Has anyone had problems with their Imola red paint? I purchased a new 2005 330i a year ago for my wife and within the first month noticed a few chips in the paint on the hood . Now with just 10000 miles on the car it has small chips all over the hood and front wheel arches like it has been sand blasted:shifty
Upon inspecting other higher mileage E46's with different color paint they hardly have any chips? Is the Imola paint that fragile? My wife is fuming and ready to return the car to the dealer. Anyone have suggestions on how to go about this? A respray in my opinion is out of the question.

Any feedback would be helpful
TIA

Sienna red?

Has anyone had problems with their Imola red paint? I purchased a new 2005 330i a year ago for my wife and within the first month noticed a few chips in the paint on the hood . Now with just 10000 miles on the car it has small chips all over the hood and front wheel arches like it has been sand blasted:shifty
Upon inspecting other higher mileage E46's with different color paint they hardly have any chips? Is the Imola paint that fragile? My wife is fuming and ready to return the car to the dealer. Anyone have suggestions on how to go about this? A respray in my opinion is out of the question.

Any feedback would be helpful
TIA
if you dont want the affected areas repainted, then how do you recommend the chips be fixed?

I dont think the dealer will take back a car that was bought a year ago and has 10,000 miles because it has rock chips that must not be repainted.

Rock chips are just a fact of life, especially if you do alot of highway driving. In order to minimize the chances of getting them you should tell your wife to try and avoid staying behind big trucks even if they are a lane or two over. I stay as far away from them as possible and pass them as soon as I get the chance. Those things throw up all sorts of rocks and pebbles. You can even hear the debris bombarding your car as you drive behind these things.

Also, there is no way the dealer is going to take back a year old car with rock chips. If a respray is out of the question for you then your only alternative is to live with them. Might want to look into one of those clear bras that are virtually invisible unless you look close enough.

And as far as the imola paint being more fragile then other BMW colors... thats totally not true. The reason that you happen to see other e46's with none or barely any rock chips is that more likely than not they spend most if not all of their miles on city streets, where rock chips are far less likely to occur. Environment can also play a big factor. Roads under construction or near construction is something to consider as well.

Took the car to the dealer today and the rep from BMW NA looked at the paint chips and offered to take the car back and return our deposit of $15,000.
Apparently there is a problem with some of the non metallic paints since there is no clear coat on them.

Since when there is no clear on there. You r one lucky dude. Cause the chips like that arent the dealer's problem. The warrany covers only clear failure (like on old GM cars)