Opinions on black car paint jobs

Bubo said:
I'm 90% certain I want an E92. My local dealer has another one which is a year younger with 10K less miles and silver, but is £2K dearer. I'm trying to convince myself the extra cost is justifiable given it is newer and given my admitted preference to a relatively "easy life" with regards keeping it looking good, since this thread has shown me that black cars are perfectly ok but you do need to put the effort in compared to non black cars.
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Very nice choice! Maybe do a nationwide search? They delivered my 530i from Nottingham last week and everything was as expected from an Approved Used Car. The only 'weird' thing is that I've never put a deposit on a car I've not seen before but that's the benefit of buying from a main dealer - you know exactly what you will be getting and you can take it back to your local BMW dealer if there are issues afterwards.

What engine size and what must-have options do you have on your list?
 
Wicksta said:
What engine size and what must-have options do you have on your list?
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I know I may get some "You don't want *that* engine!" comments, but I know I'll be quite satisfied with a 320D in SE form without any additional options. I'm perfectly happy with the trim level in the SE, though leather would be nice its not exactly a deal breaker for me.

The other choice would be an E90. I have looked long and hard at both these cars and on general external looks the E92 is a no brainer. Also the E92 comes with split rear seats as standard which I see as more convinient than the E90 as although you lose a seat in the E92 I rarely have more than 4 people in my car. Insurance wise there is naff all difference.
 
PiKe said:
What's the deal with new black audi's? All the newer ones I've seen their paint looks almost like liquid, are they doing something special?
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The black Audis and VW black paint is something else, not sure what they are doing but a colleague just had his 2 year old Q7 machine polished and it came up like nothing I've seen before.
 
8 year old black car:

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Clarkey said:
He's right, it's nothing that can't be sorted with a good machine polishing though.
In fact it's not quite right, it won't be any worse than another colour WRT aging, it just shows up more.
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Yup, I'd agree with that.

Silver is the colour to go for if you want to hide swirls but I'm not a huge fan of silver*, looks a bit "generic" on the whole.

*Yes, this is despite 66% of my cars having been silver :o
 
If we're posting steep angles - like this one -

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Or this

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But I don't find the shots and steep angles that impressive, I can make our 20 year old Strada look pretty and shiny from a steep angle.

Straight on reflection wins;

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PiKe said:
Which has 'just' been detailed.

What would be fairer is to compare a daily black to a daily silver, then the difference will become apparent.
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Exactly.

Also reflection shots are a con. I tried to get some snaps of my gf's Polos roof after some scrote kid walked across it. It was swirled up and covered in dust / pollen yet all I got was crystal clear pictures of the camera reflecting back :p
 
Bubo said:
I know I may get some "You don't want *that* engine!" comments, but I know I'll be quite satisfied with a 320D in SE form without any additional options. I'm perfectly happy with the trim level in the SE, though leather would be nice its not exactly a deal breaker for me.

The other choice would be an E90. I have looked long and hard at both these cars and on general external looks the E92 is a no brainer. Also the E92 comes with split rear seats as standard which I see as more convinient than the E90 as although you lose a seat in the E92 I rarely have more than 4 people in my car. Insurance wise there is naff all difference.
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To be honest I had an e92 320d as a loan car for a couple of weeks from an accident management company and I didn't think it was bad at all, although it was an M Sport model. I'm sure there must be loads of space grey SE 320d's on the AUC website, especially given that you don't have a massive want list - don't settle for black if that's not what you really want.
 
My R5GTT was black, my MR2 was black, my CTR was black and I'll never buy a black car again.

They show up every tiny imperfection, the slightest knock, scuff, swirl mark or even dust and the car looks crap. You can spend an entire day washing, polishing, waxing and 10 mins after driving it will look crap again, they just never look properly clean for more than 10 minutes at a time.

For a garage ornament they're great, but as something you might want to drive then no thanks, not any more.

Grey, silver are where it's at from now on for me :)
 
Black car + summer = win or fail depending on how well you look after them...

Obligatory whoring of my slightly polished black car:

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Or if you really kane the SRP you can end up with some better results:

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But its a helluva lot of work... I remember having a cherry red car which used to polish up like a dream but didn't show swirl marks, however it was prone to fading...
 
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eidolon said:
I'll never buy a black car again
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This was just the right kind of balls out pessimistic view I was looking for to make me fully rule out the idea of a black car. :) I know deep down, well not actually that deep tbh, that I just won't have the discipline to be contantly washing and waxing it tp avoid what you describe. I'm now tentatively considering petrol to widen the range of available cars local to me. Worked out it'll cost me about £300 a year more in fuel compared to a diesel.
 
[TW]Fox;16570443 said:
I think he is right. Black cars need more care as they show swirls etc far more easily. If you put the effort in black looks amazing but most people don't so they tend to look shabby when the sun comes out.
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The truth.

Lucero said:
Tell me about it!

Not properly properly cleaned mine in 6 months. Spent 5 hours on Saturday and it looks simply stunning now, sorry, I meant, it looked simply stunning, until about 9am yesterday when it had dust all over it again! :(
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I know what you mean there mate - these two pictures were taken relatively close together, in no time, it got filthy.... :(
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Not washed my Silver e36 for weeks now, and even realtively close, you can't tell its filthy. :o
 
logix42p said:
my missus black focus scratches even if you look at it. Dont know if this is down because of black paint or ford paint.
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shouldnt matter what colour it is. actual scratches will be in the laquer layers which are no doubt similar/the same across all colours.however they usually stand out more on a black car...

as said , black always looks muckier/dustier than silver due to how the light hits each colour.

but then black always looks far better when clean imo

i dont think it 'ages' at all , nevermind 'ages' more. black will always be popular
 
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Bubo said:
This was just the right kind of balls out pessimistic view I was looking for to make me fully rule out the idea of a black car. :) I know deep down, well not actually that deep tbh, that I just won't have the discipline to be contantly washing and waxing it tp avoid what you describe. I'm now tentatively considering petrol to widen the range of available cars local to me. Worked out it'll cost me about £300 a year more in fuel compared to a diesel.
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Don't let me put you off, if you want a black car then by all means get one, just don't expect it to look clean for more than 1% of the time.

The result of hours of hard graft can be worth it, for 10 minutes anyway....

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