[MEGA]

Andrew that's looking superb already. Told you not to worry!

It will be great when done

[jimmylimmy]

[jimmylimmy]

Originally Posted by jimmylimmy

Palmnuts

Major


Hide User Customizations
Send Message
User Lists
.

Last Activity: Today 06:58 PM
Current Activity: Replying to Thread M3 Wet Sanding

[Palmnuts]

Thanks for the positive and encouraging comments from everyone - Mega, you were right mate....all is indeed great when done

So, I finally picked it up today and it still has all the paint on it But it now has a great optional extra.....some real shine and reflection

He quoted 3 days to do the work but it took him nearly 5 full days and he still did it for the same price (which was, for the hard work and time taken, a bargain...and thats all I'm saying ). Apparently the BMW top coat is very hard and takes ages to cut back and surprisingly, the paint was quite thin in a number of areas so he had to be extra careful.

I've taken some pictures outside my house and in the decreasing levels of light at this time of day, I've done the best I can to capture some decent shots, focussing really on the reflections which previously showed the terrible orange peel effect.

If the weather is good tomorrow then I'll get some better pictures but for now, let me know what do you think.....



Remember this picture - HOW IT WAS BEFORE






Now a similar shot today





Reflection on the bootlid:





Down the sides:










Across the bonnet:







And the roof:





And finally of the whole front end:

[Mike in Hampshire]

That, my friend, looks absolutely bloody perfect. I mean, wow.
Get yourself behind a good bottle of wine to celebrate!

Mike.

[AlanQS]

Absolutely superb

[bounty78]

That's proper shiney It's amazing what detailers could do these days...

[Pioneer]

The lighting in the pictures don't do the finish justice but even at that it still looks great! 3 days was very optimistic to say the least, but it sounds like you got a bargain in the end. What areas did the detailer say the paint was low? it sounds strange for a car that is practically new to have low areas of paint.

[sheps]

Looks beautiful Andrew. No doubt worth the heart stopping moment when you first clapped eyes on it as work in progress!

[M3-FAST]

Looks absolutely stunning Andy, it really does! Will look even better in the sun I am sure. Not seen reflections so clear on BMW paint, you can even make out all the separate bricks on the houses!

Top job done

[buckethead]

wow that's how new car's should come out of the factory

[p1tse]

great effort, that's taking things to the next level

poor effort by BMW with the orange peel finish in the first place. I think I've read someone with a 1M with orange peel or thin finish and getting that sorted by BMW?

[briers]

The results are stunning, the guys did an awesome job.

Not a hint of that awful rippling when looking at the reflections

[Bob S]

Take it back mate.................someone's painted a picture of a house on your nearside door .....................hedge could do with a trim too by the way

Seriously though, that's an outstanding job. Well done whatever it cost

[Reggie-g75]

Very very very very very very jealous!

[rjs]

wow!

[MickyD'bo]

First class Palmnuts. First class. You must be thrilled with that.

[Steve A]

quality work. the man needs a pat on the back. mega.

[Billyray911]

That looks superb-you can start enjoying the M now!
Probably against forum rules,but how's about a link to the chap who did the work?- I'm sure some owners on here will use him after your glowing report...
Oh,and how much did it actually cost if you don't mind me asking?

[Palmnuts]

Thanks everyone - it's bloody brilliant isn't it! You can now see the finely packed metallic flecks in the paint which in the sun creates such a nice shimmer....unfortunately, there was little sun today to make more photo's worthwhile.

What I did do today was take all the wheels off, get rid of the small amount of dirt and tar that was already accumulating on them and then treat them to Swissvax Autobahn wheel protection. I also applied this protection to the black brake callipers and in all, this will make the wheels and callipers really easy to keep clean (I've used it on the Mini and it takes so little effort to keep the wheels clean). Oh, I also cleaned up everything and shined up all the black bits in the wheel arches...some of us are beyond help (and I did most of the above, save the polishing bit, in the rain )

Now, my detailer. He's called Ben Griffiths and he's an approved Swissvax detailer which is a good accreditation! His usual cost for doing something like this is a touch into four-figures as it's 3-4 days work....a cost which I wasn't prepared to pay no matter how good the job could be! We came to a figure that we were both relatively happy with and despite me asking him to keep cost down by doing it in 3-days or less (and I asked him to do the best job he could in that time), when it came down to it he didn't try to rush the job or cut corners....he was extremely thorough and had to take a full week to finish it (mainly due to how bad the car was and how hard the BMW paint is)...yet he didn't charge me anymore than the agreed price for 3 days.

I promised Ben that I wouldn't say publicly what I did end up paying (for obvious reasons given he sells his services using one of the worlds most expensive car-care brands who may not appreciate it) and also because he did it as favour following the previous work he's done for me - he did a great job on my Maserati but that was a relatively simple 1-day machine polish/compounding to get rid of the swirls that car had.

Lets just say, if you contact him for similar work then he'll do a swirl correction machine polish (up to a days work) for £250-£300 depending on the size of car and for something like a wet sanding process, he'll do it for something in the high hundreds (again, depends on how bad the car is and how long it takes).

This is the link to Ben's website Demon Details - he's based in Nottingham but does travel everywhere to do this kind of work as he does get a lot of business from high-end car dealers and he does a lot of classics too.

I did put a lot of trust in him to do this on my brand-new car (and as you know, I was very anxious about it!) but at no point did I get the feeling he was rushing it or cutting corners...he was happy for me to go and see him working on it at any point in the week which I'd have loved to do if only I didn't have to be at work (to ensure I can pay for things like this!). Now you've seen what he can do, I guess it's a lot easier for other people to trust he can do a good job!

One final thing - some detailers out there will charge astronomical amounts of money to do this kind of work - when I was looking for someone to do a machine polish on the Maserati (before I met Ben), I was getting quotes in excess of a thousand pounds by some detailers who wanted to take 3 days to do what Ben did in one. When I mentioned this to Ben, he said he'd struggle to make a machine polish last that long and doesn't know where some people get their timescales from to do such work (other than having lot's of breaks!)....just a little example to show that, whilst we're still talking about a lot of money for a car detail, Ben's prices are actually a whole lot more realistic than some other people will try and charge.

[dxb335d]

Looks fantastic!! Your very brave for having it done also.

[ed335d]

Looks fantastic Andrew - good job and, as usual, a good write up.

Apparently I missed you by 10 minutes on Thursday night!