I'm looking for a good paint shop, and I don't know how to find one. I'm sure, in Spokane, Washington, there is agood one. Unfortunately, I can't find websites for any of the stores. I found a few shops listed, but no reviews or anything like that.

So, what do you ask for when getting a car painted?

Thanks.

 

Ask cars that are at local shows, and remember you get what you pay for...

 

I had my RS painted last fall and likely went to 16 or 17 different shops. Just broke out the phone book, checked with the Better Business Bureau site and drove around to places.

I enquired about:

-What brand of paint treatment they used
-What sort of booth they have,
-If they'd let me do removal and installation of body components without voiding the warrantee
-If it was okay for me to drop in periodically to check out the car
-If giving them as much time as they wanted would influence the price.
-How they planned on smoothing out any little rust spots in the wheelweels (they sandblasted or welded, depending on severity. Other places were going to use sandblast and fiberglass).
- I checked vehicles that were being worked on and finished, looking for all manner of defects.

It should be said that only 2 of the places had websites - but really, how much are you going to learn from photos, right?

The place I decided upon was really open about the process as well as their finished results. What sealed the deal was that the bodyman the manager was going to assign to my car had just finished painting (a white pearl colour) his 3rd gen firebird. They encouraged me to drop in anytime to see it (I came by once every 2 weeks for 10 or 15 minutes).

Their price wasn't the absolute lowest, but rather, right in what I expected to pay for what I'd described to the manager($4100CDN). The shop manager really got a kick out of the colour of my RS (Polo green) and that overall attitude, coupled with the completed vehicles they'd shown me, really inspired confidence. It took about 2 months and I'm happy with the results after they did the final wetsanding.

By way of contrast, at a very small shop the guy didn't want to have anything removed from the car (wanted to paint it in one go) and that distinctly put me off.

Putting in a couple days of driving around the city and taking my time was seriously worth it. The only place I excluded based on other people's opinions was Maaco. Otherwise, I wanted to see them all first hand.

 

like andrew said, check them out yourself. the best way to find a good shop is to talk to people thatve had work done there. and going to see the shop yourself and asking questions. and once you do find a shop, and it is painted, if there is any blemish or problem with the paint, dont hesitate to take it back and make them fix it. on my dad 62 impala we had to take it back about 3 times for them to get rid of all the orange peel.

 

word of mouth is the best thing I have found whenever you're trying to find a reputable shop in the area

 

waldershrek is right, word of mouth is definately a very important consideration, just make sure you "screen" the people whose opinions your getting. I say this for one reason... almost any paint job looks good when it's new. Make sure to get opinions from people that had their car done 2 or 3 years ago. If it still looks good, then the body shop knows what they are doing.

On the flip side of things, in 2 or 3 years, new rust can show up that wasn't there when the car was painted, so if you get to see the person's car, you need to know the difference between new rust and returning rust so that you can evaluate whether the body shop fixed the rust properly.