Off-Colored Door?

[EmDeeAr]

When looked at in the right light, it is plainly obvious that my passenger side front door is off-colored compared to the rest of the car.

I’m a little upset about this, as I didn’t notice it when I first got the car. But the history is clean – no wrecks…

One of the dealer service records says:

-RIGHT FRONT PASS SIDE STEEP DOOR RUSTED (APPROVED BY MANAGEMENT)
-CAUSE: RUSTED

The work was done by the body shop at the dealership (Braman BMW, Miami FL).

Is the discoloration the result of a poor color match? Thin paint? Bad blending? If the body work was done by BMW, I would think the result would be like-new. What happened here…?

So, this makes me think that maybe the discoloration and the rust are unrelated, and that they deal with the same area of the car by coincidence. Perhaps my car was wrecked and sent to a shoddy body shop for repair, with the event not reported to the various car history checkers.

What do you guys think?

[johnrando]

I'm not a body shop guy, but that def sounds like an unreported "accident" with a shoddy paint job. I had a car once that the door got scratched so bad I took it into the shop and paid for it myself to have the work done, that would never show up on a report. Could be anything though.

[EmDeeAr]

Damn, this sux.

I will try to take some pics, but it's hard to see in the day time. It's super clear at night, but that's hard to photograph...

Thing is, the car has been taken care of pretty well. So, this doesn't really match up with the "character" of the rest of the car's history.

[Vas]

Images would help.

Inspect the door and see if it has been painted. Looks for tape marks,over-spray etc.

If it was painted, sounds like they just painted the door and did not do a blend on the fender and the other door. That is why you are seeing a color variations under different lighting.

And just because it was a BMW shop, that really does not mean anything. But you can always stop by and see if you can get records to what work was done.

[EmDeeAr]

The service record I have says the work was done as a "good will gesture" by the manager. Thus, I could see the body shop being a little lazy about it since it was no charge ($).

[Junior2552]

My girlfriend is a body tech/painter (hot, I know..)

A lot of times, when something comes in under insurance, the job is done WAYYY over what it needs to be. For instance, a messed up passenger side fender (front) needed to be painted and reinstalled.

The shop ended up milking the claim for THOUSANDS more than what the actual damage was. If it showed up on a report, then it wasn't being hidden. If it was in an accident, insurance (for the dealership or anybody else) would have inspected the vehicle prior to claim and determined whether o rnot it needed to be reported as an accident or a simple liability claim due to comprehensive damage. It sounds to me like it was just bad paint. Metallic paint is incredibly hard to match because you can't determine what the paint will look like in ALL lights.

It's more plausible that the body shop that did it:
A. Wasn't making big money on it and just resprayed to get the job done.
B. Matched the paint under a bright florescent light, thus making the paint a different shade; it happened to me once (at a GREAT shop).
C. Your dealer and insurance agents corresponding with the work are both on an under-the-table pay rate from a mob boss and your car was hit and somehow NOT claimed.
D. All of the above.

[EmDeeAr]

The correct answer is: C

But I agree with you assessment. Hopefully it was not a bad wreck.

[Avetiso]

An official BMW collision center might be able to computer match the color and just paint the door. Besides that, you gotta blend.

I see a lot of cars with mismatched color. Not many shops do high quality work.

[LivesNearCostco]

My car has one accident on its carfax, the one that totaled it and made it a salvage title. But I think the same PO who crashed it sideways into a curb had previously rear ended someone in a minor accident that required a hood respray but wasn't reported. He referenced something like that on E46fanatics. Then as part of the rehab, the last PO bought a new front bumper cover and had it painted. The color match on both hood and bumper are good to my inexpert eye, but the paint on both doesn't seem to be as durable as the paint on the rest of the car.

Someday I'll get a respray but will probably just do hood, bumper cover, mirror covers, and side skirts, and hope the color match is close enough without blending.

Speaking of blending, how do they do it--sand off existing clear-coat, blend color, then respray new clearcoat? Or just blend over existing clearcoat then add new clearcoat?

[brettbimmer]

What color is your ZHP? I have heard from multiple sources that the darker the paint, the more challenging it is to match the color, especially if not blended with surrounding panels. I would bet that a previous owner had the door painted at his own expense.

I would guess that given the age of all of our cars, it would be very tough to get an exact match between fresh paint and 8-11 year old paint (depending on the year) due to the sun fade/UV. The hood on my E36 was resprayed due to peeling clearcoat some years back, and if you pay attention you can definitely tell the difference in colors. That car is Boston Green metallic, so it is a difficult color to match, and the computer mixed paint cannot account for sun fade on the car. Just my .02.

[Hermes]

^this. The 740 (Cosmos Black Metallic) has a mismatched passenger fender. It's only noticeable on clear sunny days, but it bothers me

[johnrando]

I've heard that, but then I've also heard that a straight black (non metallic) is easy to match.

[Junior2552]

My car has one accident on its carfax, the one that totaled it and made it a salvage title. But I think the same PO who crashed it sideways into a curb had previously rear ended someone in a minor accident that required a hood respray but wasn't reported. He referenced something like that on E46fanatics. Then as part of the rehab, the last PO bought a new front bumper cover and had it painted. The color match on both hood and bumper are good to my inexpert eye, but the paint on both doesn't seem to be as durable as the paint on the rest of the car.

Someday I'll get a respray but will probably just do hood, bumper cover, mirror covers, and side skirts, and hope the color match is close enough without blending.

Speaking of blending, how do they do it--sand off existing clear-coat, blend color, then respray new clearcoat? Or just blend over existing clearcoat then add new clearcoat?

They sand down the area that needs to be painted, but they OVERsand the area, meaning they make it much larger than it needs to be. This helps spread the paint strokes out so the paint lays a little less concentrated.

The sanding, as far as I've seen the lady friend do, is real heavy over the damaged area, and then fades to a lighter sanding toward the edge of the effected area. It gets primed, leveled, primed again, leveled, then sprayed with a base coat. If your body tech is using a single-stage paint, there is no need for clear. A lot of shops use this for small areas, then wet sand down to match it to the 4-billion stage paint that BMW uses. Exaggeration.

For larger areas, good old fashioned, sand, prime, sand, prime, base, second, (third), and clear. Sand again, final clear, sand, wet sand, polish, detail.

The second suggestion is what costs the shop money, so the price goes up. Also, I'll reiterate, if they're trying to save money by NOT getting the OEM paint, it'll be exceedingly difficult to match aged paint under a light, especially with metallic flake.

[Junior2552]

I apologize for that far-too in depth response...

[LivesNearCostco]

good to know--not too much detail for me! (Can't speak for OP). When the body shop did our minivan, they seemed to do a very careful job and it cost a lot of money, but the other driver's insurance was paying. Actually it turned out in the end after lots of back and forth, that the other driver was covered by the same insurance company, so really it was our insurance company paying for all the work!

[Newjack]

When I took my car to eurowerks after someone backed into my car they painted both fenders my hood and my bumper. My zhp is jet black. You can't tell it isn't OE paint on the car it matches that well. Part of it might be because black is easier to match (although some posts in this thread say otherwise). If your car is taken to the right body shop they should be able to match about anything.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

[az3579]

The color match on both hood and bumper are good to my inexpert eye, but the paint on both doesn't seem to be as durable as the paint on the rest of the car.

This is because BMW chassis' are dipped in an electrostatic bath that leaves the surfaces charged in a way that attracts the paint particles when the car gets painted. Then, when the cars are painted, the paint is baked onto the car in industrial ovens. Body shops use neither of these techniques, and as a result, the paint won't be as resistant to chipping.

[Avetiso]

This is because BMW chassis' are dipped in an electrostatic bath that leaves the surfaces charged in a way that attracts the paint particles when the car gets painted. Then, when the cars are painted, the paint is baked onto the car in industrial ovens. Body shops use neither of these techniques, and as a result, the paint won't be as resistant to chipping.
Some shops do, but it'll practically send your wallet through a black hole.