Bmw paint quality standard???
 

I have owned 4 BMWs. None recently until I bought a CPO 07 328I. It was beautiful and jet black and had a high shine. I didn't do more than walk around the car, concentrating on finding dings, dents, and scratches. It was very clean.

Ah, but after the dealer told me that they had clay-bared the car, I drove it home and started to give it the close up in my garage.

It was obvious that a part of the bumper had been repainted and poorly at that. It was cloudy and flat looking. Then as I began to look moRe at the car, I noticed that the paint, even though very high gloss, was very grainy looking.

I took it into the dealer who waltzed around the car with a freakin paint depth meter AND TOLD ME IT WAS WITHIN TOLERANCE. The balls!

I told him I wasn't concerned about tolerance. i was concerned about quality.
I mean, when yo shell out BMW money, you expect that it is going to look SUPERIOR to everything else.

There was absolutely no admission or confirmation of the car having been even spot painted, although they took the car in and wet=sanded that small area ... it actually ended up looking worse.

I took it to a respected paint shop who told me they see this all the time now. REAllY?

The last time I saw orange peeling like this was when I got a paint job on a beater at EARL SHEIB.

The dealer keeps waving the CARFAX at me, telling me that it shows no accidents. But friends, CARFAX is garbage. I have an 04 Jeep Grand Cherokee
that has been hit twice and fixed on insurance claim and it shows CLEAN on Carfax. What a joke.

Seems to me, if they certified this car, they would have been observant enough to tell it had been repainted and if because it had been in an accident, what the extent of that damage was, with further inspection.

Now of course, they do anything they can to avoid my request to look it over and tell me what they find for fear they will have to tell the truth which will cost them money.

Who has had experience with paint problems on BMW and could someone verify that orange peeling is showing up in these cars now that they are being made in the USA

Also, for as much as I have tried to find regional numbers for a BMW field rep
so that they can give this a look (hopefully) and I can do something before my warranty is up.

MANY THANKS.

being in the auto body industry for many years repairing and restoring mostly euopean cars that bmw paint is pretty flawless from the factory..esp with todays standards and technology they can achieve a near perfect paint jobs....robots and engineers are good at it..a guy that show up in the dealership parking lot to fix a scratch or other minor imperfecton sucks at it....and thats prolly what happened in your case...seen it too many times....more than likly the car had a small scratch or somthing spot repaired...the wrong way to do it...the entire panel needs to be sanded and at least cleared to get a nice job..i love the saying that the bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of a low price is forgotten..i could go on for days about people that "fix" cars...they have no pride...

I work for a Japanese brand Dealership. We have pretty much run the tent painters, and touch up guys off. The cars ended up looking far worse after they did their thing than the cars looked before they worked them over. I feel for you, but I'd recommend you finding a first class body and paint shop and having the panel refinished correctly. If you don't, you will always see the trouble spot (even if other people don't) and will never like the car as much as you should.