Respray costs?

Hi Steve,

You shouldn't be taking it to the supermarket.

The sales guy at my local dealership has just bought an Estoril Blue 840 that he is going to have resprayed (a proper job, i.e.. completely stripped, not masked). The dealerships body shop is 1st class and he is only required to pay cost which is £1K. If you consider this the lowest figure my guess is £3-5K at retail. I can understand why you would want to do it but it might be more economic to deal with the individual items.

How's that for starters.

Cheers
Graham

Zitat von sandwich;96844

...bit of a mare doing the roof, bonnet and boot...

Funny that - when I got mine last year all they had NOT done was what you mentioned
Over here similar price range - quick shower starting around 1500, proper job from 4K, dealerships 10K+ and not necessarily better.

I´d either stay local and do the prep work myself (at least taking apart what others might destroy in the process) or if paintshop is known to be experienced with the E31 also travel a longer distance. Only a few broken parts today will cover the cost to near any location

Cheers
Reinhard

Zitat von sandwich;96855

Not sure if you've seen his site but the silver car is absolutely stunning!

http://www.bmwclassics.co.uk/840cisport01/index.html

Wow! That is perfection. I can see your dilemma.

I remember checking that site out about 3 years ago and my eyes popping at that silver 8. For about 2 years after that, I was convinced silver would be the colour of my eventual purchase..

He sounds like a sweet guy, the author.

i remember reading an article he penned, something along the lines of 'petrol costs on an 8 will total only £300 a year more than on your family diesel estate', this made me even more resolved to buy an 8.

I think he may have exaggerated a tad there, or maybe i just read it 'how i wanted to read it'.

Respray costs are hard to compare as even specialists vary when it comes to how they prepare the car.
I had mine done locally by a specialist I know and trust 6 years ago and to this day it still looks like a new car with no signs of a respray.
I don't want to give a price as A: It was 6 years ago and B: I got a very special rate.
All I will say is that a cheap respray may look good on day one, but will not stand the passing of time or close scrutiny.

If you have a decent local bodyshop that know what they're doing you can get a very good respray for £2500 or there abouts.

The Alpina leaves this weekend for a total respray - windows will be coming out and everything. I hope to post pictures this weekend of the car - all trim is off, bumpers off, sunroof out, lights out, interior out (except carpet and dash) to get ready for the repaint. I'm afraid it won't be cheap though......

Zitat von sandwich;96855

Thanks Reinhard
My friend, who lives just down the road from me, runs this website. He is incredibly meticulous and any paintwork needed is carried out by the guy he has recommended. Not sure if you've seen his site but the silver car is absolutely stunning!

http://www.bmwclassics.co.uk/840cisport01/index.html

Generlally looks good, but if you look at the pics of the under-body and wheel-arch areas there is a lot of overspray and liberal use of black spray-paint over rust on the front chassis cross-members. ...and to do all that and leave rusty brake disks ?

(The inner wheel arches and underbody have a greyish polyurethane coating ex-factory. They should prefereably be repainted with a polyeurethane paint, if necessary, not with an acrylic top-coat, which will be more brittle and not adhere well.)

Hm, I do not see the overspray and the black spray paint but this also is something that has to be taken into account. You may be seeing things that others would not notice even if it jumped in their face.
Those that have collected experience in judging a car´s quality and know the telltale signs of a sloppy paintjob will be a lot more critical over time.

I usually just take my paint thickness measuring device and dont need to guess much then

I personally think that the silver cars that are shown linked above look outstanding. I wish I had a slave doing that kind of work on my cars.
To get to the result shown below took me lots of chemistry and elbow grease and it still does not look half as good

Cheers
Reinhard

Its a lot easier with a black car!

Zitat von arnie;96901

Generlally looks good, but if you look at the pics of the under-body and wheel-arch areas there is a lot of overspray and liberal use of black spray-paint over rust on the front chassis cross-members. ...and to do all that and leave rusty brake disks ?

(The inner wheel arches and underbody have a greyish polyurethane coating ex-factory. They should prefereably be repainted with a polyeurethane paint, if necessary, not with an acrylic top-coat, which will be more brittle and not adhere well.)

Don't be silly. "Generally looks good"? There wasn't any "liberal use of black spray-paint over rust on the front chassis cross-members". My car had only 24K miles on the clock when I got it (it still has only 27K miles on it now)...It had no rust on the chassis cross-members. They were then painstakingly cleaned before painting.

"...to do all that and leave rusty brake discs?" Ok...going outside, jack your car up, take the wheels off your car and spray water over the brake discs, don't drive it but go and have a cup of tea and come back in half an hour and see what your brake discs look like!

Regarding the inner wheel-arches: Again I painstakingly cleaned all the dirt, grease and tar out of those before spraying them with a very light-coat of body colour paint. After that they had a very light coat of clear waxoyl diluted down with white spirit.

I did all this in March 2006 (i.e exactly six years ago) when I acquired the car. As Sandwich will confirm having seen the car this week, it still looks the same under there as it did in those photos taken 6 years ago. So?

But whilst we're about it could we perhaps see some pics of the underside of your car and see if it looks any better?

Thanks
Derin
www.bmwclassics.co.uk

If nothing else this shows that folks are passionate about their hobby.
I'm sure this will clear things up and set the record straight so that we can get back to business as usual.

With regard to a respray; my local guy has had to turn away more than one 8 owner recently.
This was because close inspection revealed underlying issues which would require much much more than a simple prep.
Continuing would have meant an expensive job, which some owners agree to up front, but are less willing come bill paying time - leading to hassle which he can do without.

My guy that I trust is a father and son team...

I cannot remember who recommended them to me but they are the nicest people you could meet....

First they sprayed this for me...

Which turned out like glass. I was amazed. (Now I am super fussy so don't go getting any bits in the finish because I will make you re-do it!!!! kind of guy.)
Now these guy's do a lot of work for a local who does the coachbuilding (No not Trathens) the proper aluminium Bentleys / Astons... They have had a couple of their painted cars go to various Shows. One in Germany and One in the States...

Any way they had to quote to do this concourse car and it was a big Bentley. Their price was around 12.5k which they thought was over the top but after the guy got the quote he came back to them and said no. Later through the grapevine it was found out that they did not get the job because the dickwit paying for it thought it to cheap and ended up paying circa 20k for the job!!

There is nothing stranger than folk!!

Just because you pay top dollar you wont always get the best...

Zitat von sandwich;96933

... so £140.00 aaaagh!

Isn´t that a little price to pay for a wonderful day out in an 8?

Reinhard