The new and improved 325i!

[Mark 178]

Got my car back from the panelbeaters today! Repainted bonnet, facelift nosepanel and front bumper.

Very impressed with the work Gordon Milne Paint and Panel did, the paint match is excellent. They have, however, cracked the left front foglight so I'll give them a call tomorrow.

Here's some pics; the facelift nose and grilles really modernise the E36's front end. Overall I'm very pleased with the result.

[cainchapman 0]

looking good.

[NZ POM 0]

Glad your happy with the result Mark, your shopping around has obviously paid off

look forward to having a closer inspection at the BBQ

[drifty325i 0]

Very nice job

[greenday-rulz21 6]

Looks mint. Boston Green ftw!

[Mark 178]

Took another look this morning and it looks superb.... like a brand new car! I was at the video store last night and came out to find a guy in a brand new Range Rover checking out my little old 3 series! Needless to say I was pretty chuffed!

[Yuen 16]

Looks great. Why'd you get them done? Was the car in an accident?

[greenday-rulz21 6]

Looks great. Why'd you get them done? Was the car in an accident?

I believe it was just really badly stone chipped.

[Mark 178]

I believe it was just really badly stone chipped.

Yup.... last owner was a bit of a player apparently. He had a wife in Christchurch and a mistress in Blenheim, so lot's of hasty trips backwards and forwards resulted in many many stonechips!

[Braeden320 0]

Nice Colour - Well Done

[Greg111 13]

Aaaaahhhhh shiny haha, looks really good, just out of interest how much did all that cost in the end (if you don't mind me asking), was thinking about getting the front end of mine done as well, yellow tends to be a fading kind of colour

[Mark 178]

Aaaaahhhhh shiny haha, looks really good, just out of interest how much did all that cost in the end (if you don't mind me asking), was thinking about getting the front end of mine done as well, yellow tends to be a fading kind of colour

Was $650 all up.

However, I think I spoke too soon with regards to being 100% happy with the job. Just washed the car and as I was drying the bonnet I noticed a whole bunch of tiny dents the size of a pin head across the entire surface! And there is some hazing going on on the left ridgeline of the bonnet too!!!

Bah! I'll call the shop on Monday and see what they say! Ian, you mentioned you were in the car painting business, any idea what caused these issues???

Edited February 2, 2008 by gannetboy

[cainchapman 0]

Didn't know Peter Stewart had a 3 series before, or was it Sir Robertson's.

Edited February 2, 2008 by Cain

[NZ POM 0]

Was $650 all up.

However, I think I spoke too soon with regards to being 100% happy with the job. Just washed the car and as I was drying the bonnet I noticed a whole bunch of tiny dents the size of a pin head across the entire surface! And there is some hazing going on on the left ridgeline of the bonnet too!!!

Bah! I'll call the shop on Monday and see what they say! Ian, you mentioned you were in the car painting business, any idea what caused these issues???

If the dents your reffering to are outward not inward,I.E pimples then they're not dents, unfortunately though you say your car was stripped, i'll bet you it was'nt, what painters tend to do nowadays is fill the stonechip with a 2 pack stopper (this is a lot finer than bog) and then sand it flush, there a lot of things that can go wrong with this practice IE they flat the stopper before its fully cured because its easier to rub, trouble is it continues to cure through a chemical process which produces heat, this heat leads to a slight expansion of the stopper resulting in a pimple, this can also happen when the car goes into a low bake oven to have the topcoat baked, it may have looked great when they applied the paint but the heat will draw it out, also being a 2 pack it has to be mixed at the right ratio, and i have'nt met a painter yet who measures the amount of hardener they use. The likely reason your bonnet has a hazy patch on it is because of the cut and polishing process, they more than likely had to flat a bit of dirt out, to do this they use ultrafine wet/dry or a p1500 fine disc to remove the dirt (or sh*t) as its commonly called in the trade) then they use a cutting compound to get rid of the scratches caused by the flatting process, they obviously did'nt pay enough attention to this part of the process before applying the final glaze, the glaze would have hidden the problem until you washed it off. By the way what brand of paint do they use as there is a huge difference in quality especially long term.

[Mark 178]

Cheers Ian, but the little dents go inwards kind of like tiny wee craters in the surface of the paint. Still not sure what has caused this.

As for the hazing, I took a closer look and it does look like they've sanded the paint to get rid of some dirt, but haven't polished it out properly before applying the clearcoat.

And I sure hope they stripped the bonnet, because I paid for them to do that!!!

All in all I think they'll be sorry for not doing a good job the first time round.... Once they've replaced the foglight they cracked and repaired the bonnet they won't have made much of a profit on this job!!!

[Mark 178]

Here's a pic of the hazing issue..... couldn't get a good pic of the little craters in the paint.

The hazing is on the ridgeline... the stuff that looks all mottled on the right is just the reflection from the clouds in the sky.

Edited February 2, 2008 by gannetboy

[Braeden320 0]

Does it polish out? Sometimes if the painter hasn't buffed it enough you can get imperfections in the paint. Dark colours are worse for it to

[Mark 178]

Does it polish out? Sometimes if the painter hasn't buffed it enough you can get imperfections in the paint. Dark colours are worse for it to

You're right, painter hasn't buffed out the imperfections, problem is, it's underneath the clearcoat so I can't fix it!! 

[NZ POM 0]

if it looks like craters then its most definately what we call wax holes, this is caused by a contamination usually by silicone waxes (not that a painter would use this as silicone is a painters worst enemy) oil in the air line or any other kind of oily contamination, under a microscope these wax holes usually go right through the clearcoat meaning a weak point in the coating that is not only there to give gloss but also to protect the basecoat. Get it repainted, If you have any doubts about whether they stripped your bonnet or not, i have a film thickness gauge to measure the paint thickness, a panel that has been stripped should be between 75 and 125 microns, factory finishes are about 60 to 75 microns, if you add a refinish onto a factory finish then your looking at approx 135 to 225 microns, this will be higher if there is a layer of bog under the coating. Let me know how you get on. By the way i am a certified coatings inspector.

[Greg111 13]

By the way i am a certified coatings inspector.

Was gonna say, thought you knew too much about paint haha.

[Mark 178]

UPDATE: Took the car back to painters today, spoke to the head cheese who is going to flat the bonnet to get rid of the wax holes and hazing. If that doesn't work they will repaint it.

Ian, you were right about the wax holes, apparently one of the apprentices opened the door to the bake oven while someone was buffing with silicone or something next to it.... Yeesh!!

They're also realigning the bumper which I noticed last night was out of whack, so hopefully I'll have a nice looking car by 5pm tonight!

[Braeden320 0]

Sweet -Good to see they are being decent about it mate.

[NZ POM 0]

Good to see ya got a result, any other paint enquiries and i'm happy to advise

See you at the BBQ Mark

[Yuen 16]

Hope you get it sorted, $650 sounds like a decent price if they do it right!

[Mark 178]

Another update: Car is back in my possession and it looks good! No marks or hazing that I can see, so hopefully that's the end of it! One tiny thing that pissed me off is that they wouldn't accept responsibility for smashing the foglight , so after a heated argument I ended up getting them to pay for half of it.

All in all, I'd find another panelbeater next time, but the paintwork is looking good now so I'm happy.

Cheers for all your help everyone, especially yours Ian! When I started spouting terms like "wax holes" they were quite taken aback and started to take me a bit more seriously!