I am very interested in painting my 87 camaro. I know a guy who is friends with the owner of a Maaco and could get me a good deal for around $350. I was thinking about painting it myself, although I have no experience, I am just your average kid who will sometimes paint random things. Is this a good idea and how much time/patience/skill/money would I save or even lose painting it myself?

 

I you've never painted before, don't start experimenting on your car. Pay the $$$, and get it done right. I've professionally painted other stuff for years, for paying customers, using the same stuff as cars, and even I won't touch my car.

 

Thats what I assumed....man does everyone have such a hard time figuring out which color to paint it I have no idea

 

i have good friend that worked for maaco and we talked afew times about the paint,he said steer clear of the metallics and stick with there solids. tje metallics spay out super blotchy and look like crap. he also said he`s seen some nice colors come from the solids

 

Back when I had my 92 painted purple w/white stripes, there were very few purple cars of any make, and I knew I wanted stripes. My wife liked it, but wanted more "pop", so she used the same purple, but went with yellow stripes.
She almost did yellow with purple stripes instead! But, thankfully, no...It would have OUT THERE!

 

If the quality of the paint is the issue, furnish the paint (Dupont, Sherwin-Williams) pay them to prep it and spray it. I would never use a cheap paint if you want it to look good and last. Good paint and materials usually runs $200-$300 alone.

Maaco tends to cut corners on the paint (low quality), prep (poor sanding techniques) and tape (sloppy tape off of components). You can't expect much for several hundred dollars.

 

My friend- who's never painted a car or even sprayed a gun- painted my car and it looks better than most Maaco jobs under $1K. Sure it's not flawless, but I was complimented ALL the time, it was a fun project, and from 1 foot away it looked awesome. If you can spray panels then doing a whole car isn't any more difficult. Spraying isn't hard, it's just time consuming to properly prep the car. If you aren't looking for a flawless show car then I say try it yourself. Paint runs about $300-600 for good paint and clear coat depending on how much you need and what color (that excludes the custom pearl colors).