Bettie-II is my 2004 BMW 745i Sport in Titanium Gray metallic paint If you are looking for the web page for Bettie, my previous 1998 E38 click here Bettie is my 98 740iL

Here are a few photos of Bettie II.

Project #1 Tinting Tailights: I wanted to try tinting the tailights that sit on the trunk lid to tone down the 70's look this trim strip and these lights gave the rear end. I first tested what the results would look like using Photoshop using a photo I found in the right color (simple to do actually). Once I was convined I'd like the look, I searched the web for tinting techniques to do the job. I found several interesting pages about spray painting the lights with a clear carbon black paint from various companys (Testor's was one brand I recall but there were two or three actually available). This looked fine in web photos but I was not sure I was up for a permanent solution like this and was really trying for a tint film like you would use on a window for example. I was having little sucess in finding what I wanted and I even drove to visit a local window tint shop to ask about this wiht not luck until I came across a posting that pointed me to this site: Stickercity.com They offer pre-cut tail light tinting kits with a urethane film - Just what I was looking for!

Upon reading this web site further, I found this page: Bulk Film cut to order This was the ticket! It cost far less that the full pre-cut kit but I bought enough to do all of the tail lights and I was able to try the small lights on the trunk first to see if this is what I wanted... I started the project by making up a solution of water and isopropyl alcohol in a spray bottle. Cleaned the tailights first with this solution then sprayed the lights good and wet and applied the film starting at the center and working to the edges. It took a while to get the bubbles out and a few that were left dissipated in a few days. Here is a look at the before and after results.

Sept 2007: Update on Smoked tailights
I finally got the time to get back to the smoke tinting project and here are some photos of the results. I used the same alcohol and water solution to clean and apply the tint films to teh main rear lights. Because these lights are spherical in shape, I used a hair dryer to heat the film so I could stretch it over the lights and get a smooth application


After the rear ights came out good, I went on to stretch the tint film over the turn signal repeater lights on the front fenders too. There were originally clear and now they have that smoked look that blends into the car nicely.

Second Mod completed for Bettie-II: I bought the Blue Tooth Upgrade Module (BUTM) BMW P/N 84-11-0-410-145 from a guy who had purhcased the wrong part for his car. I found it listed on the For Sale forum at Roadfly.com. Terrynce, who said he was stationed at Camp Pendleton, a good guy who was true to his word and shipped the unit to me FedEx 2-day without being asked. The unit installed in less than 1 minute, I paired it with my Blackberry 8800 without trouble and when I entered the phone menu, all of the address book numbers were already loaded in there.

The phone worked from the iDrive controls, from the Steering Wheel MFL and from the phone dialer module. I am a happy camper today...