I just bought a new 2016 535i. I inspected it thoroughly at the dealer, and zero signs of any resprays, no accidents, etc. All the headlights and taillight date codes check out. I got it home and bought a paint depth gauge and was looking over to see how much clearcoat I have to polish with.

I found a weird oddity. The rear passenger quarter, and rear passenger door is showing much greater values than everywhere else on the car.
It stops right at the passenger front door, and at the trunk lid.

I've pulled back the rocker panels, fender flares and see no paint lines or change in color.

Is this just something weird that happened at the factory where the booth applied more base or clearcoat to these panels only, or is this a sign it possibly HAS been resprayed?




Offending Panel (similar readings on the rear quarter)




But then see below - immediately next at the FRONT passenger door, the paint depth returns to the average of the rest of the car (110-140).


Images 2 & 3 are the outlier depths reading 200+. Everywhere else is in a normal range that I've seen on my other MB/Audi cars owned.

Any thoughts?

It's definitely been refinished, either in the factory (more common than you think) or afterwards (transport damage or even a bump in the dealership yard) or just something happened during the 6 years of previous ownership. If done well, as it seems to have been, then there should be no problem.

Thanks - thats what I suspected.

I vowed to not buy a car that has been resprayed again as I was never happy...I felt like I checked this entire car over really thoroughly and found no signs. So this was a little disappointing to find, however because I peeled back the door trims, rear window trim and more and not finding any overspray, tape lines etc, I wonder if it really was done at the factory before anything was applied.

I cant imagine that once it was assembled, that they removed the windshield or trims entirely. Most shops I've seen don't go that far and just tape them back but I don't see any overspray signs when I lift them up.

I'll take some closer looks elsewhere and see if I can spot any other signs...but thus far all leads to signs it has NOT been in any accidents.