Hey every one!

I'm needing paint advice. I know I asked for paint advice a couple of weeks ago, but I'm going a different route I think. Currently, my car is a BMW color, A73, which is black with a beautiful blue undertone. It's a gorgeous color. Problem? I went with matte clear because my car suffers from body issues. You can only see a little glimmer of the blue on the tops of the fenders in the sunlight, and it's supposed to be a little more obvious than that, lol. Apparently the car had dents in the quarter panel that I didn't notice until I was sanding the car for paint. I filled a lot of it in with bondo, but it's definitely not perfect. You can notice the difference in my quarter panels if you look at them and look for it. I think that's the main problem. There's a few dents and dings here, mostly in the fenders, but they're both getting replaced, along with the driver door.

The best way is to just put on a new quarter panel, but I don't have the time, experience or funds for that. I want to keep my car black, but I HATE the matte. The upkeep is pretty rough, it seems to get dinged easier (or maybe that was the fault of the guy who painted it), and even though I spent a lot of time and money on my paint job, people still thought it was primered. That was just heartbreaking.

Okay, to the point! I want to go shiny clear. I wasn't a fan of the matte. Since black shows every single body imperfection, would I be safe with a grey color? I've always loved grey third gens, especially on T/As. But I don't want to put too much time and money into it just to not be able to see anything but the dents in the quarter panel. I wish I had a decent reference photo of the damage but I don't. I honestly didn't notice it with the flat black, but it may be because it was well, flat clear. But would the light grey be a safe bet? I'll probably work a lot harder on filling in the quarter panel this go-around. It's going to be a while until the car gets painted anyways, as it's not even running as of now, but I just wanted to start exploring my options and know what to expect.

Thank you to any and all advice, and if I could get some pictures of different grey third gens, that would be great, as I'm trying to decide exactly what shade I want to go with.

Edit: Didn't think about it, maybe this should have gone in the "body" forum? If so, mods please move, I apologize!

 

My advice is invest in a nice set of sanding blocks. Grey still tends to show dents, white on the other hand really hides dents in certain light. When you do body work are you using only bonds? A good bondo followed by glaze blocked properly will turn out good. Your finger tips will tell you a lot about your bodywork, make sure to use plenty of guide coat. If you have trouble applying bondo try bondo thinner (known as plastik honey). It makes it feel like your applying icing. Feather fill or high build primer is a gift from the autobody gods!

 

Yep, I was only using plain ole Bondo to fill in everything. It was my first time really messing with anything like that and I know it could definitely use some improvement this go-around. I'll definitely listen to your advice though, thank you so much! I didn't even know there was a bondo thinner... that's just how little I know. I'll start going ahead and stocking up on this stuff so I can be more prepared when it comes time to put in the work. Thank you so much!

 

I'll give you the same advice.....do your filling with regular body filler, block and block and block it with 80 grit, then go over it again with a glazing putty, sand that with 180 grit, and use a high build primer, mist on a dust coat of black spray paint for a guide coat and block again with 320. Then you can seal it and paint it.

If you are questioning your body work, rub your flat hand over it with a paper towel, flat, under your hand. That's a little trick that will actually highlight any imperfections. For some reason you can feel dings, etc better that way than with your bare hand.

Also, a lighter color will in fact hide some bodywork imperfections, but any color with metallics will actually highlight them. (Like silvers)

 

Thank you for that! I got a bit more confidence going into this knowing more of what to do now. Hopefully I can get it all straightened out.

Sounds like I'm going to have to skip the silver...guess I'll look at some more colors that catch my eye. Thank you both!

 

No problem at all. Just DON'T RUSH IT, and it'll turn out fine. Good luck!

 

Yeah I learned the hard way about rushing it., unfortunately lol! Thank you

 

TP tools is a great place to get supplies. Thats where I get most of my sandpaper, blocks, air tools, etc