This one is 'THE CHALLENGE!'

I

imported_jgv

New member
I have this 15 year old, 650.000Km old BMW 525i to det.... ehr... Restore? Yes. It's owner wants it to look good again as it was his first 'real' car.



It was never good taken care of, the paint is dull and FULL or scratches. The interior shows wear in a lot of places, the moon roof (metallic) has some rust spots, etc.



Now, he asked me to make it look well again, not from a 50cm distance of course, but so that when he passes on the street it looks like new. He said he didn't care to spend 2000 or 2500 euro with it :shocked , so, besides doing what I can do, I'll have the rims repaired and repainted, the front seats will be recovered with new leather, the moon roof will also be repainted, and some other repairs.



Here are some pics:



525i_1.jpg


525i_2.jpg


525i_3.jpg


525i_4.jpg


525i_5.jpg
 
I started testing on the trunk and used 1Z Pasta Intensive with the rotary and Megs cutting pad, twice, then followed with 1Z Hochglanz Polish with Megs polishing pad.



1z.pasta.jpg




This was the result:



525i_6.jpg




Yellow marks show scratches.



I did the rear end like this with good results, but when I reached the right rear door, the compound didn't touch the swirls! I buffed it twice with no result. I then pulled the water sand, 2000 grit and sanded a section, then compounded it. Almost the same! Never saw such an hard paint. Well, I did another section using first 1500 grit sanding paper, followed by 2000 grit and then buffed twice with the Pasta Intensive and once with the Paint Polish. Finally I saw results, but most swirls were still there, tho not so visible. I'll not take anymore paint, after all, they aren't visible at a distance of say 2 m.



My guess is that the rear end was painted sometime with a different paint from the rest of the car, that's why it was a lot softer.
 
Looks like you the a big challenge ahead of you, good luck. Can't wait to see the after pics. Did the person take a brillo pad to the hood. If the rear door was repainted, the swirls and scratches you see could be in the film build, due to poor quaility body work. Also, stop while you are head before you have to have the door repainted and explain to the customer about the problem.



Eric
 
As far as I know the car is always serviced on the BMW dealer, as for me I'll take care only of it's aesthetics, I'm not a mechanical.
 
Looks like you are off to a nice start already! Along with the after pics, continue to go through the steps you are taking to restore this car. I'm really interested in seeing how it turns out.
 
After wet sanding the door, there were still a lot of visible scratches, now more than before. So today I continued the testing and the good old 3M PI-III showed to be a winner (again :xyxthumbs ).



Here are some pics of the door where I've been testing:



door.side.by.side.jpg


door.side.by.side.2.jpg




And then I complected the rear fender to compare...



side.by.side.jpg


side.by.side.2.jpg
 
Rear fender looks awesome!



Keep it coming with the pics.



As for the 405,000 miles as long as you keep on top of those cars maintenance wise they'll remain mechanically sound far into the mileage ranges like that.
 
14 years is young! I drive 40 year old cars regularly (granted, not with 400k miles). Nothing inherently unsound about an older car :xyxthumbs



VV



BW said:
Good luck! At 14 years, however, I'd be more concerned how the car drives. Is it safe mechanically?
Click to expand...
 
That car doesn't look bad, atleast it doesn't have alot of rust. Give it some TLC and it'll be up and running. Best of luck to you and your project. Have a good holiday!
 
That car is in rough shape. Those seats are toast and it looks like there might be some crap on the headliner. The trunk looked great, but it looks like you've got your work cut out for you with the rest...those are some stubborn-*** doors! Good luck and good job so far!
 
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