E92 and stone chips

melchy

melchy

melchy

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Does the E92 have a particular problem with picking up stones chips? I was dismayed at the number of stone chips i discovered on my car after washing it today. Perhaps it just the colour (Titanium Silver) that makes them more obvious.

My other car driven on the same roads for a period of almost 5 years doesn't seem to have picked up anywhere near as many. Although given that the car is black it may be that they are just not as obvious.
 
Jono8 said:
I would have thought they would be more obvious on the black one!?
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I suppose so. I just wondered if its something to do with the type of paint used on the BMW. I know chips are fairly unavoidable but it does seem to have picked up a fair few new ones in a relatively short period.
 
Sadly the newer paint finish on BMW's leaves much to be desired and this is quite common. Luckily though the stonechips can help take your mind off the orange peel.
 
Guess i'll need to live with it. Decision now is whether just to use a touch up brush or get a company like Chips Away in to repair them.
 
We had a Blue LHD 330Ci from California in a while ago, It was an early 2009 car with just over 30k on the clock, it was the newest & also the most stonechipped car that we had on the lot by a fair margin.
 
Tbid said:
Sorry my error! It was a 2007 car on a 58 plate, also it was an 328ci sorry!
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Wut.

E46 was the last model to have the C to designate the Coupe (they started calling them E92 as they have a different body entirely; E93 for the conv). Personally I preferred the C naming... but yeah.

Wut. My confusion stems from a 2007 car on a 58 plate, I thought the plates were backdated to original registration date? Seems a bit iffy that I could import a 1958 Corvette and run it on a 61 plate!
 
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andrewdodd13 said:
Wut.

E46 was the last model to have the C to designate the Coupe (they started calling them E92 as they have a different body entirely; E93 for the conv). Personally I preferred the C naming... but yeah.

Wut. My confusion stems from a 2007 car on a 58 plate, I thought the plates were backdated to original registration date? Seems a bit iffy that I could import a 1958 Corvette and run it on a 61 plate!
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I suspect it was a 328i Coupe not a 328Ci, the Americans got a 328i and we didn't.

The DVLA often mess up. If a car is sold new in 2007, abroad, and then imported new, it should get a 2007 plate.
 
Having owned several black cars I would say chips are very, very obvious.

You mention driving the same roads as before, but has your driving style changed? Are you driving up the ass of the car infront for example? BM drivers have a tendancy to do this :D

Are you even sure all the chips have happened since you've owned the car?

If there are lots of nasty chips, it might be worth getting the front end painted by a proper bodyshop.

Probably more than you want to spend, but if you wanted rid of the orange peel effect, you could always have some paint correction done by the likes of http://www.kdskeltec.co.uk

Kelly has a good reputation for getting rid of BMW's tangoed paint finish:

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=141365

My car is going into Polished Bliss this year for a full correction and detail.
 
The old car was black and hasn't sufferred from the same number of obvious stone chips the silver BMW has although it was a fair bit smaller (Clio 182).

There were a number of pre-existing stone chips most of which had been touched up. It has picked up a fair few new ones in the 3 months i've owned it. I think its just going to be a fact of life with this particular car and the rural roads i drive on. Its not near bad enough yet to consider a respray. Not sure whether i'll just wait until I collect a few more and then get a smart repair done on them a bit later in the year or whether i'll just use a touch up brush.

As much as i'd like the finished results im not sure I could justify a full paint correction and to be honest it'd probably be somewhat wasted on me :)

I was really just wondering if any other E92 or 3 series owners in general had noticed similar with regards to the stone chips.
 
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Mine has now done 65,000 miles and has a few stone chips, but not a massive amount. It helps that the undercoat is black, so doesnt seem to show up as much, but I guess this might make it show up more on a silver car. It does have two or three stonechips that I would consider pretty bad and I think I will definitely consider getting the front resprayed at some point to clear these away. On previous experience I wouldnt even consider chipsaway for this type of job, as the finish is nowhere near a normal paint finish.
 
olivercamos said:
Could get it repaired then have something like vetureshield installed?

http://www.autofxpaintprotection.co.uk/ventureshield/

The film will stop any future stone chips.
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Don't mislead...

VentureShield/ArmorFend or whatever else will reduce the amount of stone chips you will receive, but has it's own issues. It will 'pit' and these will get full of dirt. It will go yellow and peel at corners over time. And it will not stop big stones.

The worst paint of all for chipping is cars made from Fibreglass Reinforced Plastic (i.e. TVR, Lotus, Aston etc).

- Paint bubbles as moisture is absorbed by the material which freezes and expands the surfaces inside (massive issue for those manufacturers above).

- The paint is like a brittle shell and fractures very easily - it has minimal elasticity or 'spring'.

- In a comparable 3k miles from new, my 135 has no discernable stone chips on the front (1 on wing mirror). The Elise SC looked like someone had taken a shotgun full of ball bearings to the front after equivalent mileage.

- Obviously this depends on how close you are to the car infront and what speeds you and the projectile are travelling too.
 
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