BMW's paint is absurdly thin.

My X5's front chipped through almost immediately. Another thing I noticed is the very dark primer under my white paint. Genius!

Alex - good point, but they could double the paint thickness on the front end (and leading edges on the wheel flares come to think of it) at least.

If she wasn't a lease, I'd be pretty bummed.

Then again, if it wasn't a lease, I'd have sprung for the clear bra.

 

hell I didn't know we still spoke about cars on the Team

 

Weird. My Z4M has thick as hell, bomb proof paint. Maybe because it was made in the US.

 

Actually, looks like I was wrong.

The venture shield clearbra, which is what I have, is 6mils thick with the adhesive being 2mils thick.

http://www.ppffilm.com/images/ventureshield.pdf

Which would mean that the total measure deapth of the E39 M5 that I have at 13.5 would put the original paint depth at 5.5 to close to 6 mils.

Compares to the 4.5 mils of the M3 I just got, it is still markedly thinnner, and IMHO, too thin.

 

I've noticed that too, although i think the e46 metallic paint is much easier to scratch than the E9x dito. You really have to think about how close you drive behind trucks and bigger vehicles on the freeway, feels like a bit of dust can rip up the whole front on E90's..

 

I just haven't gotten around to get my car clearbra'ed since it only has 200 miles.

Apparently the new paint is much more fragile than even paint from the E39 days.

 

BMW paint just sucks. paint on my e39 M5 is so thin compared to my previous e34.

 

LOL, if you think the E39 M5 paint is thin, you'll be horrified to find that the new BMW paint is EVEN thinner.

BMW used to paint the underside of hood and trunk lid in the E34 days, for example. Now the undersides are unpainted Ecoat.

So, officially, BMW did go from 160 micron to 120 micron from E39 to E9x.

Whatever the case might be, it sure wasn't about making a better painted surface.

And as for Simba's Z4, I would be curious to see how thick the paint is on that thing. My speculation would be that on top of cost saving pressure in .de, they also had to deal with VOC emission penalties, which also conributed to using less paint.

 

Stuka, you seem to not like much about your M3. I'm sad for you.

 

Lol!