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Orange peel is common on almost all vehicles from the factory, some worse than others and more common on mass produced vehicles as opposed to specialty brands. In any case, it is not exactly a desired trait in vehicle paint. Many people live with it, some dread it much like myself and the owner of this beautiful Interlagos Blue BMW M5. We both felt that the excessive and very noticeable orange peel on this vehicle was taking away from the true depth and effect of this particular color. Definitely had a dull appearance to it, not to say the car was by any means boring, but the color needed to pop more than it was from the start.
Over the course of 95 working hours, due to various reasons, I was able to level this paint, polish it back and really unleash the true Interlagos from the paint. The pictures, which I've narrowed down to just 45 of the 400+ I captured, definitely show the process and improvement. My own jaw dropped when I pulled her out in to the sun after three weeks, as well as the owners. See for yourself!!
The car had the usual defects, swirling and marring as you can see in these sun snaps, the following group of pictures really show how significant the peel was in the paint.
The more I captured the peel on this car, the more I got antsy to get rid of it, you can see just how rough it really was below:
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After nearly 9 hours of prep work, everything from full degrease, wash, ironx, wheel removal and removal of grills and other body items that would have been in the way, the car was then masked up as you can see here. When it was all said and done, this M5 took 3 full rolls of green 3M tape and one roll of blue wide tape...rip guys!
The paint readings were taken with the highline gauge and we found a range of 130-860 micron depth.
The sanding process was indeed a process, I used a combination of DA sanding and mostly hand sanding on this vehicle. Starting with 1000 grit, followed by 1500 grit, then 2500 grit...all to be finished with 3000 grit before polishing it back...heres the end result of the fully sanded vehicle. The hood and roof alone were a combined 5 hours! Talk about taking your time...
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Here is a polished back rear door in comparison to the sanded front door:
After approximately 20+ hours of compounding and polishing, the paint definitely looked the way it should under various light sources. These pics were taken before the vehicle was prepped for the ceramic coating it would receive.
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Quick snap of my knight in shining armor that will be protecting all my work!
The following pictures are all post sanding, polishing and ceramic coating photos. I did the best I could to capture the true depth and color that the Interlagos blue really has, and to show the orange peel completely gone. This M5 is in its right state now!
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Originally Posted by CieraSL
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