Applying touch-up paint - BMW F11

IrishZeus

Hi all,

I'm looking for some advice around applying touch-up paint as the car has a few small chips but it also has a bad scratch on front driver-side bumper. (Right on the curve of the bumper)
It’s a Carbon Black Metallic and I've bought the official touch-up paint kit from BMW which has a base coat and clear coat. I've also bought some Blending Solution and Polish from Chipex and the intention is to:

1. Clean the area using a very mild alcohol solution on a micro-fibre cloth. Finish the clean with a tiny bit of blending solution.
2. Apply basecoat using the brush, dab it with finger to ensure the paint fills the scratch, allow to dry and then apply Blending Solution to remove excess
3. Repeat 2 as necessary to achieve correct layer depth
4. Apply clear coat with micro-fibre cloth, and allow to dry
5. Apply polish after 24 hours

What I'm wondering is if anyone has any tips/tricks or do's/dont's for this process. The only consistent I have been able to find is not to apply too much paint. BMW themselves told me that for small/shallow chips, the basecoat would probably be enough as the clearcoat could make it seemed raised and make it stand out.

Any advice appreciated. I am also assuming there will be no issue using the Chipex Blending solution with the official BMW paint - anyone know if I am correct in this?

Thanks all,

IZ.

Alanstrainor

Where are these spots on the car? I would be very very wary about attempting this as you could make things much much worse. Even the colour makes this more difficult as I would imaging getting a match (even with factory paint) would be difficult.

IrishZeus

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Where are these spots on the car? I would be very very wary about attempting this as you could make things much much worse. Even the colour makes this more difficult as I would imaging getting a match (even with factory paint) would be difficult.

I'm not even too worried about chips, its this that I more-so want to touch up:

ELM327

That is not a do it yourself job, the layers are too deep.
Bring it to a professional IMO. You'll just make it worse otherwise

Alanstrainor

Those scrapes are deep, you'd have to sand back what's there and then likely use filler before sanding/smoothing again before your base coat and paint etc. I'd still think this is one for the pro's given the value of the car. If it was a cheap beater of a car then I'd be all for a DIY but here I'd be more worried.

IrishZeus

How much would you be looking at to get that professionally done? Is it a full-bumper respray?

bazz26

To be honest I don't think touch up paint is going to fix that.

Depends how fussy you are about the end result but Carbon Black shows up every paint imperfection and that looks to have also tore into the bumper surface underneath the paintwork. It might be possible to compound some of that out to reduce it visually but if it were my car I'd be staring at that every day which would drive me mad so I'd say your looking at a bumper respray there to do it right imo. Might be worth getting a body shop's opinion first though before going at it yourself in case they can do a bit of magic with it.

bazz26

IrishZeus wrote: »

How much would you be looking at to get that professionally done? Is it a full-bumper respray?

I got a full bumper respray on a previous F10 of mine done for €300. They did a great job on it too.

IrishZeus

Hmmm... oddly enough, its not that noticeable as it is at the moment, hence touching it up myself. I am not (massively) fussed about how it turns out right at the moment as I have so much else on at the moment. Its a cover up job I'm looking to do and am not expecting it to turn our perfectly or to look "as new".


The reason I'm for looking for tips is to ensure I don't leave it worse than when I started. I am reasonably handy so I think I can make it work. Full respray would be my backup option if I make a balls of it

blade1

IrishZeus wrote: »

Hmmm... oddly enough, its not that noticeable as it is at the moment, hence touching it up myself. I am not (massively) fussed about how it turns out right at the moment as I have so much else on at the moment. Its a cover up job I'm looking to do and am not expecting it to turn our perfectly or to look "as new".


The reason I'm for looking for tips is to ensure I don't leave it worse than when I started. I am reasonably handy so I think I can make it work. Full respray would be my backup option if I make a balls of it

Save yourself the time and just go to a pro.

I got my last car done for 200 and was delighted with it.
Was a few years ago though.