We were asked by forum member Anthonytsang if me (mike) and other forum member L2DFP (Doug) would do a full paint correction on his M3 vert.

Anthony picked up this one owner  car with 22k on the clock earlier this year and has taken pride in getting it back to being everyday useable, in the form of a full inspection 2 at BMW and four new tyres, among other additions! We had come to the conclusion that the car had been sat for a large part of its life as the paint was very dull and almost ‘cloudy’ in certain lights. 

Until the week before Gaydon it still wore the original, albeit perished, original tyres!

The car is Madeira violet with extended beige leather including, full leather doorcards, lower dash and hood cover, all double stitched!

As this was such a special car needless to say we were looking forward to getting our hands on it!

This is our first write up, enjoy!

We started bright and early on sunday morning. A few pictures of it untouched;

We first rinsed the car with a pressure washer then soaped it using a foam lance with meguiars hyper wash

We rinsed the car off using the pressure washer, then washed using the two bucket method with sheepskin wash mitts.

All round the lower half of the car (arches, wheels, doorshuts, etc) we cleaned using meguiars all purpose cleaner and autosmart tardis.

We removed the bump strips from the bumpers.

We then rinsed and moved onto the claying stage. We used sonus green on the majority and meguiars quik clay on the more affected panels;

Then we washed the car again using the foam lance and dried it using waffle weave drying towels;

Next we took the car inside and started the correction.

We started by masking up all rubbers, windows and lights using 3m blue tape. Anthony wanted to keep the original gold pinstripe so we masked that up too.

Our weapons of choice are a Makita rotary and a Meguiars g220. After looking at the defects in the paint we decided to use menzerna RD3.02 on a 3m compounding pad for the rotary and a lake country ccs compound pad on the g220.

Some before pics;

50/50;

Some after pics;

Ater 7 hours (14 man hours) we achieved a comfortable 95% correction.
We dusted down the door/bonnet/boot shuts to remove the polish residue.

The next stage we used dodo juice lime prime as it gives a nice base for the wax.

Anthony supplied the wax which was raceglaze 55. We were very impressed with how easy to use this wax was.

The bumper trims were dressed with meguiars trim detailer and refitted.

Wheels were sealed with poorboys wheel sealant, tyres were dressed with blackfire tyre dressing;

Exhaust was cleaned with autosol and buffed up with a mf cloth;

Windows were cleaned with meguiars glass cleaner.

We finished at 9:30pm, 12 hours after we started.

The following day we dusted the car down and applied a second layer of raceglaze.

Engine;

Interior shots;

Mileage

Here is some shots taken that night, and in the sun the following day;

Great work!

Shame those stripes never came off with the masking tape tho

Allan320 wrote: Great work! Shame those stripes never came off with the masking tape tho

+1.

thanks for the comments

i think on this car in this colour with the interior and ambers the pinstripe works

i would leave it on if it was mine

I would just love to have a car like that with that mileage !!!

Thats just nuts on a car of that vintage !!

Nice car, good work on the detail too mate. Never been a fan of cabs but I like those wheels, there by far my favorite BMW wheel for sure