Z4MC Carbon Black - paint correction

I

IKZ4

Member
Hi all,

Just had my car detailed by Matt Wakefield at Off Your Marks, so thought I'd share some pictures. The car is 2007 with 23k miles. It's been very well looked after, but unfortunately in the past it has been washed using scouring pads and sandpaper. Only joking, but looking at the 'before' pictures you would honestly think so! The car is in great overall condition, so I wanted to get it looking as good as possible for summer.

Matt is a BMW enthusiast with an immaculate Z3M roadster that's in time warp condition. I knew of Matt from the Z3 forum and he has a great reputation. His detailing studio is fantastic with separate rooms for washing, storing, detailing, etc. I took the car to be assessed a while ago and discussed options. He said he could do a c80% correction in 1 1/2 days, but after taking paint readings and generally going over the car he advised that the car would come up really well if he spent up about 3 days on it. With it being Carbon Black I wanted it to look it's best, so decided to go with Matt's suggestion. As well as a paint correction, the tailpipes were cleaned and new original dealer plates were fitted. I still need to get a kerbed alloy fixed. The car was finished with Zymol products and looks amazing.

Anyway, enough of the waffle. I picked the car up today and I'm very pleased with the results. It's overcast today so I've not been able to take any pictures of my own or see the paint in bright sunlight, but Matt took some shots during the detail.

Before -

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P1030642 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030632 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030635 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030651 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030644 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030646 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030661 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

During -

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P1030633 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030637 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030638 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030652 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030653 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030654 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030655 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030657 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030658 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030659 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030666 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030662 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

After -

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P1030670 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030671 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030672 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030674 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030719 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030720 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030722 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030723 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030725 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

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P1030727 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

Favourite shot, really shows off the colour -

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P1030673 by Ian Kelly2, on Flickr

Thanks for looking, can't wait to see the sun again and enjoy the car.

Cheers, Ian
 
christ those swirls were all over the shop :o

Great job to put the paintwork right, as said above it looks like new :thumbsup:
 
Great job I am starting to think I should take my car to a detailer I feel I'm facing a never ending battle doing it my self.
 
Thanks for the comments. The 'before' pictures make the car look worse than it appeared in normal lighting. When I cleaned the car previously it looked great, but I wanted it to look as good as it possibly could. Carbon Black is a fantastic colour, really complicated and subtle. It can look black, greeny-blue in low light, sometimes it just looks inky blue, and under bright sunlight or the detailers lamp it comes up as mid blue with a light blue effect. Not sure I'd have paid £750 for it as an optional extra when the car was new, but glad that someone did.

Matt is a real enthusiast and someone who is really committed to his work. He's a thoroughly nice guy too, I had no doubts about leaving the car with him. He had a few hours free one day so he put extra hours into my car above and beyond what he charged me for. He's a realist and a perfectionist - there are still some marks on the car that he couldn't get out without compromising the paintwork, but that's why I took it to a professional and didn't 'have a go' myself. There's one patch were it looks like someone has tried to remove bird poo with something abrasive, and the odd deeper scratch from poor washing that he has only been able to minimise and not remove, but you have to go looking for them. I was wary about the cost of having the car detailed, but based on other peoples recommendations I knew I wanted to use Off Your Marks.

There's probably 4 days labour in the detail, but as we'd agreed a maximum of 3 days that's what I was charged. I also had 4 dents removed and some stone chips touched in while the car was there. I don't want to say what it cost, but for the time and effort that has gone in and the knowledge and experience I'd say it was very reasonable. I had a go at detailing my old silver Z3, I spent 2 full days on the paintwork so I know how labour intensive it is. Silver is a very forgiving colour and the car was worth a lot less than the Z4, and I was pleased with my efforts, but there's no way I'd have allowed myself to mess up the Z4!
 
Fantastic! The difference is amazing... thinking that I should get my bonnet done. Another thing to add to the 'to do' list... :thumbsup:
 
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