[KingSalo]

I've been lurking and searching and I have some questions about repainting my hood. I have several rock chips and a good sized 'divit' near the hood emblem that clearly cannot be buffed out. Questions I have are:

1. Assume I find a quality, certified BMW body shop, does anyone know the price I should expect to pay?

2. I've seen two opinions about repainting on this forum - some say avoid at all costs, others say it's the best option. I'm curious about the reasons to avoid repainting at all costs.

3. My car is sparkling graphite metallic - is this difficult to match perfectly? will the color be noticeably different?

Sorry for all the questions.

[NinetyEight740]

metallic colors are very very difficult to match the paint... More then likely they will be blending into your fenders to make it harder to tell... Not really sure what it would cost because it can vary greatly from one place to another... I wouldnt repaint unless i felt it was totally neccesary...

[mtechnik3]

I haven't had a metallic BMW repainted, but my last car, a Cosmic Gray Metallic Mazda 3 had the rear door and quarter panel repainted. It turned out great! Probably because I had a shop that only works mostly on Imports such as Ferrari, P Cars, Mercs, BMW, Audis do the work.

I had to have my Jet Black hood repainted about two months after taking delivery. A dumb ass SUV decided to back their trailer hitch into my hood by the Roundel. I believe it cost around $500 with paint a labor. It was an insurance job, so I just paid my deductible. The paint match came out very good. If I remember the shop used a Herbet Standox Paint. I wished they used a good PPG paint, nevertheless match was very close. However, the pores looked smaller if you know what I mean. Not as even and smooth as the original. Picked the car up at night, and the next day I was shocked how horrible it looked, full of swirls, extremely dull, and hazy. The collision shop just buffed the hood with a wool pad, and light polish. Week later I took a orange pad and SIP polish with a PC 7424, problem solved. Nothing like a OEM spray in the airtight controlled room somewhere in Munich! If you go to a quality shop that does mostly German cars, and has been in business a long time you should be fine. GL

[picus]

Originally Posted by KingSalo

I've been lurking and searching and I have some questions about repainting my hood. I have several rock chips and a good sized 'divit' near the hood emblem that clearly cannot be buffed out. Questions I have are:

1. Assume I find a quality, certified BMW body shop, does anyone know the price I should expect to pay?

2. I've seen two opinions about repainting on this forum - some say avoid at all costs, others say it's the best option. I'm curious about the reasons to avoid repainting at all costs.

3. My car is sparkling graphite metallic - is this difficult to match perfectly? will the color be noticeably different?

Sorry for all the questions.

1) It depends on where you are. Realistically I'd say a safe range is anywhere from $400-$800. I'd expect to pay somewhere right in the middle.

2) I like to avoid it; the reason why is *most* shops won't do an OEM quality job, and so you get into a downward spiral of re-sprays. Some very commons issues (in some semblance of order from most common to least) are color mismatches (by far the most common problem), excessive orange peel, improper sanding, rotary holograms/detail issues, fish eyes, solvent pops, flaking base coats, thin clear coats. Everything but the mis match on color can be avoided by going to a "good" shop, but even good ones can have a hell of a time matching a metallic color correctly.

3) Which leads to #3... it isn't impossible to match, but it's hard and requires a few tricks. On SG, for example, there are 9 different actual color codes (122.1 through 9); on top of that having the flake flop properly requires a good painter (if the metallic flakes sit at a different angle than the OEM ones, they will reflect light differently). When they get a good match and good flop a good shop will *still* usually blend into the fenders so that the paint ends on a natural body line/curve, rather than the edge of a panel. It makes the variation less obvious.

So now that I've freaked you out; don't worry too much. If you can find a quality shop with good references who will show you examples of their work and can answer your questions confidently I am sure it will be no problem. Some things I would ask are things like, do they warranty their work? Is it a lifetime warranty? Are they approved by BMW/do they work with local dealerships? Do they bake their paint? What kind of paint do they use? Will they guarantee a job that matches, is free of fisheyes/solvent pops and is properly detailed (as in sanded to match OEM orange peel, no massive rotary holograms, etc)? If they can answer these to your satisfaction I am sure they will do a fine job.

[duke167]

it cost me $800 for a NY BMW Certified collision center to respray the whole front bumper, for an above average detail shop cost $500, an average repair shop cost $300.

so for your hood, I could expect between $800 - $1k.

my car is also sparkling graphite, the paint job from BMW shop is pretty good, it's very hard to distinguish the difference after re-spray, but to be honest you can't expect a 100% match, 95% maybe.

The paint job from BMW shop usually carry life time warranty.

Dk