What am I in for?

[greg'sgoat]

Hey guys. I am detailing my bosses wife's 2001 BMW this weekend and want to know what I am in for. This will be my first BMW and I heard the clearcoat is rock hard. It does have some swirls and light scratchs. I was planning on hitting it with OC and a medium cut edge pad and see where that leaves me. Just wanted to see what peoples thoughts were on BMW's clear coat and if anyone has any tricks as far as doing these cars go.

[Whitethunder46]

Your going to want to talk to this man: Totoland Mach

[Totoland Mach]

Thanks for the compliment WhiteThunder!

Greg: If the BMW is black, you'll want to "test" a panel (section of the hood near the fender line, door panel, etc). Some of the black BMW's have a soft paint and are a booger-bear to work. On your test panel, go from start-to-final coat of wax. That's gonna be your work plan for the rest of the car.

All the other colors work fine: the clear coat is "neutral" in hardness and that isn't an issue.

Go To: Totoland - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting (http://s121.photobucket.com/albums/o212/Totoland/)

There, you can find most of the colors and models I've worked on.

I use a lot of Optimum compound, but on a rotary. It should work ok, but you're test panel will tell. If you're using a pc solely, you might try Meguiar's #83 DACP. That product has really been a workhorse for me on pc detailing. On the photobucket site, I did a black Porsche with just a pc and 83 as my working system.

Holler back if I can answer questions. I've got another black 740iL to start on tomorrow myself.

Toto

[Whitethunder46]

Hey Toto, Have you ever used the XMT series or Optimum compound with a PC on the BMW's? This is what I'll be using this summer mostly and what to have a heads up before going at on BMW's.

I'll certainly keep in mind the black paint.

[Totoland Mach]

Hey Toto, Have you ever used the XMT series or Optimum compound with a PC on the BMW's? This is what I'll be using this summer mostly and what to have a heads up before going at on BMW's.

I'll certainly keep in mind the black paint.

Yeppers. I've used the Optimum with my Festool in random orbit mode on lots of plastic body panels. Works Great...

XMT: I used the XMT #1 and like that product a lot. For panels that have light scratching, it works fast and friendly.

XMT Glaze: absolutely love that product! When the dealer isn't looking, I usually sneak some on a pad (instead of his dyed-in-the-wool 3M glaze). Actually, I'm slowly weaning him from the 3M line on certain products and he's starting to look at my offerings with a very open attitude.

His prior 2 detailers came from a body/paint shop environment and their tactics are far more harsh than mine. But, my end results are far more stunning than anything they did.

[quantim0]

I'm doing the car with Greg and I have a small 2 ounce sample of #83 from Detail Fest but I don't think that will be enough to do the whole car.

I am getting my Makita in the mail today, but I don't really want to use that on a customers car for the first time. lol

Hopefully we can get it taken care of with OC and Edge pads on a PC. If not I guess we will have to give a raincheck and come back with the rotary and do it.

[Whitethunder46]

I'm doing the car with Greg and I have a small 2 ounce sample of #83 from Detail Fest but I don't think that will be enough to do the whole car.

I am getting my Makita in the mail today, but I don't really want to use that on a customers car for the first time. lol

Hopefully we can get it taken care of with OC and Edge pads on a PC. If not I guess we will have to give a raincheck and come back with the rotary and do it.

2oz. of poloish should certainly be enough. I think you should only need about an ounce for an average size car. (I've never used #83 though)

[Totoland Mach]

I'm doing the car with Greg and I have a small 2 ounce sample of #83 from Detail Fest but I don't think that will be enough to do the whole car.

I am getting my Makita in the mail today, but I don't really want to use that on a customers car for the first time. lol

Hopefully we can get it taken care of with OC and Edge pads on a PC. If not I guess we will have to give a raincheck and come back with the rotary and do it.

You might be able to make it with 2 oz of #83. It's available at most of the auto store chains (but they might have to search for it...)

Also, bring your Makita and try it on a panel (lower door for instance). Keep the speed around 1200 and go try it....you'll be forever hooked!

Have fun folks

Toto

[quantim0]

Well that car was horrible. I will never do another BMW or any German car. We tried EVERYTHING and could not get the swirls out of that car. PC: #83/yellow, OC/yellow, XMT3/yellow. Rotary: OC/green, OC/yellow, 3m heavy compound/green, 3m med. compound/green. Plus numerous other things to get the marring left by the heavy compounds. We were able to get the marring out from the rotary, but even working the liquid rock 3M there were still swirls left on the car. We probably took about 50% of them out of the hood after 4-5 hours of experimenting.

The car was in horrible shape and I might have been able to do better if I had ever used a rotary before. But I kept the rpms around 1200 and kept it moving and didn't burn the paint and did a lot of rotary work trying to figure something out. That car was repainted a few times and the repaints weren't cleared. I didn't want to get to agressive with the rotary and damage something, but I felt I would have made a greater improvement then I did. Well that was that. We will be doing the owners SRT-10 Ram in the next few weeks and that should be a little easier.

[Totoland Mach]

Having done some soft painted BMW's, I've found the mix of a soft foam pad and a semi-aggressive compound like Optimum with a light touch on the rotary works best. Follow that with another soft pad and Klasse AIO to help seal the paint will do wonders.

It's very frustrating and I share that frustration. That last black Bimmer I did took 3 times longer to get right...so much so that the dealer gave me extra $$$ for my effort.

Toto

[dengood1]

Menzerna polishes are made for these clearcoats.