[marc.c]

hi all,
i would like to know if anyone else has had any problems with chilli red paint.
the problem i seem to have is that at night under streetlights the paint on the drivers side rear panels does not match the rest of the car.
i am finding this a bit worrying because to me this would indicate a bad repair of some sort! as the car is only 9 weeks old and i do not intend selling it any time soon it should not be to much of a problem but when the time does come to trade in or sell it could be.
so any advice regarding this would be really helpful.

thanks in advance marc.c

[cosworth]

Hmmmm. Think I might go back to the dealer and question this. All makes and models of cars have been known to come in with damage at times, where they will send them to their shop, and "spruce" them up for the customer before delivery. If you could somehow link up with someone at your dealer who seems to care, I would try to show him, the best you can, the mis-match of color. From there, I don't know what to tell you. I doubt they would replace the car, but I would think SOMETHING would have to be done. After all, you paid for a NEW, UNMOLESTED vehicle, which, if it has been re-painted in any way, form, or manner, is no longer that. And if the shop did a sub-standard job on their "touch-up", who knows if this will last the test of time. In 5 years or so, that panel that they re-did may start to dull or craze earlier than the rest of the original paintwork, and the car will look like hell (and it will drop your re-sale value dramatically). Nip this in the bud early, if you have to, take your issue directly to MINI. You paid a good price for a product, and that's not what you received.

[tip]

The question must be answered if the car had been repaired from a mishap prior to delivery. I would take a closer look. If you can check to see if there is any over spray, suggesting that the car had been repainted. Look under the car, even in the car. Look in the trunk area you will find an access panel on either side of the car take peak in there get a mirror and a flashlight out if you have to.
Good Luck. sorry to hear about if the car was dinged.

Charles.

[Andu]

The difference in colour is due to the car having a repaint, and the material used to repaint it has a different pigment which shows up differently under sodium (UK street) lighting. Unfortunatly reds are notorious for this.
Don't jump to the conclusion however that it has taken a knock. A large percentage of cars get repainted in the factory for scratches and blemishes that occur during manufacture.
Your dealer may repaint the panel for you, but it is possible that you will still have the problem afterwards depending on how unique the red pigment is that BMW are using.

[marc.c]

thanks for the advice guys...my car will be going in to the dealers this thursday to have it checked over and also to have a sqeaky seat fixed surprise surprise!.
this is the only two problems so far with my s,but i had a cooper for a year before and had numerous problems with that,for instance it went in for leaky footwell and had to be striped of its interior completly and when i returned to collect it nearly a week later i found my car had odd seats,one sports and one standard the guys in the body shop were doing two cars side by side and got the seats mixed up!and it gets better i also discovered they had not tightened the bar that holds the seatbelt to the floor properly! and the bonnet release cables and the handbrake gator and gearshift gator and the carpets were still stinking of dampness,so any way what i am trying to get at is do you guys reckon i deserve some sort of compensation this time.
cheers marc.c

[PERCY]

I had the same problem with my first MINI Cooper - dark silver, when I got the car home from the dealer I noticed an area of overspray on the side skirt, when i moved back from the car to view from a distance there was an obvious mis-match in coulour between the door panel and front wing. I took this up with the dealer who informed BMW GB and the car was duly inspected. BMW GB confirmed that the door panel had been resprayed, very poorly, at the factory. The dealer then offered to respray the door under warrenty, a solution I was not at all happy with until I saw the finished result - believe me the repair was perfect and the finish was as good as the factory - or in this case far better!

[RickB]

I was "lucky" enough to know my car had been damaged prior to my taking delivery, so I know about repainted panels. Until the car is licensed, it is a new car, even if it has been damaged and repaired.

[superplumb]

having just finnished doing the sunday wash the bonnet on my d.s.s appears to be a darker shade than the rest of the car would bmw have records to show if my car has been damaged and repaired in the factory or is it a dealer thing

[tip]

If you have a chili red car and have a panel repaired and painted again with chili red, why wouldn't the colour be the same. Why would the pigment be stightly off. With computers mixing the paint in this day and age you would think that the paint would be the same from batch to batch.
If a panel was resprayed in the factory, you would think that there would be no difference in pigment, that they would use the same paint from the same batch of paint from initial paint job.

Charles.

[MiNiGuY]

Quote:

Originally posted by marc.c
hi all,
i would like to know if anyone else has had any problems with chilli red paint.
the problem i seem to have is that at night under streetlights the paint on the drivers side rear panels does not match the rest of the car.
i am finding this a bit worrying because to me this would indicate a bad repair of some sort! as the car is only 9 weeks old and i do not intend selling it any time soon it should not be to much of a problem but when the time does come to trade in or sell it could be.
so any advice regarding this would be really helpful.

thanks in advance marc.c

Best to visit your dealer and explain your worries.

Cars that recieve panel damage in the factory are indeed taken to the side and are 'rectified'.

All the best.

[Andu]

If a panel was resprayed in the factory, you would think that there would be no difference in pigment, that they would use the same paint from the same batch of paint from initial paint job.

Charles. [/b][/quote]


Most original factory finishes are cured at 130 C. A fully trimed car cannot be put through an oven at 130 because the trim wouldn't survive.
There are 2 solutions to this
1) Catalyse the original material to stove at a lower temp.
This gives the advantage of giving the best colour match
The drawback to this is usually slightly poor gloss and reduced resistance to weathering.
2) Use a polyurethane system which will give a better more resistant repair, but may not be supplied by the same company who supplied the original material(car companies tend to use more than one supplier for original colours, but only one supplier for repair material).

The problem is that colours are matched in specific lights (daylight plus one, two variations). Diferent paint companies will often acheive the same colour using different pigments, but will all match under the specified lighting. The problems appear when you look at the different companies colours under lighting outside the spec (such as sodium lights used for UK street lights) when all the variations can look totally different from each other. There is no way round this as different pigments reflect light differently across the visible light spetrum, and you will never get the companies involved to give away information about the pigments used to match a colour.

I hope this helps explain without being entirely too long winded

[tip]

Andu,

It explians alot, thanks. No, it was not too long winded.

Charles

[MiNiGuY]

Some valid points made by Andu.

Paint repairs on mini involve identical paint, but I believe (I've been told at least) that the chemical makeup of the paint is varied in order to achieve a faster cure.

Indeed, from first hand expierience, some of the 'touch up' paint used on the production line dries incredibly fast. So fast in fact that it is touch dry within about 30 seconds!!.

This is never used on visable exterior bodywork, or on anything other than the smallest of paint problems, but it certainly seems quite feasible that the paint used on visable bodywork, or on major rectification, is a slightly different variation to this paint.

With major paintwork rectification the paint starts to cure within about 45 minutes to an hour, assisted by large fans/heat lamps, aimed at the painted area, and within a purpose built building that has an extremely tightly controlled atmosphere.

Nonetheless, it seems quite probable that under certain conditions (ie street lamps etc) the paintwork rectification could be noticed.

This is speculation on my part of course.

[Andu]

Touch up paint is usually good old cellulose, and the reason they don't use it on exteriors is beause it is poor (no chemical resistance, poor gloss, poor weather resistance) but it does dry very fast. Usually applied by artist brush and most specs don't recommend it for anything bigger than chips of approx. 1 - 2 mm.
If the repairs are carried out in a controlled enviroment then they are probably using 2 pack polyurethane, but I doubt they would be using this in the main paint shop as the unions don't allow it on health and safety grounds.

Of course it could be that they use a combination of repair systems.