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How to handle paint issue?

2K views 10 replies 7 participants last post by  fresnoautobody 
#1 ·
I either want to take it to Macco (one in my area has good reviews) or prep/buy the paint and spray it myself (I have a little experience). I might sell the car so i just want it to look a little better. I’m going cheap. What would you do?

I’m fairly confident I could do the fender and rear hatch. No idea what to do about the roof.. no idea where to buy paint.
 

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#3 ·
What do you think about the roof? Do you thrill it can it be blended? Also it looks like this car has a 2 stage paint. I’d want to do single stage on the fender and hatch at least, just to keep costs down
 
#6 ·
If not selling it. If you do all the prep work usually Maaco will spray it for you. At least the one in my town will. The one by me actually does a really nice job and you can pay for premium materials and will spray extra clear on so you can cut and buff it. They have done all over paint jobs for me for $600-$800.00 with me doing the prep.

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#7 ·
If you don't know where to buy the materials to do the work, you probably shouldn't be doing the work.

I had a 90 GT with that same problem. The guy that painted for my Father's dealership (exceptionally good, two of his jobs won 2nd place at the Pebble Beach Concurs D'Elegance) said there is one way to fix that right. Strip it to bare metal and start over. Anything else will just cover it for a little bit. It will come back.
 
#8 ·
Thanks for weighing in guys. I think I’ll just leave it. I stopped by maaco today and they wanted to repaint the whole car. The guy was honest. He wasn’t confident about matching the color. And wasn’t confident about blending the roof. And from what he showed me on some other cars that they painted, it wasn’t worth it. The cheap paint jobs (500-$1500) were too orange-peely for my taste. I had the bumpers and hood repainted by a high end body shop not long ago.. I’d cringe if I covered those with #### paint and orange peel.
 
#9 ·
I know the post is aging.

I'm in the same situation. '93 coupe 4 cylinder. The car has little value being a 4 cylinder, and has basically zero value when the paint is nasty (and mine IS nasty!). I'm figuring $2000 at the most. Now, that said, if I put $2500 into a cheap paint job is the car worth $4500? Dunno. Maybe to the right person.

Prep work is key. The shine on top won't look very good if the prep isn't good. I found this out, I've done my share of full body paint & prep, several times. I ain't any good at it either. 50 footer is being generous.

I did a LOT of the prep work on my '92 hatch and sent it off to paint. The painter is a friend of ours who happened to have an opening and needed money. Once the car was there, he looked it over and commented how straight it was and how well "my" prep work was done. That made me feel pretty good. That said, he had to repair the front bumper cover and had to fill some craters that were down low that I couldn't see. I have some injuries and there's a lot of times I can't bend down, or if I do I can't get back up without help. That is why he's doing it. The 92 is more of a long term project and I've put a ton of money into it, why not put a little more into the paint. He says it will be nice. We shall see.

I'm still thinking I might do my '93 coupe's prep work. I "think" I can make some ramps and a pedestal to park it on while I'm working and that'll help me a ton.

As far as where to get it done, there's a lot of places at least locally. The local vo-tech school offered to do it for free but mentioned that it'll take an entire semester to do it. Not a big deal, and I ain't in no hurry but it's also 80 miles one way. Other guy who's doing my '92 is 75 miles, private shop, he works for himself (cash). There's another guy here that's VERY well known (used to be on a TV show) and does top notch better than show-quality work, but at a price. His "OEM equivalent" is $70/hr and on mine he estimated 60-70 hours which I feel is about right. Plenty of body shops around but the problem with them is that they want insurance jobs and could care less about cash jobs like mine. THEN...there is a place across the river, a christian recovery place that's set up to help druggies recover from addictions. Some of the folks that work over there are former body/paint guys (artists if you want to know the truth) and they've set up shop to do the type work that I need done. They did my dad's dakota a couple years ago for $1600, drop it off basically junk, go pick it up a month or so later looking close to new. It still looks new, though he don't own it anymore but I see it every day.

I found a lot these places on facebook marketplace. It's the only time I use farsebook. Sometimes if you go down to the parts store and ask them who might be able to do what you need done, they'll know someone-and if that someone don't know, maybe they'll know. Maaco? Local one does excellent work but it's a long drive and in a part of town that I refuse to leave my car at....
 
#10 ·
Don’t rush into things. If you plan on spending a day or two just to prepare your car’s body surface for paint, the need for auto paint repair won’t be necessary.
 
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