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M3 back from wheel refurb and small body repairs

DivideBYZero

DivideBYZero

Lifer
My car had developed a bubble just inside the drivers door and all four wheels had some type of kerbing or aluminium corrosion where the laquer had been chipped. Knowing this sort of thing never gets better by itself I had been promising to get it all done for about a year.

I chose a BMW Body shop to do the work, the bubble, all four wheels (with new centre caps, ///M badges) and a paintless dent repair on the passenger side where an SUV driver had decided to stop his door opening with my car.

Before:
m3doorBubble.jpg


m3preRear1.jpg

m3preRear2.jpg



In the shop after paint, wheels being put back on, close up of one of the wheels:
m3inShop1.jpg

m3inShopWheel.jpg



The final result:
m3doneFront.jpg

m3doneRear.jpg

m3doneSide.jpg


:wub: The e46 M3. 🙂
 
WMK!

I've seen pics of your car several times, but it always shocks me how good that green looks on it.
 
Hey, I like the color of your car there, man, what's that supposed to be, a sort of a cross between piss yellow and puke green, ain't it?
 
zerocool84 said:
Do you drive it in the on snowy roads with lots of salt? I've never seen wheel corrosion that bad before.
Click to expand...
It's a common problem with the 19" M3 wheel. It's face is bare turned metal with clear lacquer over the top, so if you kerb it the local corrosion lifts the lacquer and you get a chain reaction all across the wheel.
 
DivideBYZero said:
It's a common problem with the 19" M3 wheel. It's face is bare turned metal with clear lacquer over the top, so if you kerb it the local corrosion lifts the lacquer and you get a chain reaction all across the wheel.
Click to expand...

Bare exposed non oxidized or anodized aluminum + salt = D: Aluminum is a highly reactive metal, in fact that's why it doesn't exist in plain form in nature and must be chemically extracted. Most don't realize it because in most cases it's anodized, alloyed, coated, or treated in such a way that the exposed surface is bonded somehow and not available to react. The rough machine finish and non polished surface just makes it worse due to the increased surface area for reaction and retention of contaminants.
 
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DivideBYZero said:
It's a common problem with the 19" M3 wheel. It's face is bare turned metal with clear lacquer over the top, so if you kerb it the local corrosion lifts the lacquer and you get a chain reaction all across the wheel.
Click to expand...

OHHHH kerb is curb. So you curbed your wheels. That's why then. Glad I've never done that. I never get close to curbs or kerbs. I'm way too careful with my car.
 
zerocool84 said:
OHHHH kerb is curb. So you curbed your wheels. That's why then. Glad I've never done that. I never get close to curbs or kerbs. I'm way too careful with my car.
Click to expand...

Oh, I'm super careful, but there were some tight mall car parks, with lane markings laid out with 8" kerbing (stupid) that just upped and owned me. 😀 This is five years of use, too.
 
DivideBYZero said:
Oh, I'm super careful, but there were some tight mall car parks, with lane markings laid out with 8" kerbing (stupid) that just upped and owned me. 😀 This is five years of use, too.
Click to expand...

I hate that shit in drivethrus here, narrow lane tight turn 90 degs with high curbs. My car with 275/40s in the front on 9" wheels gives it the turning radius of an aircraft carrier at low speeds.

So far so good but I'm super careful, backing out and parking if I need to.

It's funny too you go through one of those and the curbs are just entirely black and silver at it's apex on both sides :awe:
 
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exdeath said:
Lol. It's a famous quote from a movie, car is sharp, I'm just giving OP shit.
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I figure the more the merrier!
My plane has the same shade for a trim color, but of course drab and flat and ancient looking. The official term for it is "baby shit yellow" 😀

Car looks great OP. Nice refurb. M3 reloaded.
 
What is that car next to the M3 in the garage?

The fix up on the wheels was masterful. I've seen corrosion that bad, but only on wheels that have spent many years in snow/salty climate.
 
Doppel said:
What is that car next to the M3 in the garage?
Click to expand...

One of the new Rolls Royce. The bodyshop is also an authorised repair shop for RR, which is another reason I used them. When you're there you see a few RR with damage waiting to go in for surgery. I figured If you can repair one of the most exclusive and well built cars on the planet to manufacturer standards, you should be able to fix up a lowly M3 to a high standard. I wasn't wrong, they have done a wonderful job.
 
exdeath said:
Bare exposed non oxidized or anodized aluminum + salt = D: Aluminum is a highly reactive metal, in fact that's why it doesn't exist in plain form in nature and must be chemically extracted. Most don't realize it because in most cases it's anodized, alloyed, coated, or treated in such a way that the exposed surface is bonded somehow and not available to react. The rough machine finish and non polished surface just makes it worse due to the increased surface area for reaction and retention of contaminants.
Click to expand...

Yeah, and it will physically bond to neighboring metals too in some conditions, especially if you soak it in salt water. I bought a beater a while ago that had aluminum rims. It needed new tires but I couldn't get the lug nuts on one wheel off. I took it to a tire shop, they couldn't get the lug nuts off. I took it to a mechanic who tried and he couldn't get the lug nuts off or even snap the studs. No matter what we did they physically wouldn't turn. What happened was that the steel lug nuts bonded to the aluminum rim so it was effectively one hunk of metal. We had to take apart the axle, grind off the back of the studs and then hammer on them from the back end to break the bond and push them out of the rim.

If you've got aluminum rims and you live in a place that uses salt you should take the wheels off once and a while to prevent that bonding.
 
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