weight reduction.

Nonetheless, the wool pads have removed about 80% of the RIDS and minimized about 15% of them. The remaining 5% are not very noticeible and I will leave them alone for now until I do another thorough clean up next year.

I am noticing some holograms under the sun as a result of using the maroon wool pads. These will be removed using M205. Now, I want to ask... considering that this paint is so hard, should I use a foam cutting pad to remove the holograms? Or would a polishing pad suffice? Generally, from what I grasp a polishing pad is used as part of the Solo system. But the paint is just so hard that it makes me think that the polishing pad may not be able to quickly remove the holograms...

[PorscheGuy997]

Re: From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

If you were working with the rotary, I would reach for some M205 with a polishing pad (you might be able to get away with using a finishing pad).

If this was with a DA, a polishing pad would be your best bet.


As Mike mentioned, the W5000 pad is the next up in aggressiveness. When combined with M105, you can knock out some serious defects with ease. Just be aware that you will have to spend a little more time polishing out the holograms. The Solo wool pads really provide great cut, but finish very well. However, they can't cut like the W5000. I should also mention that you will need a spindle extension for use with the double sided pads.

[StockDC2]

Re: From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

Nice work!

Looks like there's a lot of orange peel in the paint though. Btw, time to step it up to JB3!

[the_invisible]

Re: From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

If you were working with the rotary, I would reach for some M205 with a polishing pad (you might be able to get away with using a finishing pad). If this was with a DA, a polishing pad would be your best bet.

Good advice. The holograms are very faint, so I think the polishing pad would take them right out. I will be using a DA as it is much lighter than the rotary.

Nice work!

Looks like there's a lot of orange peel in the paint though. Btw, time to step it up to JB3!

lol... BMW has the worst orange peel of all cars. I thought about wetsanding the entire car, however swirl removal alone is already enough work... so there goes the idea. I already have the stage2 chip

Anyway this evening I started doing the driver's side of the car. This side has just as much swirls, but they're not as deep as the one on the passenger side.







They don't look bad in pictures, but they are REALLY bad in person lol... Look at the area betwen the two fluorescent lights!


I started the side by wet-feathersanding some of the deepest RIDS:






As you can see, there are some REALLY deep scratches and swirls!! TO wetsand the scratches, i only sanded the affected area three strokes using 2000 grit paper, then four strokes with 2500 grit paper. Luckily, that was enough to minimize the scratch significantly.


With the maroon Solo wool pad, it still required two passes on each panel to make it satisfactory. For some spots with RIDS, I had to go over the area three or four more passes!!! Here are some after pictures... after completely wiped down with 40:60 alcohol/distilled water solution (The pictures in the above post are also of the panels after they're wiped with alcohol/distilled water solution).:







I believe I have eliminated about 95% of the defects. I am too tired to continue... I can live with a couple of non-visible scratches in some inconspicuous areas. That's the price to pay for leaving the car in the warehouse.

For some reason, I am experiencing some very nasty gumming with M105. The gumming was so bad that it was impossible to remove using alcohol solution. I had to go over the area with the wool pad again to remove the gumming...

[KC's]

Re: From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

Wow bro
you dont seems to give up & what u have accomplish in such a short time
it a remarkable achievement.


i can see the paint flakes is popping out

[the_invisible]

Re: From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

Yup, no rest for the wicked. Started at 6pm and stopped at 1am!

I also spent four hours yesterday and today driving from Vancouver to Seattle.

And you are right, the car is no longer grey. Though, I should have went with the solid-black for that ultra gloss effect.

[96Lude]

Re: From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

I am a little concerned that the paint would be thin on this car. BMW has reduced the weight of the same generation M3 by using very thin layers of paint. The performance-oriented 335i coupe has similar treatment in that it uses plastic panels throughout the car for weight reduction.

I don't see how using fewer layers of paint would reduce the weight of the car by anything significant, this makes no sense at all in my opinion. The difference in weight would be so minimal. Where did you hear that from?

Where are they using plastic panels? Are you speaking of the interior? I don't see how they can make exterior plastic panels.

[the_invisible]

Re: From the Track to the Night Clubs: 2007 BMW 335i Coupe

I don't see how using fewer layers of paint would reduce the weight of the car by anything significant, this makes no sense at all in my opinion. The difference in weight would be so minimal. Where did you hear that from?

Where are they using plastic panels? Are you speaking of the interior? I don't see how they can make exterior plastic panels.

According to Top Gear magazine, BMW has shaved off 10 lbs off the entire car by using slightly thinner paint on the car. Go to an M3 detailing thread on this forum. A guy has some paint thickness reading on the M3 to confirm this fact. Paint jobs on hyper cars such as the Enzo and Koenigsegg are so thin you could see carbon fiber weaves through the paint. Why? Weight reduction. On the fifth year of the first generation MX-5, Mazda shortened the spark plug wires just to shave off a few grams. In contrast, saving 10 pounds just by using slightly less paint is astronomical.

The fenders on this car are made entirely out of plastic The same light weight plastic is also used to make the bumpers and sideskirts.