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The White Dog

C240Sport97 said:
why not get MB to come round to your house to take off the bumper ..

you can bring the car in for fitting new bumper when the time comes
Click to expand...

Lol.. Like your style, Sean. I'd like them to do the spraying round my house too but I don't think they'd go for it! Lol

I wanted them to do all the prepping of the new bumper first, so that I could just go there with my car for the install. But the need to spray the headlight washer covers means I will need to take the car to them so they can spray everything at the same time. John said he wants the same gun, same psi, same paint.. same everything to be used at the same time to ensure it all matches.

They're just going to have to make sure my car is safe, which it should be, by the sounds of it.

I might do a surprise visit while my car is there, to make sure it is where they said it'd be :devil:
 
C240Sport97 said:
....
what this means is that there should be cars of the same colour out there that look markedly different.
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That's exactly what it means by the sounds of it.

I mean, there he was today, with 2 swatches, clearly marked Iridium Silver.. But both were noticeably different from each other. Not drastically, but noticeably.
 
As ive said in my previous posts, my bodyshop has 7 swatches for 744 Sliver, its always been the way. too many varibles such as how the paint has been mixed, the age of the actual paint, where it is in the tank of paint - either the start of it or the end of it. etc etc.

I always drive my car down there, get them to match it up (I get the final say, but there keen eye always gets it 1st time) I leave the bumper with them and return to find a perfect match.

Nowt new :)
 
Put one of those hidden cameras behind the rear view mirror, that way you'll get to see everything. ;)
 
KillerHERTZ said:
As ive said in my previous posts, my bodyshop has 7 swatches for 744 Sliver, its always been the way. too many varibles such as how the paint has been mixed, the age of the actual paint, where it is in the tank of paint - either the start of it or the end of it. etc etc.

I always drive my car down there, get them to match it up (I get the final say, but there keen eye always gets it 1st time) I leave the bumper with them and return to find a perfect match.

Nowt new :)
Click to expand...

Yes, what you say about the paint variables makes sense.

When I next see them, I will stress to them again that I don't want the wings blown in either. They shouldn't need to, which they agreed with.

:thumb:
 
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is this swatches and VAT thing specific to silver?

never heard this before.
 
C240Sport97 said:
is this swatches and VAT thing specific to silver?

never heard this before.
Click to expand...

All paint colours have multiple versions, when I had my wings painted the guy was showing them to me, looked like the Dulux book in B&Q
 
Dog Insurance you can add 'third party liability insurance' and looking at an old policy i have in my hand it says it covers : Loss of or damage to property that does not belong to and is neither in the charge of or under the control oy you. So you maybe able to claim on there pet insurance.
 
Just to add its true, silver is a terribly difficult colour to match and there are various swabs for the same code colour... what our guys do is remove the fuel filler flap and take it to the paint shop where they match it perfectly.

Even then silver is a colour that has to be kept mixed well as silver has a lot of black in it which sinks...
 
paul73mt said:
Dog Insurance you can add 'third party liability insurance' and looking at an old policy i have in my hand it says it covers : Loss of or damage to property that does not belong to and is neither in the charge of or under the control oy you. So you maybe able to claim on there pet insurance.
Click to expand...

Hey Paul, thanks for posting up your thoughts :thumb:

Sadly, the dog owner did not have any pet insurance, so claiming is a no-go in that sense :(

The dog owner contacted me a few days ago and we talked it over.

After getting to understand his circumstances, I felt it was best not to ask any money from him. (See post #131)

:thumb:
 
jaymanek said:
Just to add its true, silver is a terribly difficult colour to match and there are various swabs for the same code colour... what our guys do is remove the fuel filler flap and take it to the paint shop where they match it perfectly.

Even then silver is a colour that has to be kept mixed well as silver has a lot of black in it which sinks...
Click to expand...


Hey bud :thumb:

Yes, I have heard that silver can be a right pain to match up :doh:

But after taking my car to the dealers this morning, we held the 2 swatches they had for Iridium Silver up against the car and reckon we have the right match.

As Justin mentioned, it seems it is indeed possible to match up a colour using a fuel cap etc, but it was felt that the best way to be sure would be to take the car to them so they could hold the swatches up against the bumper and front wings - hence me taking my car to them today.

I feel better having had some involvement in the matching process.

:thumb:
 
Ok, so tonight, I took my wheels off the car and put my old wheels on, in preparation for the car going in for the work.

That's one less thing to worry about! :)

I then decided to give my decent wheels a good wheels-off clean.
I waxed them 3 times inside and out before putting the on the car when I first got them (and have waxed them periodically since when I've had them off) so all they came up great and only needed a simple wiping out.

Hit them with some #425 and they're slippery as hell :rock:

I've been meaning to put some new tyres on the rears.. I've had new tyres in the garage waiting to go on.

I bought the new tyres a few months back. I looked at my current rear tyres and thought that they could do with changing, but after buying the new tyres and after looking at my current tyres again, I thought that it was maybe a bit early to be putting them on (they still had about 5mm of tread on them).

But now that the wheels are off, I thought maybe I should finally get the new tyres on.

The current rear tyres still have about 4mm of tread on them, but they've been on the car for 3.5 years now (they're my first set of rear tyres! lol) and they're feeling alittle solid.. so I reckon it's time to get the new rubber on.

The tread/ rubber on the new tyres feel alot softer and plyable when pressing my thumbs into them, so I reckon the old tyres are ageing abit now.

I rang Maidstone today and asked if they wouldn't mind putting my new tyres on for me. They said that's fine and I will be taking the rear wheels and new tyres to them in the morning.

As you'd expect, I have stressed how important it is that my wheels are not damaged in any way!!

I have been dreading this moment.. when the time would finally come to have new tyres put on :crazy:

But I suspect they will make sure they do a good job.. I'm sure they don't want this becoming a nightmare ontop of the pending work on my bumper.

I have previously spoken to the guy that does the tyres down there before and that's all he deals with all day everyday.. tyres, tyres, tyres. So I'm sure he'll do a good job.

Nonetheless, I will discuss things with him before he begins and I will be with him when he does it.

Car is now in resting in the garage, awaiting the call for me to take it up to get the bumper sorted.

No ETA on the new bumper yet, but I will ask them if they have any more info tomorrow.

:thumb:
 
Amazing piece of kit. When i was up there with the CL having the wheels realigned, i saw it in action, very impressive. Beats all that clunking and banging.
 
Ok, so I took my rear wheels and new tyres down to Maidstone Mercedes this morning to have the new tyres put on.

But unfortunately, they were not able to do them.

The guy there explained that, due to the dishes I have on the rear wheels, the tyres would have to be reverse-fitted, meaning that the wheel would need to be put face down on their tyre machine in order to get the new tyres on.

He said that there were very apprehensive about doing this as it may well damage the lips/ face of the wheels in the process.

He went on to explain that if they had protectors for the jaws on the tyre machine, it would be ok, but they didn't so he wasn't too happy about going ahead.

Not their fault and I appreciate their honesty, rather than giving it a go and then informing me that the wheel got damaged :crazy:

So I was still in need of somewhere to take my wheels to have the new tyres fitted :doh:

I called a local tyre/ exhaust centre near me. I have used them before when I had tyres put on my old wheels. My old wheels didn't have as much of a dish on them as my current wheels but they needed a careful tyre fitter nonetheless.

I explained the issue that Mercedes had and he said that he should have no problems doing it.

They have similar machines to Mercedes and the wheel would still have to go face down, witth the tyre being reverse-fitted.. but importantly, they had protectors for the jaws on their machine.

The slipped the plastic protectors on and then wrapped the jaws in paper towels and secured further using electrical tape. Lots of it! lol

I nervously watched as he started work. The old tyres came off with no real problem but the new 19", 30 profile tyres were a pig to get on.

Don't worry... this isn't going to end up turning into a horror story! lol!

Taking his time, the lad managed to get them on with no problems.

Wheels survived unscathed! :bannana:
The lad knew what he was doing and did a great job at protecting the wheels.

I know the owner down there and was chatting to him while the lad was doing my tyres. He said that he scared the crap out of the lad before by giving him his own 20" rims with 305/20/20 tyres to install! lol

So I will clean up the wheels tonight (as they have abit of tyre spooge on them) and then continue awaiting a call from the bodyshop to give me an idea of when my new bumper is likely to arrive.

I just left a message for John at the bodyshop to call me and should hopefully hear from him soon...
 
Update..

....still waiting for front bumper from Germany :doh:

But fingers crossed, it should be here by friday.... :dk:
 
It will come in a big AMG coffin size box, I bet you could even sell that on eBay :)
 
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