Why are we offered less colors than the E46 M3 generation?

[checkmate]

I'm scratching my head over why the E9X generation owners got shafted with regard to the exterior colors over the E36 and E46 generations.

2nd part to my question:

How do you justify spending $$$ on the individual colors when there are other car makes offering the same as either standard or for only a few hundred dollars more.

Case and point-

Monte Carlo Blue metallic paint ($5,000 Individual option). My wife has a 2009 Civic with Atomic Blue paint which looks identical to the MCB when compared. Having seen the MCB in person..I hate to admit but the civic had a better finish.

[kyleb350]

If you look at the majority of buyers in this segment (MB, Audi included), most of the cars are grey, black, and white. BMW probably saves a lot of money buy not having to produce extra paint colors. So, why not put the extra production costs on the consumer for the crazy colors?

[USC2000]

See if you can get Honda to get you a Civic in Dakar Yellow (or any other color that is not available for the Civic) as an individual color and see what they tell you.

[BMW Fanatic]

Originally Posted by USC2000

See if you can get Honda to get you a in Dakar (or any other color that is not available for the Civic) as an individual color and see what they tell you.

+1

As for comparing the Civic colour to the ///M colour, please look under direct sunlight and you'll see the depth and perfection BMW has put into MCB. Beautiful colour and also the flagship colour for the new M5, you might wanna put your flame suit on

[checkmate]

Originally Posted by USC2000

See if you can get Honda to get you a in Dakar (or any other color that is not available for the Civic) as an individual color and see what they tell you.

Originally Posted by BMW Fanatic

+1

As for comparing the Civic colour to the ///M colour, please look under direct sunlight and you'll see the depth and perfection BMW has put into MCB. Beautiful colour and also the flagship colour for the new M5, you might wanna put your flame suit on

Guys,
Yellow by any other name is still yellow. Different manufacturer's put a spin to the names as is customary.I know that BMW like most German companies use a water based paint due to environmental concerns. The flipside is that its extremely soft and more suspectible to chips and swirls.

I respect the BMW colors completely however my question is with regard to the astronomic prices they charge for the paint. I'm all for the market dictating prices but I'm referring to the price gouging in the absence of a wider standard color palette for its prospective customers.

[Technic]

This thread is basically the same to the one criticizing BMW for not offering a performance line of accessories/retrofits. And the answer is basically the same: there's not that much money in that business anymore -by BMW standards.

I think that two particular elements really affected negatively the E9x M3 compared with the E46 M3:

- it is a much more expensive car to build than the E46 M3.
- it came out at the worst possible moment in time (financial-wise)

IMO, those two elements made the E9x M3 a very strict product-wise offering by BMW: extremelly few exterior colors, extremelly few interior colors, the major bundle of options, the extremelly few updates (mechanical or otherwise) during its production run. Add to that an engine that has not been shared with any other platform (at least yet, but I doubt that it will be at this point) and the costs simply cannot be amortized somewhere else.

And you can see all that in the numbers: 70,000+ E46 M3 sold vs less than 40,000 (to date) E9x M3. Remember, back in late 2007/early 2008 BMW estimated that the E9x M3 was going to surpass the E46 M3 by at least 30,000 units (100,000 vs 70,000). And in paper it looked like they were going to pull it off -the E90 M3 was just $4000 or so more expensive than the last E46 M3.

Well, it did not happen. And this is what we got now, an E9x M3 that requires Individual to get out of the monotony.

[mkoesel]

Originally Posted by checkmate

How do you justify spending $$$ on the individual colors when there are other car makes offering the same as either standard or for only a few hundred dollars more.

For some arbitrary subset of the available Individual colors, sure. But that misses the point entirely. The cost has nothing to do with the color of the paint in question.

BMW charges extra for Individual paint because the car has to be taken off the line and put through a seperate painting process. They pass the cost of this onto the consumer, and of course make a healthy profit on it as well, just like on every other product they sell.

If Honda offered a custom paint program, they'd charge a bundle for it as well.

[mkoesel]

Originally Posted by Technic

And you can see all that in the numbers: 70,000+ E46 M3 sold vs less than 30,000 (to date) E9x M3.

Is it really that few Technic? For comparison, BMW sold 20,548 E60 M5, 9,087 E63 M6, and 5,056 E64 M6. That's a total of nearly 35,000 cars. Granted the M3 still has another year or so left, but I have to believe it will Eclipse the much pricier M5/M6 by more than just a few thousand cars.

I know we've seen M3 sales totals sprinkled out here and there over the years, but I have a hard time believing that when the final numbers are revealed they will be anything less than 50,000 total units sold. Of course, even if that comes to pass, that's still quite a few less than the E46 managed.

[e46e92love]

Originally Posted by USC2000

See if you can get Honda to get you a in Dakar (or any other color that is not available for the Civic) as an individual color and see what they tell you.

+1.

Thank you.

Cheers,
BMW North America

[e46e92love]

Originally Posted by mkoesel

Is it really that few Technic? For comparison, BMW sold 20,548 E60 M5, 9,087 E63 M6, and 5,056 E64 M6. That's a total of nearly 35,000 cars. Granted the M3 still has another year or so left, but I have to believe it will Eclipse the much pricier M5/M6 by more than just a few thousand cars.

I know we've seen M3 sales totals sprinkled out here and there over the years, but I have a hard time believing that when the final numbers are revealed they will be anything less than 50,000 total units sold. Of course, even if that comes to pass, that's still quite a few less than the E46 managed.

Making it all the more exclusive

Seriously, this car is why they are going to start sharing platforms and engines, which will take a lot of the souls of the cars, but that is an entirely different conversation for an entirely differnt day.

I will add though, the S65 can be found in other platforms, the e60///M5, because I doubt it really cost that much to turn the S85 into the S65.

Cheers,
e46e92

[checkmate]

Originally Posted by BMW Fanatic

+1

As for comparing the Civic colour to the ///M colour, please look under direct sunlight and you'll see the depth and perfection BMW has put into MCB. Beautiful colour and also the flagship colour for the new M5, you might wanna put your flame suit on

Originally Posted by e46e92love

+1.

Thank you.

Cheers,
BMW North America

Dakar Yellow by another name from Honda i.e. what's in a name?

[stefan]

I think a lot of it has to do with the environmental-friendliness of the new paint. Ever notice how much lower-quality the E9x's paint is? But it's environmentally friendly.

[mkoesel]

Originally Posted by checkmate

Dakar Yellow by another name from Honda i.e. what's in a name?

Why are you posting pictures of cars that are out of production? We could just as easily post a picture of an E36 M3 and a Z3 in Dakar Yellow. For that matter, an E92 M3 Edition as well.

Why is it relevant?

[checkmate]

Originally Posted by mkoesel

Why are you posting pictures of cars that are out of production? We could just as easily post a picture of an E36 M3 and a Z3 in Dakar Yellow. For that matter, an E92 M3 Edition as well.

Why is it relevant?

Its relevant to the question that was posed. i.e. would another company offer a similar color to Dakar Yellow if requested. The answer is yes. Btw-the third picture is that of a honda civic type R in production.

[mkoesel]

Originally Posted by checkmate

Its relevant to the question that was posed. i.e. would another company offer a similar color to Dakar Yellow if requested. The answer is yes.

No, those cars you posted had yellow standard in their palette of available colors. They were not painted that way as a special request. And if they somehow were, then it surely cost more than just a few hundred bucks.

Btw-the third picture is that of a honda civic type R in production.

That's not a US Civic, so it wasn't available to your wife either, had she wanted it. Along the same lines, BMW has a yellow car in production as well - the Atacama Z4.

[stefan]

Are you guys really arguing brand superiority over paint jobs? What's the most popular BMW colour by a landslide? Oh.. right.. And the second most? Hmm.

How many units do you think they would sell if dakar was a standard paint option? Or should they optimize, gouge your wallet, and pull a car off std production line to paint it? Isn't it obvious? Not to mention those exotic colours probably require more R&D to safely develop.

[Blindside_137]

Originally Posted by stefan

Are you guys really arguing brand superiority over paint jobs? What's the most popular BMW colour by a landslide? Oh.. right.. And the second most? Hmm.

How many units do you think they would sell if dakar was a standard paint option? Or should they optimize, gouge your wallet, and pull a car off std production line to paint it? Isn't it obvious? Not to mention those exotic colours probably require more R&D to safely develop.

QFT

[smmmurf]

I think you meant dyno blue pearl. and yes, it looks a lot like MCB. haha.

[Technic]

Originally Posted by mkoesel

Is it really that few Technic? For comparison, BMW sold 20,548 E60 M5, 9,087 E63 M6, and 5,056 E64 M6. That's a total of nearly 35,000 cars. Granted the M3 still has another year or so left, but I have to believe it will Eclipse the much pricier M5/M6 by more than just a few thousand cars.

I know we've seen M3 sales totals sprinkled out here and there over the years, but I have a hard time believing that when the final numbers are revealed they will be anything less than 50,000 total units sold. Of course, even if that comes to pass, that's still quite a few less than the E46 managed.

You are correct... worldwide sales to date are in the 35-40000 units range.

[Eau Rouge]

Originally Posted by checkmate

I'm scratching my head over why the E9X generation owners got shafted with regard to the exterior colors over the E36 and E46 generations.

2nd part to my question:

How do you justify spending $$$ on the individual colors when there are other car makes offering the same as either standard or for only a few hundred dollars more.

Case and point-

Monte Carlo Blue metallic paint ($5,000 Individual option). My wife has a 2009 Civic with Atomic Blue paint which looks identical to the MCB when compared. Having seen the MCB in person..I hate to admit but the civic had a better finish.

Only BMW is qualified to inform you about paint pricing. No one here that might know isn't going to publicly disclose the info.

You can justify spending $5k any way you wish although the justification may not be sensible nor stand the test of logic. Try as I may, the $5k is simply not something that I will do for what is available. If the Chrome Shadow were available, I might bite.

Since you mentioned paint, I wonder how many blue colors are enough for the standard selection? Nominally, there's LeMans and Interlagos, while as a practical matter there are four which include Silverstone and Jerez. IMO, that's too much blue in the absence of a great selection overall. I'm for ditching two of the blues in favor of a second red (a metallicized variant of Imola Red would do fine) and either a yellow or orange would be an upgrade for the paint selection at the expense of ditching the pair of blues.

While we're at it, why not metallicize Jet Black (a beautiful paint IMO) in the interest of looks over the long haul (i.e. a measure of obfuscation against the inevitable swirls that jump out at you when on black like no other paint color)?

[bigjae1976]

I think BMW kind of screwed up the color palette for the E9X M3. I think Jerez Black was supposed to be the metallicized jet black.

I got an individual color because I wanted something unique and I plan on keeping the car (didn't care about resale value). Yeah, I could have gotten a respray or vinyl but that's not the same.

But Monte Carlo Blue should have been a standard color instead of LeMans Blue.

[Technic]

Originally Posted by bigjae1976

I think BMW kind of screwed up the color palette for the E9X M3. I think Jerez Black was supposed to be the metallicized jet black.

I got an individual color because I wanted something unique and I plan on keeping the car (didn't care about resale value). Yeah, I could have gotten a respray or vinyl but that's not the same.

But Monte Carlo Blue should have been a standard color instead of LeMans Blue.

Yes.