[540YMX]

Some kind soul has generously keyed my car so took it to a couple of places for quotes.

Chipsaway - £375 + VAT
BMW repair centre - £340 + VAT (full bonnet respray & wings)

Might as well have the whole bonnet done on the assumption the Chipsaway repair is just the scratch.

Any other suggestions?

[m1bjr]

How are the stone chips?
Might as well get the front painted too?

[p1tse]

I had a similar line on my car and managed to machine polish it out alittle
No noticeable White line but catch at an angle I know it's there

[ddogg35]

Originally Posted by p1tse

I had a similar line on my car and managed to machine polish it out alittle
No noticeable White line but catch at an angle I know it's there

i got similar results using a turtle wax chip stick, unless you are right infront of it and are looking for it its impossible to notice
its not a perfect result but it saves £££

[TMP]

From using chipsaway previously, I would have thought that would cost ~ 100 quid.

Maybe try a different franchise?

[snellfish]

what TMP said, that seems very expensive for chipsaway, i recently got a fair size dent in my front wing sorted by them for £120

[540YMX]

Just spoken to another repair company and they say because of where/size of the scratch and age of the car etc it requires a bodyshop repair as the mobile equipment isn't designed for bonnet/roof/boot lid etc.

Might opt for the DIY route for now.

[Tol]

Unfortunately there's no way to carry out a localised respray on horizontal panels. Clearcoating edge-to-edge is necessary.

I have a little inside information on this particular chipsaway quote, as I supplied it. Because about 90% of chipsaway businesses are mobile, the assumption is sometimes made that all chipsaway repairs are roadside repairs - however we are one of the branches that operates a fixed-site bodyshop in addition to our van fleet. No mobile repairer should ever offer sprayed-paint bonnet or roof repairs, in my professional opinion.

The repair process we would offer for a keyed bonnet would be a full bonnet respray, carried out in our spraybooth, with catalytic IR curing which allows us to offer the repair on a same-day turnaround, and return the repair fully cured, not part-cured as it would be if baked in a raised air-temp oven. Other than the more modern curing technology, this is a conventional bodyshop repair.

It would not be a repair of just the scratch - the techniques that allow some small, low-profile repairs to be kept to a restricted area are of no benefit when dealing with a keyed bonnet.

HTH

Tol

[buckethead]

ruby black is my fav bmw colour and so rare its an eye catcher only ever seen them in dealers never seen one on the road

anyway i've got a carbon black e90 and when i got it the stone chips on the
bonnet where like pebbledashing so got the bonnet respayed for £200
by a local bodyshop and the match is 99% no one else can tell but i just about can but its a lot better than the stone chips

ask a few local bodyshops about a little bit of a cash job

[540YMX]

Originally Posted by Tol

Unfortunately there's no way to carry out a localised respray on horizontal panels. Clearcoating edge-to-edge is necessary.

I have a little inside information on this particular chipsaway quote, as I supplied it. Because about 90% of chipsaway businesses are mobile, the assumption is sometimes made that all chipsaway repairs are roadside repairs - however we are one of the branches that operates a fixed-site bodyshop in addition to our van fleet. No mobile repairer should ever offer sprayed-paint bonnet or roof repairs, in my professional opinion.

The repair process we would offer for a keyed bonnet would be a full bonnet respray, carried out in our spraybooth, with catalytic IR curing which allows us to offer the repair on a same-day turnaround, and return the repair fully cured, not part-cured as it would be if baked in a raised air-temp oven. Other than the more modern curing technology, this is a conventional bodyshop repair.

It would not be a repair of just the scratch - the techniques that allow some small, low-profile repairs to be kept to a restricted area are of no benefit when dealing with a keyed bonnet.

HTH

Tol

Thanks for the detailed explanation, very useful to understand the different repair techniques and subsequent cost implication.

It would be a good idea to provide a 30 second explanation of this when providing an estimate so there is no confusion of what is involved rather than incorrect assumptions made by us non-experts.

[SteveF1]

No offence but explanation or no explanation chips away should not be being undercut by BMW for these types of jobs.

If BMW can offer a full bonnet and wing respray for £340 and chips away are charging £370 for just the bonnet then its a no brainer.

Odd!

[flyfs6]

I too wouldn't go for smart repair for that sort of scratch, particularly given the prices there.

What area are you in? If near me I could recommend a great body shop.

[Tol]

Originally Posted by SteveF1

No offence but explanation or no explanation chips away should not be being undercut by BMW for these types of jobs.

If BMW can offer a full bonnet and wing respray for £340 and chips away are charging £370 for just the bonnet then its a no brainer.

Odd!

Painting undamaged panels is a bad thing, not a good one. The only reason to do it is because your colour match is poor - by painting a larger area, you try to disguise the batch of new, poorly-matched paint. The 'holy grail' in paintwork is to get the match precise enough that the paint area can be kept small - enabling more of the original finish to be maintained.

I'd be interested to hear the thinking as to why one business shouldn't be priced below the other too - fondness for the brand that you'd expect in this particular forum aside

There are a few shops with BMW VM approval within a reasonable radius of us, so I don't know which is the one in question, but they should all (to keep their VM approval and PAS:125 if they have it) use premium refinish materials and staff with minimum industry qualification levels.

The same is true of our business. Both are branded body repair facilities.
The right-to-repair rules mean that either operation's work maintains the manufacturer's warranty.

Our service is faster - we installed the IR curing to enable us to return cars same-day, which a lot of busy people in the area are prepared to pay a premium for. Our turnaround is about 3-4 times faster than the local average (and 13 times faster than the industry average, according to Bodyshop magazine). And our paintwork warranty does not have an expiry date, which the BMW VM network's does, IIRC.

As a result, we're sometime more expensive than competing quotes in our express bodyshop line - the service offering is different, and offers advantages that plenty of local customers put value on.

Tol

[kaishang]

Tol: can you have a look at my Carpark scratch thread and tell me what you think...

[m@rk]

Why get the wings done? Are they scratched too?

Looking at your location, this might be of interest.

I took a hit to the bonnet by what I think was a large stone on the A1 near Cambridge a few months ago that left a dent almost an inch deep and 3 inches long right at the front just above the headlamp!!!

Sycamore BMW in Peterborough straightened the bonnet and then resprayed the whole thing and did a fantastic job.

Cost = £321 plus VAT including a hire car for a couple of days.

Don't speak to the service department, go straight to the bodyshop.

The standard of repair is excellent and the paint match is perfect.

And remember, if the body shop is talking about blending the paint into the wings, it's because they can't match the colour. BMW can match the colour so don't need to do that.

[kaishang]

Originally Posted by m@rk

And remember, if the body shop is talking about blending the paint into the wings, it's because they can't match the colour. BMW can match the colour so don't need to do that.

It seems both on this thread and on my "Carpark scratch woe" thread, both of us have been for a quote at different BMW bodyshops and different Chipsaway places, but for a similar type of damage.

Both BMW bodyshops have suggested painting into panels adjacent to the damaged panel for blending purposes while Chipsaway have suggested painting the damaged panel only.....

[Tol]

Blending is not a simple issue. A few different factors go into whether or not it will be necessary. A premium paint system with a large number of variant shades, supported by a sprayed-paint shade deck gives a huge advantage in paint selection and will reduce the number of paint blends necessary very significantly.

Not many repairers will make the necessary investment though. There are ongoing costs with shade deck updates as well as the higher capital cost of the initial system and more expensive paint refills.

There is a myth that VM bodyshops just 'order in' the paint which will be the same batch used at the factory and therefore always obtain perfect matches. Completely untrue. The VM will specify the mixing scheme that must be used in repairs to retain the approval, but the paint will still be hand-mixed on site (or in dodgy cases, bought in from a factors (supposedly) supplying the right paint - but in this case it will not be selected by variant shade). Again, cutting corners increases the likelihood of a blend.

There is the further complication that for effect paints with a high particulate content, application affects final perceived colour and tone. You could take the exact same batch of silver paint that was used on a factory line, and if you sprayed it differently (with different technique, film build, spray equipment or pressure, drying method) or in a different environment (electrostatics, ambient temperature, panel temperature, humidity) then the final look would vary perceptibly from the factory finish.

Because of the way effect paints sit on the panel, it is often necessary to apply a drop coat or mist coat of paint for particulate control, the entire width of the panel (or at least to a blend zone, marked by an angle change or curve on the bodywork) to avoid a perceptible edge too.

Generally, the paler the colour, and the higher the particulate content, the more likely it will be that a colour will need to be blended wide to harmonise with the original finish. For a dark colour, flat, or with a small amount of mica or metallic, a decent paint system should mean blending beyond the damaged panel isn't necessary.

All the variables mean there can't be a hard and fast rule. A repairer will make a judgment call when viewing the actual piece of damage on the actual damaged panel.

Issues of match become even more entertaining when you consider that colour perception varies from one pair of eyes to another, and also when viewed under different wavelengths of available light. Wikipedia's entries on colour perception and metamerism cover the ground pretty well.

Higher skill levels and investment in a more capable paint system will reduce the amount of painting of undamaged panels, as a general rule.

HTH