[Jamese93]

Help!

Does any one have experience or has anyone heard of paint issues with Sparkling Graphite?

I made the plunge and bought a new E93 325i M-sport cab with upgraded wheels, black leather etc recently. On delivery there were a few spots of fallout damage on the roof which I noticed and I agreed to take the car back into the dealer, and also have a few other minor points I noticed ironed out.

The paint was duly polished by the dealer and the marks came out, and I hoped this was the end of it. A few weeks went by and the car got rained on (it's always garaged in an underground heated and cooled car park). The rain burnt into the paint on the boot leaving quite a few marks. If you looked at them it was as if the surface of the lacquer has been removed and the damaged areas look pock-marked and burnt in.

I then went back to the dealer and started getting moderately upset with the car but not them, as it's not their fault. The car was duly polished and a-glazed and to their credit looked awesome.

I then drove the car and being summer got flies on the front of the car (bear with me here!). 48 hours later I cleaned the car and now the bonnet has small fly shaped marks burnt into the paint. These are also evident on the top of the windscreen surround. Note the car's cleaned each week and generally covers very few miles being a London car.

These marks won't polish out with normal polish and are all burnt in, not marks sitting on the paint - a layer of laquer has to be removed to remove the marks! The car's now waiting for a date for a BMW specilist from head office to view it and the damage.

As you can imagine I'm losing my temper now - I bought the car new to keep for a few years so I knew it was only me that had driven it etc. The ownership experience is now becoming a painful rather than pleasurable one.

To be fair I think the paints either not been correctly applied or there's something wrong with its composition - and I don't see how they're going to fix it as they've tried this twice, first repolishing and second re-polishing and A-glazing and it's not worked.

I've had BMW's for years (6 cylinder E46's generally) and all have been well made, but the paint on this car is absolutely cr@p. The others were sometimes left outside in the rain, snow etc. for months in the winter and they never had any paint issues!

Any ideas anyone? I'm getting to the point of thinking of formal automotive legal advice about rejecting the car. I don't see how they can repair paint with these issues and I'm certainly not going to allow them to repaint as this would devalue the car.

I know I'm new to the forum but any help really would be very much appreciated. Promise I'll make useful contributions in the future and become involved! Now at a combination of my wits end and furious!

[ska///235i]

Do you guys have lemon law over there?

[VMRWheels]

notify BMW and see what they tell you.

[ptx1]

Update us on your progress if it’s not too much hassle.

I have a new TiAg coupe and it has some water spots that won't come out even after claying, chemical cleaning, and extensive polishing with a porter cable. The spots look like they're under the clear coat. It's barely noticeable except at a certain angle and with certain light sources. It's kind of aggravating to know that a Honda at half the price has a better paint job than our "luxury" BMWs.

[Jamese93]

Well, D-day's coming up soon as I'm taking another day off to take it back to the dealer. The thing that p!sses me off is that as you rightly say ptx1, a car (even a ford) has a better paint finish than a luxury brand - go figure.

I look forward to seeing what the "BMW Technical Manager" as he's so called has to say.

I'll update you as soon as I know.

Cheers,

J