changing from M sport to SE

[Chris61]

Hi all, well i have finally had enough of my year old 3.0d M sport. After BMW deciding they are not going to make side steps to fit it, i had enough of the stone chips that the car was suffering. At 7500 mls i have had to have all 4 doors painted, rear arches and cills. They have then covered the archs and rear cill section with clear protective film but can you believe no film to the bottoms of the doors where they had all chipped.
I had quite a big argument when i went to pick it up due to the increased orange peel effect i now had on all doors. I managed to get a little bit of contribution from BMW who do not seem to see the paint chipping as a fault. I originally chopped in a 2 yr old discovery 3 that only had about 3 stone chips in all. How they can honestly think that it is acceptable to have such major paintwork carried out at 7500 mls and not class it as a fault is beyond me. Anyway i have now ordered the latest SE model in platinum grey with side steps which seem to stop all the stone chipping completely. I have specked it up to give me basically the same spec as my m sport with the latest 20inch alloys etc, so hopefully this time it will be ok. I would advise all m sport owners to keep an eye on the stone chips unless maybe i was jst unlucky. Anyway roll on end of January when the new one turns up. Happy xmas to you all, regards, Chris.