I'm 28 and have only been driving for just under 5 years. The insurance was a saga in itself. The old car was insured with elephant who charged me 659 sqid for 10 months. When I brought the 318 they asked about the extras so i told them, only for them to tell me that they couldn't insure the car because it had model desgination deletion and was therefore heavily modified. Now english wasn't this guy's first language so i said put me through so his supervisor, and i told him that model designation deletion was a customer option from BMW and costs nothing to add to the car and to check the bmw web site if he didnt belive me. So he went off and called me back and said yes i'm right but he'll have to check with the underwriters to see if they'll insure me!
So i went on confused.com and did another comparison and esure quoted me 383 squid for 12 months! Phoned them up, made sure it was all kosher, told them the extras "yes sir no problems, no change to the quote"
. Elephant called me back the next day and said they could insure me for an extra 65 quid over what i've already paid. And they wouldn't compete with esure!
Bottom line, I cancelled the elephant insurance. With the refund i got back i covered the cancellation fee (£50) and the esure insurance which kept me covered for an extra 4 months over the elephant cover. Total no brainer.
Think you're right about the colour! When i picked the car up from the dealership it was raining and the next day the car had watermarks all over it! Absolutely *EVERYTHING* is showing up on the black paintwork. But i've been reading other people's tactics on cleaning cars on the forum and gonna follow suit. Seems foam/shampoo/clay/wax is the way to go!