Yeah... never buy a car sight unseen.
The stealership did a masterful job of taking pictures of the car from angles that concealed the fact that the car had spent its entire life outdoors in the sun. It started its life in Hawaii with the 1st owner, then migrated to Jupiter Florida with the second owner. Then ended up at this lot.
I am working 80-100 hour weeks the mere fact that I had time to find it and purchase it is something that should be regarded as a miracle.
When we arrived to pick up the car, I just started laughing, I was duped.. So be it, it does indeed have 40K miles on it, it just sat outdoors its entire life... but it has 40K miles...
The paint was shot, along with most of the exterior plastic.. fortunately for me, I know a guy...
We struck a deal for a full re-spray. He did my sons E30 and did a fantastic job, except this time he was worried and wanted better than perfect.
So lets go on to the story.
See the problem here? The car, due to sun damage is 3 shades of Electric Blue.. Kudo's to the Stealership for their photography skillz that made that disappear.
Also kudo's to the salesman for not being forthright - Caveat emptor.
As I said I laughed, I had a 40K mile 2005 car, try to find one, I dare you!!
This was a hiccup, I got this....
First a picture of how it REALLY looks.
We decided to black out all the chrome as we replaced a lot of the parts on the car.
So here we go.. time tear it down and paint it....
The sun did some amazing damage, a lot of exterior parts had to be ordered, some were backordered dragging this ordeal out much longer than anticipated. I also went above and beyond and ordered a lot of blacked out parts as well as some 3M black vinyl so I could black out what could not be purchased.
I would like to point out, this has been going on for weeks, all while working 80+ hours many time ordering parts in the middle of the night and only sleeping 4-5 hours a night.
The poor girl showed a lot of battle scars from what I am assuming is a life in Condo or apartment parking lot life.
The paint / body guy had his work cut out for him. Just for me, he ordered a bouncy house paint booth, before this, he used to jut put up a plastic sheet paint booth. I was flattered by his effort, furthermore, he called in a favor from a friend who works in a high end restoration shop to spray the car.
What do we have here?
I cannot even begin to express how deep this paint cam out, IIRC 3 coats of paint 2 coats of clear. Fantastic results the paint POPS!!
Starting to come together, hopefully next week it will finally be done, delays from suppliers made this draw out much longer than anticipated.
As mentioned we are blacking out all the chrome the headlights are next.
