From dale_at_unofficialbmw.com Fri Jul 31 10:47:35 1998
From: Dale Beuning <dale_at_unofficialbmw.com>

>Subject: Re: Black specs on rear of car

To: e36m3_at_Mailing-List.net
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1998 10:39:59 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: dale_at_unofficialbmw.com ()

Ken,

On my 10/94 production Avus Blau M3, I had several thousand black spots all over the extreme rear of the car. The top of the bumper, where the paint is thicker, had many many shallow indents in the paint, where the top coat or two had been eaten away. But on the thinner vertical surfaces, something ate through the paint, down to the black primer. Also my red AZ license plate looked like it had the measles. My Roundel and ///M3 emblems were pitted, as well as the plastic of my taillights.

This first showed up on the car in September of '96, when the car had approx 10k miles on it. At this point the car had _NO_ track time on it, and had been very conservatively driven.

After much thinking about the problem, the only thing I could come up with was battery acid. Somehow the battery overflowed battery acid out the vent and into the airstream, which then dispersed it in nice little droplets all over the back of my car.

I talked to my regular dealer in AZ and they said "couldn't possibly be the fault of the car, must have been something you drove through, sorry charlie, see ya". I talked to the other dealer in AZ, explained about battery acid overflow, and he said "we'll take care of you".

Chapman BMW repainted the rear of the car, replaced the emblems, replaced the battery and the vent tube. Kudo to Chapman BMW.

The only other person I know of who has also had this problem is Mike Gayle from Wash DC. He had an early E36 318i, and his happened at aprox 60k miles, so he just had it repainted.

Ken, what's the production date of your '95 M3? What color is it?

Dale
'95 M3
'88 325is
'80 528i

>>>Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 16:03:16 -0700
>>>Subject: Tiny Black Specs - Final Episode (Expensive Trip to the Track)
>Just to keep everyone updated. You may recall, I noticed numerous tiny black
>specs on the rear bumper and truck lid of my 1995 M3 after a day at
>Thunderhill. I've tried everything to remove the spots, including: Simple

--

                       |            Dale Beuning           |
                       |       email: dale_at_unofficialbmw.com     |
                       | web: http://www.unofficialbmw.com |
                        -----------------------------------