Paint color advice?

Rmd

Rmd

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I’m in the market to pick up a “new to me” car. Not a pro so I haven’t detailed any cars other than mine and a couple at the SoCal auto geek meet ups. Looking for paint color input from a detailer’s perspective. Am looking at two cars, one in BMW white and the other in BMW space grey metallic. Have steel grey metallic BMW currently and love the metallic flake pop from proper maintenance; no experience with a non-metallic color like white.

What do you all think would be the best bang for the buck in terms of time spent on detailing and results achieved? I’m defining results as meeting my need to to spend a few hours on a weekend detailing and keeping DD car looking a detailer owns it, and the fun of playing with new products. Even light swirls and marring cause me grief, so black, especially the dreaded BMW jet black, is completely off the table. I want to be able to put some effort in and see some results. Is white too “set it and forget it” for someone who likes to tinker with detailing products and techniques?
 
Get white all 3 cars I have are white easiest color to take car of.
 
I agree with white. My previous BMW (2009) was Alpine White and I loved the color and the ease of care for it!
 
the grey bmw one will probably be easier to take care of than the white bmw. post pictures of each so others could see.
 
^^ I suppose to an extent grey would be easier just because you can see what's going on what your paint. As in the white, it's tough to see the condition at times
 
hernandez.art13 said:
the grey bmw one will probably be easier to take care of than the white bmw. post pictures of each so others could see.
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Will post pics if I buy one. cant afford to buy both and compare.
 
MemphisGrizz said:
^^ I suppose to an extent grey would be easier just because you can see what's going on what your paint. As in the white, it's tough to see the condition at times
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I meant it as grey hides more than white, so in that case it would be easier to maintain because the swirls would not show as easily.

my car is Metallic white and you can easily see the swirls in the paint opposed to other members who have grey paint and a lot of the swirls are more hidden to the naked eye.
 
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I would go with the gray,my wife's ride is an 11 Edge,always looks clean no swirls looks brand new! Drives me crazy, I have a 12 black charger,and we know keeping black beautiful is a full time job, but I love it!
 
Go with the grey if you want to have pride in your work it will show more, and is still nowhere near black for seeing imperfections.

P.S. I have grey metallic ;)
 
I like white cars also. My wife has a 2012 White Tiguan. I have a 2011 Compass in Bright Silver. No more dark colors for me personally. White looks really good when properly taken car of.
 
Being on my second BMW i opted for black (2007 Sapphire Black Metallic) due to the fact i wanted to totally refine my detailing skills and wanted it as my rolling advertisement for my customers to see. The one previous to that was Orient Blue, almost black and a midnight blue, also metallic and for the same reason...to make sure i can get that paint perfect or at least close. Having said that, understand my objective...to practice and refine my skills. And i have. My current black car is about 95% corrected and stays that way with minimal maintenance. That comes with researching and then practicing what works. It is my daily driven vehicle and having learned and practiced over the years have reduced the effort to keep it in top condition with minimal effort.

Again, that was my approach but understanding what another detailer may want as a color that is easy to maintain AND want to practice their detailing skills on their personal vehicle, i would probably want something i could see results easier. To me that would be the Titanium Silver as opposed to the Arctic White. For me it has always been slightly easier to pick up paint defects on silver colors more than white. I have to work my light source more to find defects in white than silver. But both silver and white colors certainly look better than black when equally marred.

I guess in summary...

If you want to practice refining your skills i would suggest you go with something that can show you better the results of your trial and error. Combining that with something that looks good most of the time to most of the people i would go with silver over white.

This is just my opinion and i clearly accept and respect those who prefer white colored vehicles.
 
Good question but BMW doesn't offer a non metallic grey/silver and calls it Silver (Titanium Silver) anyway. I have always referred to it as silver and the metallic flakes make it appear silver too.
 
Whoops, sorry but a correction...

BMW does now offer "gray" however they are still metallic but without wrestling semantics here i wanted to correct my earlier info.
 
Rmd said:
•Looking for paint color input from a detailer’s perspective.

•What do you all think would be the best bang for the buck in terms of
-time spent on detailing and
-results achieved?

•I’m defining results as
-meeting my need to to spend a few hours on a weekend detailing and
-keeping DD car looking a detailer owns it, and
-the fun of playing with new products.
Click to expand...
IMO...This meets your above criteria:



Bob
 
Thanks Bob, but a little over the allocated budget. For now I'm partial the e60 series, which ended in 2010.


Puckman said:
Good question but BMW doesn't offer a non metallic grey/silver and calls it Silver (Titanium Silver) anyway. I have always referred to it as silver and the metallic flakes make it appear silver too.
Click to expand...

I haven't gone to look at the car yet, but its advertised as Space Grey Metallic, which is a slightly lighter grey than the Steel Grey Metallic which is my current BMW.

Also appreciate the input on developing detailing skills. The car I have now has been a great detailing color to learn correction ever since bought it in 2002 and right after buying it I discovered the predecessor PBMG site to the current AG/autopia, (I think it was properautocare.com) and bought a kit with a first gen PC7424 (not xp) with 6.5 in lake country flat pads, several Menz polishes and BF wet diamond. It was years before i learned what a bad combo the gen 1 PC and 6.5 pads was. Most say that 6.5 and the current 7424XP is not an effective machine to spin the 6.5 pads well. Magnify that with the first gen 7424. Detailing was not nearly as enjoyable as it is today with a GG6 running 5.5 pads. The extra power of the GG, or even a 7424XP makes all the difference in the world. The old 7424 still works great with 4" pads to get into the tight spots and to machine apply wax. Not too good for much else though.

Thanks for all the input guys.
 
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