My new purchase (1989 325iX manual) had the hood repainted some time ago, and the clearcoat is failing. About one third of the surface of the hood has peeled entirely off. The rest of the car has original paint, and is pretty decent shape. Does anybody have any experience removing the remaining clearcoat, and repsraying with new clearcoat vs. complete sanding and repainting?
Find a good body shop that uses authentic BMW paint How's the rest of your car look? If the rest of the car is faded, you might as well get the whole car repainted. Otherwise you're going to have a shiny, fresh looking hood on a faded looking rest of the car. Get some estimates from three body shops on what it would cost to redo the hood vs. repainting the entire car. It's cheaper if you do some of the prep work yourself, and if you have it repainted its original factory color.
Depending on the condition of the base coat, you might be able to get away with just a respray of the clear on the hood. Might not look like a brand new car, but it might be acceptable enough. I think that is what Brian A did with his E30 and was happy with the results. Maybe he can post a picture or two if he reads this.
If the clearcoat is peeling off the existing finish, a simple respray won't work Peeling usually occurs under two circumstances: a finish that wasn't properly cared for in the first place, or a finish that wasn't properly prepped. If the clearcoat is peeling, then likely the underlying base color will also not properly hold the clearcoat. You're just wasting money, time, and paint putting another clearcoat layer onto a faded or damaged base color. At minimum, redo the entire hood if you want the clearcoat to hold. Otherwise, you may be just throwing money down a hole.
Actually, I sprayed a bit of my roof, but not my hood. I removed the peeling clear coat on an area of the roof with a razor blade, re-sprayed the clearcoat with rattle cans and rubbed it down with polishing compound. After 2 years now, the sprayed area has stayed remarkably nice, but the formerly-good original clear coat area has now started peeling too, so the rattle can area is now surrounded by a perimeter of peeling clear coat. Now that the car has survived 2 years of high school commuting by my daughter, I should have just repainted the car. I doubt the rattle can spray job would pass most people's standards if sprayed on the hood. The shorter you are, the better the roof looks. The hood still looks like crap and is getting worse (see p 68, April 2010 Roundel), but I just claim that it is burned from atmospheric friction from going so fast on the track. It is a 318i after all. I think the best cheap alternative is to cover all offending areas in vinyl. You could get a cool skull and crossbones motif for the hood that way too. I am seriously thinking about it, including the skull and crossbones.
I rubbed out, polished, and waxed the rest of the car, and it looks very good especially for original paint (except forward of the doors). I would rather keep it as original as possible. I like the suggestion of doing as much prep work myself on the hood and having a professional repaint and new clearcoat on the hood and the tops of the front fenders. I hope it lasts since I plan on keeping the car for a long time. Thanks!!
Or perhaps you can take pictures of what happens... ..when the 318 hits 88 miles per hour. Just kidding. I don't think the SI supports telling you when your next plutonium refuel is. *Hint: if you see blue sparks dancing on your hood and you do NOT have a flux capacitor installed, you've got bigger problems than time travel..Oh yeah and don't let the car get struck by lightning..*
OK; if this is Zinnoberrot (Cinnabar Red), it was not a base-clear paint, so the rest of your car is likely solid color. If you can find someone to match it, you'd be better off painting your hood in that color without clear.
I like Brian A's approach. . . Somebody said "USE BMW PAINT!" Um. . . well. . . BMW doesn't exactly MAKE paint, now, do they? And their history of choosing paint suppliers does not fill me with confidence. (I share this opinion with a few million E30/E36 owners.) Aftanas is going for vinyl with a skull motif. My plan on the Red Rat (whose paint looked like it had been attacked by radiation) was to paint flames on the hood. . . using 3M stoneguard paint. Alas, a deer ran out in front of the Rat before I could reach this level of automotive art. Maybe Bambi knew something.
Hey Satch, I would love to see a photo of the Red Rat. Maybe that would inspire me to leave my hood the way it is!
