Where is a decent place to get a paintjob? What should I look for in a shop?

About how much does a "Great" paintjob cost? I know Maaco has those $300 deals but they only last like a year. I'd be willing to spend about $1500-$2000 for paint. Could that get me a good one?

 

You should be able to get a decent job for that depending on the shape of the car now. One thing you should look for is a good reputation. Talk to people in your area. It could prevent you from getting ripped off.

 

ok where do you live? that info would be important when asking for a place to paint your car.

jeff

 

my car was painted 15 years ago, then the paint job cost 3,200 dollars, but it has just now satred to show age but still looks great its definatly an investment but worth it in the long run

 

this is the 83 transam that was about ten years old on the paint paid 3,000 for it

 

I didn't spend a lot on my daily driver but suffice it to say, I could almost afford to paint it yearly.

 

$1500-2k will get you a nice paint job on a daily driver. For that kind of money you can expect that a lot of stuff will remain on the car and get masked off instead of being removed. As long as it's masked properly though, that's not a real big deal. For $1500 I would expect your car to require little (or no) body work, and the finished paint will sit as it comes out of the spray gun. For $2k, you can probably get a shop to wetsand and buff the paint job to give a much smoother, shinier finish.

 

i would agree, i'd also like to add that for that price your not talking about a color change or nicer colors like tri-stage metallics. unless you know someone at the shop or supply your own product chances are you'll also get the low grade paint color, base and clear.

i have over $2,800 just in my clear, base, color and pearl with my new paintjob. that doesn't include all the product a shop would need in materials as well as labor.

to save some money do as much of the disassemble and reassemble as you can. paying someone $30+ an hour to take off a door pannel or trim just isn't worth it.

 

That's just not worth it to me. Maybe it is because I still drive my car very regularly (almost daily) and I KNOW there are more dipsh*ts on the road who I cannot control.

For example and just this week: Approaching a stop sign on a hil and there is this beater Jetta ahead of me. The Jetta stalls and the $hit for brains behind the wheel doesn't realize his car is rolling backwards until he hits my car. Sure it only scuffed the paint and the license frame and was easily buffed out but if it had been an expensive paint job I would have murdered the guy.



Show car? Drop the dough.

Daily driver? Consider what you are buying.

 

my paint job cost 1500$ canadian including putting on 2 new fenders, the hood, and new rear bumper.

 

i did not say that's what you need for anybody. i said that's what i am spending on mine which will be a trailer queen. my last candy paint job was roughly 1,500 in supplies. too each their own indeed, you get what you pay for. point is there is no right/wrong answer but if someone tells you $500 in supplies will cut it you should understand your paint will probably fade in a year or two. that or it's a back door special. good lasting paint is expensive. so is labor, you want to cut costs then do as much of it yourself as you can. you don't have to spend $3,000 or more in supplies to have a really nice paintjob. at the same time you will need to spend some.

 

Like kandied's said you basically get what you pay for when it comes to paint and body, perfections gonna cost and pretty good looks great but is still daily driveable your looking at around 1k-1500, thats colorado pricing though, I paid 3k for mine but mine required a VERY small amount of body work and he didnt charge me to strip it or get it prepped, teh dark bright teal alone just the material for the base coat was 800 bucks, he had the primer, and then the clear, Plus i put a new gm front gfx and bumper on, harwood hood and hawks spoiler, it gets pricey but i basically have something that is near perfect but i can still drive to cruises and local stuff, long distance stuff it goes on a trailer though.

 

Keep in mind that his materials costs are that high because he's using a candy paint, not a normal 2 stage paint.

When I painted my GTA, I used a 3-stage Urethane basecoat, pearlcoat and clearcoat. Paint supplies (not including masking supplies and body work supplies) cost me $900. It would have been a hundred bucks less if I did a 2 stage urethane (basecoat clearcoat). Keep in mind that my father runs a body shop, so those are discounted prices.

You can see that even a conventional paintjob isn't cheap if you use good materials, but if you want a durable finish that keeps looking good, you've got to pay. I have a buddy whose dad also owns a body shop, and he has an 86 TA that he gets painted every 3 or 4 years. The reason it gets painted every 3 or 4 years, is by then the paint on his car is completely whipped. He used to detail cars for a living, so he knows how to take care of his paint too. On the other hand, there's a POS ford econoline van around town that my father put a urethane basecoat/clearcoat paint job onto in 1995. The van is shot now, but the paint is still shiny after 10 years, during which time I'll bet it never got washed or waxed once.

 

No argument here.

Do you really have over 10K posts?

 

around 6 for mine....supplies were about 1100

 

Heres mine. Its artic white with blue pearl.