I just painted the bottom trim except the back on my 94" 540ia this weekend and I am not pleased with the results.
My car should get the black metallic trim but I don't like the way it looks. To me, the last bottom 5 inches look like the road, so I took a chance & tried the color from the M5's which I beleive is Sterling Silver 229.
When I applied it on a test spot I didn't like the way it looked and it was too similar to my cars finish which is Granite Silber. It looked like I tried to match the paint and failed.
I went back to the paint store and asked them to lighten it just a touch, but now it looks like primer.
Here are the results:
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f238/Baguaman/P1010036.jpg
I've been working on this car almost every day for almost 3 months and it looks a lot better but I still have a ways to go.
To me, the bottom trim is clearly too light and makes the car look cheap.
I was wondering if anybody here with Granite Silber Metallic has done the same and which color ultimatly ended up looking good.
I am swinging towards using the silver metallic paint that is used to refinish the BMW wheels, at least it will match the wheels which look fine against my body color.
I may just end up painting a 3" strip of masking tape, choose 3 or 4 colors and tape it on 1 bottom side of the car and see which one works best, unless someone has done this with my finish and got good results.
Thank you
Fred/Houston

I just painted the bottom trim except the back on my 94" 540ia this weekend and I am not pleased with the results.
My car should get the black metallic trim but I don't like the way it looks. To me, the last bottom 5 inches look like the road, so I took a chance & tried the color from the M5's which I beleive is Sterling Silver 229.
When I applied it on a test spot I didn't like the way it looked and it was too similar to my cars finish which is Granite Silber. It looked like I tried to match the paint and failed.
I went back to the paint store and asked them to lighten it just a touch, but now it looks like primer.
Here are the results:
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f238/Baguaman/P1010036.jpg
I've been working on this car almost every day for almost 3 months and it looks a lot better but I still have a ways to go.
To me, the bottom trim is clearly too light and makes the car look cheap.
I was wondering if anybody here with Granite Silber Metallic has done the same and which color ultimatly ended up looking good.
I am swinging towards using the silver metallic paint that is used to refinish the BMW wheels, at least it will match the wheels which look fine against my body color.
I may just end up painting a 3" strip of masking tape, choose 3 or 4 colors and tape it on 1 bottom side of the car and see which one works best, unless someone has done this with my finish and got good results.
Thank you
Fred/Houston

That's funny - it does look just like primer - glad you said it first.

I have nothing constructive to add, except that maybe colormatching is best.

I say paint the sides back to black.. or get side skirts and color match

and color match the front. And if you're goint to get sideskirts.. and color match, you better to do the back to.

.. BASICALLY..... it's not an M5.. so color match it.

Yeah, colormatch it all, including the back bumper. It will look perfect once you have.

+1 on color matching