[crashtestdummy4]

I have a CPO 2008 335i that I got in December 2009. It now has 42,000 miles on it. When I picked it up it had a few paint chips on the hood, but nothing that I wouldn't expect from 33K of driving. Now, 9+ months later, I am getting pretty annoyed with how awful my front bumper looks. It is littered with rock chips! I only use the car for daily commuting and have never driven it in any extreme situations. When I look around at other cars in the parking lot similar to my car's age, I see cheap econocars with paint that looks so much better than mine. Is my bumper defective or is this just to be expected? It just doesn't seem right that I can't drive my car in normal everyday situations without losing more and more paint every day. It doesn't help that the base coat appears to be white, rather than black like the rest of the car.

I have attached pics below, I hope the links work for you guys.

[cstavaru]

Prepare to repaint the bumper, and after that install some clear bra. But first, try a heavy polish, it will probably help a bit but won't get rid of them completely. Touch-up paint is not likely to help, but you can try that too...if all this fails, just repaint...

[niko]

The only solution is to repaint the bumper and get the protective clear film on bumper !

[crashtestdummy4]

So no chance that this would be a warranty issue or anything? Seems like my car is worse off than most, but maybe i'm wrong

[cstavaru]

Your car does look worse than most, but there could be some factors:

- Was the front bumper ever repainted ? This could explain it somewhat, if the paint job was poor.
- Do you drive at very high speed (120mph+) all the time ?
- How are the roads in your area ?

[jopa489]

My car is starting to look like this too, though not quite that bad (yet). I drive a lot of miles, and almost 100% highway on roads that are less than acceptable. In my case, Jet Black is also extremely soft. No amount of touch up is going to make it look any better so, as said above, prepare for a repaint at some point and consider a clear bra installation. While I love my car to look as perfect as possible, it's a lease and my DD. I won't be repainting mine, but might have the clear bra put on my next car (even if it's another lease).

[crashtestdummy4]

Originally Posted by cstavaru

Your car does look worse than most, but there could be some factors:

- Was the front bumper ever repainted ? This could explain it somewhat, if the paint job was poor.
- Do you drive at very high speed (120mph+) all the time ?
- How are the roads in your area ?

The bumper wasn't repainted to my knowledge...
Most of my driving is highway speed of around 75-80 mph
The roads are horrible (Boston area) and I know that is a big factor

jopa489, seeing that you are also in new england, i'm sure you feel my pain about the awful roads. my car is also a lease (even tho its a CPO), will this be acceptable upon return of the lease? Do you think they will try to charge me for excessive wear?

[bimmertt]

It looks like the bumper was repainted at some point. The dealer will be hesitant to do anything for you since this is considered normal wear and tear...although you can argue this is quite excessive. if they did not disclose that the bumper was repainted and it actually was repainted, you could try to use that as leverage also.

I learned my lesson with my Acura and got a clear bra installed on my e92. I drove the Acura 50K miles most of which were highway miles and the bumper was chipped to hell. It looked nowhere near as bad as your car though. When the paint chipped, it did not chip as deep as yours. There were very few spots where it chipped all the paint off which makes me think your bumper was repainted.

[jopa489]

Originally Posted by crashtestdummy4

The bumper wasn't repainted to my knowledge...
Most of my driving is highway speed of around 75-80 mph
The roads are horrible (Boston area) and I know that is a big factor

jopa489, seeing that you are also in new england, i'm sure you feel my pain about the awful roads. my car is also a lease (even tho its a CPO), will this be acceptable upon return of the lease? Do you think they will try to charge me for excessive wear?

Doubt it, I have never heard of this sort of thing being classified as excessive wear. Most of the time, dealers will respray the front bumper of cars when the come off lease before being CPO'd. So as mentioned above, that could be a contributing factor (but might not). My car had 2 miles on it when I picked it up, and has a lot of chips 25k later.

Most of my car's miles came from 495, which was an atrocious excuse for a road about a year ago. It has since been repaved, but I drove it daily while it was bad and while they were working on it. I drive ~35k/year (split between a few different vehicles) all around MA/NH, so I really do feel your pain here.

[Express]

thats not bad. you should see mine =D

[ScheerSpeed]

try this

drcolorchip.com

i used this kit on a 335 and the results were pretty good. its pretty easy to do as well... smear paint all over bumper, remove excess with the special chemical, and you're done! it leaves the chips filled with no blobs or excess everywhere

[cb1111]

Originally Posted by crashtestdummy4

So no chance that this would be a warranty issue or anything? Seems like my car is worse off than most, but maybe i'm wrong

While you may not like this answer, many chips come from tailgating.

Since you said the bumper looked fine at 33k miles we can rule out any manufacturer's defects. Since the bumper had chips commensurate with the mileage, we can also assume that it hadn't been recently repainted.

If the roads in your area are good (not many gravel roads etc) then the only logical assumption is your driving style.

Like another poster suggested, get the bumper repainted and then protect it with a clearbra.

[cn555ic]

Another question you need to ask yourself is are you one of those drivers that need to be up someones rear end...basically do you leave enough room in front of you from the car driving on the highway in front of you...If you like to tailgate the chances of rocks hitting your car increases for sure....I always leave at least two to three car distance from the car in front of me to avoid the other car's wheels spitting rocks at me at highways speeds

[WingZeroX5]

Time for an MTECH bumper!!!

[onefastman]

dr. color chip

We are using it on a m5 soon and will post pics on monday

[cn555ic]

Originally Posted by onefastman

dr. color chip

We are using it on a m5 soon and will post pics on monday

Dr. color chip may work on a FEW chips but if you look at the OP pic there are several hundred chips....Only way to fix that is a complete spray of the bumper plain and simple...

[jopa489]

I'm going to be working on my semi-annual detail of the E90 this weekend. I have the Dr. Colorchip system for it, so I'll try to document the process in my full writeup.

[Professor///M]

Originally Posted by crashtestdummy4

Most of my driving is highway speed of around 75-80 mph
The roads are horrible (Boston area) and I know that is a big factor

jopa489, seeing that you are also in new england, i'm sure you feel my pain about the awful roads. my car is also a lease (even tho its a CPO), will this be acceptable upon return of the lease? Do you think they will try to charge me for excessive wear?

Here are the problems...

I used to have this problem, then got the clear bra, works great, and also bugs come off MUCH easier.

Prob. 1 - speed - if you're a highway commuter, this is your problem and it's because of speed + too close. What's too close, even 2 seconds behind someone can be too close. So even if you're not tail-gating someone you're probably too close

Prob. 2 - location - we just can't change this. The roads here are awful, they do an awful (maybe even painful) job of removing the winter dirt/sand/debris for the summer.

Prob. 3 - That does look EXCESSIVE in my opinion, but who cares about my opinion. I'd argue that there's a paint problem there, because I've never seen that many paint chips

[Envious Eric]

I heard all CPO bumpers get repaint/touched up before being sold...dont know for sure, but I heard it from a couple people

JOPA - I would like to see your writeup on the DR. colorchip process and hear about the results! Same goes with you ONEFASTMAN and SHEERSPEED

[cb1111]

Originally Posted by PAMidge

... That does look EXCESSIVE in my opinion, but who cares about my opinion. I'd argue that there's a paint problem there, because I've never seen that many paint chips

True, but the issue is that the bumper was pitted (not repainted) when he bought it with 33k miles and he added all those chips in 9k miles.

Accordingly, it doesn't seem like a paint problem.

[jopa489]

Originally Posted by Envious Eric

JOPA - I would like to see your writeup on the DR. colorchip process and hear about the results! Same goes with you ONEFASTMAN and SHEERSPEED

I spent most of this weekend doing a full detail of my car, but didn't do the Dr. Colorchip this time. I was planning to do a full 2-step polish and wouldn't have had time this weekend to do both the Dr. Colorchip and the polish. If I was smart, I would have done the touchup last weekend. Oh well, winter is coming anyway - guess my writeup on that will have to wait for spring.

My car finally looks awesome again though, I've been busy and the polish was long over due - it's my DD and JB is a true PITA. But hot damn does it look awesome when it's detailed right. I'll still do a writeup on the detail when I have time, it'll be posted here.

[onefastman]

I did dr.color chip on the m5 and it turned out very well. Biggest thing is to use less paint and smear it right away. Also keep closing, and shaking the paint bottle or it will start to dry (get tacky) if left open (in use) for 20min or so.