Like the Chiaretto Red, This 2003 Alpine White M5 came to us all the way from Chicago for a paint correction and ceramic coating. The owner was already familiar with the benefits of Opti-Coat from his other car, and wanted his new M5 to have the same quality protection.
We started with a deep cleaning, pulling off trim, tail lights, and aftermarket badges. The drive from Chicago had taken a few insects out of the gene pool, a generous dosing of power clean melted them right off the leading edges of the M5
We removed the carbon fiber knockoff emblems, not even the gorilla glue utilized was a match for the proprietary BMW roundel removal tool (click to enlarge pics):
In fact, we made a video of the process featuring the specialty tool:
We know BMW’s, especially E39’s, and all their dirt accumulation areas. Trim and lights were removed and soon the car looked like it had entered a chop shop.
Another concern the owner had was the poor touch up job done on the front of the car; although it looked like someone had used whiteout to touch up paint chips, in reality we suspect this is due to the huge paint brush that comes with BMW touch up paint. Ironically, all the excess paint remained, except on the actual paint chips.
We wet sanded away the excess paint, and reapplied (with a fine point brush) new touchup paint where appropriate. Sanding marks were later polished away with compound (making sanding marks disappear is still one of life’s miracles).
And on to the polishing, click to enlarge.
Headlights were refreshed and window trim was polished to a high shine
The trunk lid had been repainted, badly. The difference in paint texture had trapped pollutants and slowly changed the color of the trunk lid to an off-white/beige. This was mostly noticeable after we polished away the contaminate. The trunk, matched much more closely with the rest of the car now. There was a significant amount of overspray on the front fender as well. We got rid of all of it, though forgot to take a picture so you will have to take our word for it..
All trim pieces were cleaned and treated with 303 Aerospace protectant. 
The style 65 wheels were removed, cleaned, and coated with Opti-Coat. The owner accused us of performing magic on the wheels as he did not recognize them anymore 🙂 Tires were dressed in 303 aerospace protectant, and exhaust tips were polished up as well, revealing the dual wall construction.
Following a final inspection, the car was prepped, and coated with Optimum Opti-Coat 2.0. We finished the day with a photoshoot, my own Titanium Silver M5 made a cameo as well, sporting its fresh coat of Gtechniq EXO.
