[capt_slow]

My new i3 came preinstalled with the front license plate bracket. I wasn't too happy about that, so I looked into ways to fill up the holes made by the four self-tapping screws. There seems to be two camps on how to do this:

1. Fill up the holes with Bondo or your favorite plastic filler and paint
2. Use a body-colored plastic plug to fill the hole

I ended up going the Bondo route, but I did experiment with painting some plastic plugs. I used this Bondo kit. Here's my process:

Bumper with the bracket removed. Note the screws caused the surrounding material to swell up. Use a razor to shave off these parts to make edges of the holes flush with the body.


Mask up the area well. I do my own touch-up and detailing, and stand by the philosophy that the less factory paint you touch the better. I've seen some tutorials that sand and patch the surrounding 1-2 inches around the damage, but I think it's overkill here. Clean and fill up the holes per package instructions. Once dry, I used a razor to even out the filler to keep it flush with the panel.


Mask a larger footprint for priming, to avoid getting the stuff on a panel (my mistake here). Then sand with 380 grit sandpaper. I skipped some of the coarse grit stuff. Prime the holes per package instructions. My mistake here was being impatient and not allowing extra time to dry before sanding. I gave it the minimum 30 minutes before sanding even and ended up taking some of the primer off.


Time to paint. Use your favorite touch up paint or matched spray paint. I used OEM BMW touch up along with some touch up sticks. Touch up method I used is similar to that of Ammo NYC's. Allow to dry (I let it go overnight) and wet sand with 1000 grit sandpaper to even and smooth. I repeated this with another 2 coats.


Apply clear coat. Allow to dry (I let it go overnight) and wet sand with 1000 grit sandpaper to even and smooth. I repeated this with an additional coat.


Once everything is dry and ready for the final touch. Wet sand with 2500 grit sandpaper to get out the deep marring from the 1000 grit. Compound and polish away with your buffer.


It's not perfect. You can definitely see there was some work done here up close. I rushed the priming and drying process and that caused some issues in the final product. But from a 3-5 feet away it looks perfect. The flat white paint helps too.

For the tabs, I followed the same process on some Hillman #881201 tabs I bought from Lowes. They turned out better than I thought. I think the key is to put down enough paint such that the surface tension of the liquid will naturally create a smooth layer of paint or clear coat. Having the surface horizontal and letting gravity do some of the work helps too .