[Marcumac]

Like the title says, what the fuck? The car has 49,7XX miles on it, only 3 years old. I drove it to Cleveland this past weekend, went out to wash it tonight to get all of the bug guts and whatnot off of the front end and found that the driver's side lower bumper is peeling, mainly by the foglight housing. They're not chips as far as I can tell, but it is peeling like a sunburn in a few spots, it's horribly obvious and has the potential to make the whole front end look like shit if it spreads. I'm not about to shell out for an M-Tech bumper, I would if I could, but I'm bringing it by the dealer tomorrow to have them check it out to see if it's covered under new car warranty. I let the shoddy paint job go with 2-3 paint drips, not to mention the paint drips on the wheels, but this is a little ridiculous to have it peel in such a way, even if it's from rock chips, it should stay confined to those chips, right?

[sleepyx637]

please post pictures

[Marcumac]

Picture quality sucks, all I had was a point & shoot.

[roadkillrob]

Wonder if part of the bumper (or all of it) was repainted due to shipping damage or something and the clearcoat didn't bond right, definitely would take that up with the dealer as properly applied paint will never do that no matter what you do to it, stones or salt etc will not cause the cleancoat to come off like that over an area!

[jopa489]

Originally Posted by roadkillrob

Wonder if part of the bumper (or all of it) was repainted due to shipping damage or something and the clearcoat didn't bond right, definitely would take that up with the dealer as properly applied paint will never do that no matter what you do to it, stones or salt etc will not cause the cleancoat to come off like that over an area!

Yeah this seems plausible. Especially if you said there were paint drips and paint on the wheels? It wouldn't have left the factory that way. Definitely get it taken care of before you hit 50,000 miles, just to ensure there are no problems.

To fix it, you're probably looking at a respray of the bumper though.

[Marcumac]

Originally Posted by roadkillrob

Wonder if part of the bumper (or all of it) was repainted due to shipping damage or something and the clearcoat didn't bond right, definitely would take that up with the dealer as properly applied paint will never do that no matter what you do to it, stones or salt etc will not cause the cleancoat to come off like that over an area!

I suppose that's very possible, especially since the paint underneath shows no signs of wear (or chips) and it is concentrated in one section of the bumper, not to mention the area where the foglights meet the bumper, no way a rock could get in there to cause this sort of damage.

[Marcumac]

Originally Posted by jopa489

To fix it, you're probably looking at a respray of the bumper though.

Fine by me, I'm just hoping they comply. I'll point out the overspray as well, it didn't bother me much before, I just figured it was common on BMWs.

[tambo916]

Originally Posted by Marcumac

Like the title says, what the fuck? The car has 49,7XX miles on it, only 3 years old. I drove it to Cleveland this past weekend, went out to wash it tonight to get all of the bug guts and whatnot off of the front end and found that the driver's side lower bumper is peeling, mainly by the foglight housing. They're not chips as far as I can tell, but it is peeling like a sunburn in a few spots, it's horribly obvious and has the potential to make the whole front end look like shit if it spreads. I'm not about to shell out for an M-Tech bumper, I would if I could, but I'm bringing it by the dealer tomorrow to have them check it out to see if it's covered under new car warranty. I let the shoddy paint job go with 2-3 paint drips, not to mention the paint drips on the wheels, but this is a little ridiculous to have it peel in such a way, even if it's from rock chips, it should stay confined to those chips, right?

What ever happened with this? Did the dealer cover it?

[VTECaddict]

Did you have the car since new? Paint drips and overspray are definitely indications of a repaint at some point. At the factory, all painted parts are painted before anything else is assembled onto the car, so it would be impossible to get overspray from the factory.

[iheartsole]

cant really see it. post some clear pics. please

[madmanhiker]

seems to me that this vehicle was damaged at one point before you took ownership of it. This has all the signs of an aftermarket paint job. BMW & Merc have a paint thickness code of .07 mil. The dealership (or and bodyshop) should have a paint thickness probe. get readings from your trunk and rear quarter panels. Compare that with your front hood, front quarter panels... the re-paint job could have been done to more locations than you think... this happened to me on a used Mercedes I once owned. I traded it in for a new Merc and the dealership did this to evaluate my trade... boy was I surprised! I didn't even know. Over-spray is a clear indicator of an after-market poor paint job. Good luck... let us know about the paint depth readings.

[Oulixes]

Originally Posted by madmanhiker

seems to me that this vehicle was damaged at one point before you took ownership of it. This has all the signs of an aftermarket paint job. BMW & Merc have a paint thickness code of .07 mil. The dealership (or and bodyshop) should have a paint thickness probe. get readings from your trunk and rear quarter panels. Compare that with your front hood, front quarter panels... the re-paint job could have been done to more locations than you think... this happened to me on a used Mercedes I once owned. I traded it in for a new Merc and the dealership did this to evaluate my trade... boy was I surprised! I didn't even know. Over-spray is a clear indicator of an after-market poor paint job. Good luck... let us know about the paint depth readings.

As far as I can tell, you are right - the photos seem to indicate an aftermarket paint job.

[Marcumac]

Sorry guys, totally forgot to update the thread. No I didn't buy it new, it was a lease return. I determined that the car was in a minor front end collision somewhere in Kentucky back in 2007 by means of a Carfax, I was never informed (I suppose I should have asked) but I figured I had nothing to worry about considering it was CPO. For some reason there was no police report # attached, so I wasn't able to find out much more.

The BMW Store here in Cincinnati looked at the damage for me but informed me that the paint protection plan I have is only good with the dealer I purchased from, so they passed the word along for me, I picked it up and dropped it off this past Monday at Jake Sweeney BMW for paint. They took care of a small paint run as well as repainted the lower left portion of my bumper, looks pretty good to me, you can definitely tell it's fresh paint, but as far as matching the rest of the front it's spot on. My only quip is that there are what seems to be small indentations underneath the paint, it's not painfully obvious but if you get close enough they're visible, I'm pretty sure that they were there before and the new paint just made it more apparent.

The whole paint process only took 2 days, although they didn't even give me a proper work order for it or say anything else about what was done. One of the many reasons I only go through Jake Sweeney if I have to, their customer service, for the most part, blows.