[eljaber]

Hello,

We recently purchased a 2025 X5 xDrive40i (Black Sapphire Metallic). I never worked on newer BMW paint and wonder if the paint is soft or hard. I always start with the least aggressive method first and work my way up, but I am just looking to get feedback or any tips on paint correction for it

[TboneS54]

Medium. Most amatuers would say hard. You won't be making much progress with a d/a, foam pad & diminishing compound, let's just put it that way.

I think new cars are barely coming with 4mils. But if it is new, then there shouldn't be much correcting to do. I'd say paint hardness is inconsequential. Just get some polish and soft/medium foam pad and clean up the light swirls/holograms/etc. Leave as much clear as you can.

[eljaber]

Originally Posted by TboneS54

Medium. Most amatuers would say hard. You won't be making much progress with a d/a, foam pad & diminishing compound, let's just put it that way.

I think new cars are barely coming with 4mils. But if it is new, then there shouldn't be much correcting to do. I'd say paint hardness is inconsequential. Just get some polish and soft/medium foam pad and clean up the light swirls/holograms/etc. Leave as much clear as you can.

Thank you. I quickly measured the paint thickness in various areas, some average 5mil and some are around 4mil.

The dealer we purchased from all have a ceramic coating (Permatplate) installed as soon as they hit the lot. I was not too thrilled about that, but, long story short we were able to negotiate the price off that. After washing it a few times, the coating sucks. I might just let it ride like this until after winter and then do a light polish and ceramic coating in the spring.

[Pathy01]

Originally Posted by eljaber

Thank you. I quickly measured the paint thickness in various areas, some average 5mil and some are around 4mil.

The dealer we purchased from all have a ceramic coating (Permatplate) installed as soon as they hit the lot. I was not too thrilled about that, but, long story short we were able to negotiate the price off that. After washing it a few times, the coating sucks. I might just let it ride like this until after winter and then do a light polish and ceramic coating in the spring.

If the dealership "installed" it, that generally means that IF, and it's a big IF they actually even installed anything, it was done by their lowest paid employees so no proper prep was done, application was rushed and it's barely worth anything and probably did more to trap contaminants and cause imperfections than protect the paint. Those products are mostly marketing and low cost, high markup profit adders.

Permaplate that is actually professionally applied including proper prep is not an awful product, but what you're getting from a dealership is likely not that at all, and often times is not even actually applied at all. There are numerous cases of dealerships applying cheap, bulk spray on wipe off ceramic spray and calling that a ceramic coating, even falsely claiming it to be a different brand coating than the garbage the lot porter wiped onto your car with a dirty towel.