[m340iguy]

Hi everyone, I am new to this forum and would like to ask for your help and advice.

I own a BMW G20 M340i First Edition xDrive Model 2020, individual color Frozen Dark Grey, for my daily use.

She is absolutely beautiful, but it does catch everyone's eyes not only my own, leading to lots of envy-related key scratches, so far I've counted 8 (eight) after just 2 months of ownership (My previous car that I used on the same routes, was just sold after 3 years of usage with NO SCRATCHES AT ALL).

These so called envy-related key scratches happened in completely different places, including parking lots, gas stations, valet service and to top it off, inside the BMW Dealership while my car was there for a routine wash, yes you've read it correctly, inside the BMW dealership (When I got there, a service guy said they would not charge for the wash as a courtesy, as soon as I was handed my car I saw the damages and asked to speak to the manager, he completely dodged responsibility, said I didn't even buy my car at his Dealership and when I asked for a courtesy receipt or a copy of the entry checklist, He stated that He could not do that because the Dealership legal team had advised him not to provide any sort of evidence that my car was there that day. FunnyNotSoFunny Fact: I took the car there for a routine wash because since I had already had 1 envy-related scratch on my vehicle, I was fearsome to let anyone touch my car, so I figured the BMW Dealership would be a perfect place to take my car to...hard to swallow).

While I don't want to waste time feeling sorry for our society or hitting my head on the wall wondering how BMW choose their dealers, 8 of these scratches in 2 months, 4 per month, 1 per week.

If my math is not wrong and this pattern persists, after the 2 years I pretend to own this vehicle, my car will have at least 104 envy-related key scratches.

It's a frozen color with a matte finish, these scratches are very apparent, and according to BMW instructions (that I had to research by myself to find), there shouldn't be any polishing, waxing or coating applied to this paint in order to protect its charming frozen characteristics.

What do I do? How do I remove these scratches? How do I prevent it from happening other than not to use my car anymore or hire a full time private security for the car?

Oh..I went to another dealership for help, they said that the only solution was to POLISH it and loose the matte finish or to repaint all the pieces that had scratches, BUT they could not perform the service as their painting shop was not accredited by BMW and therefore not capable of repairing these damages.

Thank you very much for you help if you may.

[SportySpice]

STOP taking your car to the dealership for anything cosmetic - not even a car wash. Most of the scratches I had on my last car came from a dealership, and I suspect the same thing is happening with the current one. Find a reputable professional detailer ASAP. Sounds like you may need a paint protection film wrap and / or a dash cam with parking mode. Unfortunately, haters gonna hate. Good luck!

[VipinLJ]

Originally Posted by SportySpice

STOP taking your car to the dealership for anything cosmetic - not even a car wash. Most of the scratches I had on my last car came from a dealership, and I suspect the same thing is happening with the current one. Find a reputable professional detailer ASAP. Sounds like you may need a paint protection film wrap and / or a dash cam with parking mode. Unfortunately, haters gonna hate. Good luck!

+1. Dealerships don't give two hoots about your car. Their "detailing" methods are the worst. I don't blame them since detailing is a specialty area (asking the dealership to detail your car is like asking a family medicine physician to do a hepatic transplant).

Regarding haters. Well. They're everywhere. Nothing one can do about it unfortunately.

You cannot polish matte paint since the abrasive can cause shiny spots and you'll need a repaint. Are there no body shops there that deal with high end cars and matte paint? If not, I guess the only way is to try and get a perfecrly color matched gloss paint and then wrap it with xpel stealth? It might still look off though since I've never actually seen a matte painted car or one wrapped with xpel stealth.

[m340iguy]

Originally Posted by SportySpice

STOP taking your car to the dealership for anything cosmetic - not even a car wash. Most of the scratches I had on my last car came from a dealership, and I suspect the same thing is happening with the current one. Find a reputable professional detailer ASAP. Sounds like you may need a paint protection film wrap and / or a dash cam with parking mode. Unfortunately, haters gonna hate. Good luck!

Originally Posted by VipinLJ

+1. Dealerships don't give two hoots about your car. Their "detailing" methods are the worst. I don't blame them since detailing is a specialty area (asking the dealership to detail your car is like asking a family medicine physician to do a hepatic transplant).

Regarding haters. Well. They're everywhere. Nothing one can do about it unfortunately.

You cannot polish matte paint since the abrasive can cause shiny spots and you'll need a repaint. Are there no body shops there that deal with high end cars and matte paint? If not, I guess the only way is to try and get a perfecrly color matched gloss paint and then wrap it with xpel stealth? It might still look off though since I've never actually seen a matte painted car or one wrapped with xpel stealth.

Thanks for your answer. I live in Brazil, the most reputable professional detailer in town is known to be thug and to threaten to beat up any client Who dares to make a comment about the quality of the service he performed. But if all goes well you shouldn't have to worry about getting assaulted (very assuring right?).

I've quoted a paint protection film wrap with the only individual who does it here and they asked for the equivalent of U$7.500 for the job, I've felt robbed just by receiving this proposal. This is actually more expensive than to repaint the whole car.

This is not an easy situation and I appreciate your help.

[VipinLJ]

Good Lord. That is horrible. I'm not sure what else can be done other than a repaint then. Does your BMW dealership not know who else can do a matte paint job if they can't do it themselves?

[m340iguy]

Originally Posted by VipinLJ

Good Lord. That is horrible. I'm not sure what else can be done other than a repaint then. Does your BMW dealership not know who else can do a matte paint job if they can't do it themselves?

You are dealing here with a mother who turns her breast away from her newborn and let him starve to death, a mother that makes intentional scars in her son just because it came from a different father, a father that refuses to stitch his son's bleeding wound and watches him bleed to death with a smile in his face. Brazilian BMW dealerships do not care at all. If I ask for a recommendation to the manager, He will probably hand be over to one of his buds that will reward him with a big commission if I purchase any service from them, regardless of his qualifications or capability to execute the matte paint job correctly.

In Brazil, you can't really order a matte painted BMW as there is no possibility whatsoever of filing a custom order here, so matte paint BMW's only come once in a lifetime for M variants in very small batches (one unit for each of the 20 dealerships across the country). Other premium car brands also don't make custom orders available here, as a result, there is very few matte painted cars on our roads, so there is absolutely no demand for paint shops to obtain material and train themselves to serve this group of customers.

This would be the very reason BMW dealerships from Brazil should be well trained and qualified to take care of the very special cars they sell, but they've been getting away with bad service, bad attitude and all-around corrupt practices because Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Volvo cars really suck, so people don't really have an option if they want a premium car. I highly doubt any of these horror stories ever get to BMW Germany, so they assume everything if fine down here as their brand still have the leadership in sales of premium cars. As a German descendant myself I can say with confidence that if a German BMW director got served in a Brazilian BMW dealership He would go back to Germany the next day and order the factory to return to build aircraft engines so they could make combat aircraft and heavily bomb every single BMW dealership in this country.

I mean, how much would it really cost to recruit 20 good German BMW professionals, teach them Portuguese and infiltrate them, one inside each one of the 20 BMW dealerships so they can really oversee customer service? I guess it would cost a lot, probably more than they think these guys would be able to increase BMW customer satisfaction and as a result, their profit in Brazil.

Brazil is tough...

[Graaf_Autowerks]

Meanwhile in the USA, Karen complained to a manager because her free oil change was taking too long and she was missing the beginning of Maury.

[VipinLJ]

Originally Posted by m340iguy

You are dealing here with a mother who turns her breast away from her newborn and let him starve to death, a mother that makes intentional scars in her son just because it came from a different father, a father that refuses to stitch his son's bleeding wound and watches him bleed to death with a smile in his face. Brazilian BMW dealerships do not care at all. If I ask for a recommendation to the manager, He will probably hand be over to one of his buds that will reward him with a big commission if I purchase any service from them, regardless of his qualifications or capability to execute the matte paint job correctly.

In Brazil, you can't really order a matte painted BMW as there is no possibility whatsoever of filing a custom order here, so matte paint BMW's only come once in a lifetime for M variants in very small batches (one unit for each of the 20 dealerships across the country). Other premium car brands also don't make custom orders available here, as a result, there is very few matte painted cars on our roads, so there is absolutely no demand for paint shops to obtain material and train themselves to serve this group of customers.

This would be the very reason BMW dealerships from Brazil should be well trained and qualified to take care of the very special cars they sell, but they've been getting away with bad service, bad attitude and all-around corrupt practices because Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Volvo cars really suck, so people don't really have an option if they want a premium car. I highly doubt any of these horror stories ever get to BMW Germany, so they assume everything if fine down here as their brand still have the leadership in sales of premium cars. As a German descendant myself I can say with confidence that if a German BMW director got served in a Brazilian BMW dealership He would go back to Germany the next day and order the factory to return to build aircraft engines so they could make combat aircraft and heavily bomb every single BMW dealership in this country.

I mean, how much would it really cost to recruit 20 good German BMW professionals, teach them Portuguese and infiltrate them, one inside each one of the 20 BMW dealerships so they can really oversee customer service? I guess it would cost a lot, probably more than they think these guys would be able to increase BMW customer satisfaction and as a result, their profit in Brazil.

Brazil is tough...

I totally get it. Looks like there's no option then? Did you ask the wrap guy if it's possible only to wrap the scratched panels with xpel stealth?

[ruczko]

Sounds like the bigger problem is owing this car in Brazil and the poor customer service rather than the paint? Good luck man, I feel for you, that would drive me insane.

[Emily172013]

Beautiful finish but very hard to maintain. Matte is the clear coat. Maybe it can be resprayed with good results? I have a matte finish guitar that i never use just because the rubbing of my arm across it polishes out the finish.

[m340iguy]

Thank you all for your answers.

Originally Posted by VipinLJ

I totally get it. Looks like there's no option then? Did you ask the wrap guy if it's possible only to wrap the scratched panels with xpel stealth?

To be honest I'm not even sure this guy knows what xpel stealth is, I had to research on google, never heard of it before you mentioned. He was probably selling me any transparent matte wrap he uses or a matte colored wrap that looks similar to my vehicle's paint.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I could tell about xpel stealth, is that its self-healing proprieties does not apply for the vehicle paint, it applies to damages made to the wrap itself, so any scratches made to the paint prior to the xpel stealth application won't go away (maybe they would be disguised by a bit?).

One other thing, I saw that their Ultra Level 10 protection only protects the paint against light scratches, remember the scratches on my vehicle are scratches made by envious people whose only goal is to inflict damage on a property they can't and will never have, at this degree of heinous intent, I really believe they are pressing their keys against my vehicle as hard as they possibly can, and because these situations happen when no one is looking, I figure that if they try to do it and realize that no damage was inflicted, they will make a second attempt using an even greater amount of force. Let's go even further, even if this wrap has diamond strength, the guy would then insert nails on my tires. These criminals belong in jail, but Brazilian society is still at a social development stage where you can easily get away with murder because of a poorly written legislation with loopholes that a first day on the job paralegal can find, so even if I were able to catch someone doing that to my vehicle on camera, I would have absolutely no hopes for any sort of justice, not even getting the repair paid by them.

What I really think it would solve this issue, would be Frozen Dark Grey paint repair kit made by BMW, containing good illustrated instructions and a syringe with very thin switchable needles (for scratches with different widths) that would enable me to deposit just enough paint inside the scratches while contouring them and then simply watch them disappear. THAT'S THE DREAM.

Originally Posted by ruczko

Sounds like the bigger problem is owing this car in Brazil and the poor customer service rather than the paint? Good luck man, I feel for you, that would drive me insane.

The BMW Dealership attitude and criminal behavior is really what hurts the most, I really needed that "You can count on us, don't worry about a thing, We will find a solution for you." all the times I went there for help and guidance.

Originally Posted by Emily172013

Beautiful finish but very hard to maintain. Matte is the clear coat. Maybe it can be resprayed with good results? I have a matte finish guitar that i never use just because the rubbing of my arm across it polishes out the finish.

Are you talking about respraying just the matte coat on the entire vehicle? Who am I going to trust to respray it? Using which product? The BMW Dealership at my town is not even accredited by BMW (their general manager words). The other one closest to my location (where I have a business) was the one who made several scratches on my car during a routine wash and then denied responsibility and were advised by their legal team to suppress any evidence that my vehicle was ever there.

[VipinLJ]

Oh yes. What I meant was. Paint the scratched panels with normal gloss paint, color matched as close as possible to the paint under the matte clear coat. And then apply xpel stealth over the gloss paint to give it a matte look. That's the best I can think of now.

[Stealth330e]

Here in the UK you can get PP Spray now instead of PPF and comes in matt. You can also buy DIY Ceramic Coating specifically for Matt or Gloss PPF's around £50.00.

[nealjay]

great color friend has same one he did
Ceramic Pro is a multi-layerable, clear, liquid nano-ceramic coating. When cured, this technology will transform itself on the surface to a permanent, durable yet flexible glass shield.
rain doesnt even stay with those pesky watermarks
I got a black car haven't got time to do it and need to cause a few washes later I see a few lil swirls here and there.
I dont even let bmw do the complimentary wash after they re horrible and waste of time.