Hey guys
i have a 89 RS camaro i picked up last year. the car is pretty solid with one rust spot. I pulled the door guards off of it cause i think it looks better without them, and i installed a iroc hood on it. now I want a paint job and dont want to spend much. Buddy of mine said he heard macco was doing a $199 deal on painting a car. I talked to them, and they said thats for the basic enamel paint and comes with a 1 year warranty. I know i have heard some good things and bad things about them....but as everyone says you get what you pay for. I plan on hauling my car off within the next couple weeks and gettin it painted. I just thought i'd get some comments or pics of some previously painted camaro's or ta's that they have done.

I have seen maaco paint jobs and they are like you say " You get what you pay for" Honestly if you are not planning on showing the car and just want something that looks better than a beater, you cannot beat it. Also consider that they probably will not do any body work and they will simply mask and paint, so you may have to go back and cleanup everywhere they got over spray.

There was a reasonably nice Maaco paint job I saw at a car show. From 5' away it looked pretty good until you got up to it and noticed the over spray I think he went all out and got the "Ambassador paint" with pearl... I want to think he got pearl White and paid $2500 ... I think BLACK would be the best paint for a maaco job with as much black trim we have on our cars.



John

I got one about 15yrs ago, solid black, it looked great for about a year, than the paint started to fade and chip. So if you have the money, get it done by a real paint shop.

Eric

well...this car i plan on reselling sometime. and now since I pulled off the bumper guards and changed the hood which is now blue (car is red) ..that I pretty much have to have it painted to look nice. So I dont want to spend much...just so it looks nice. Whenever I get it done, i'll be sure and post pics on here.

haha that was probably me.
anyways, I would say that you do get what you pay for because there are definitely some spots that have over spray and in some places could look better if they spent a couple more minutes cleaning and masking, but over all it isn't a real bad job. then again I wasn't really expecting it to be perfect being from Maaco. also, if you do decide to get a Maaco paint job I would suggest to do as much bodywork yourself and take all the trim off that you don't want over spray on
here is a pic of it

that paint job seems to look pretty good. how much did that one cost you? i will probably start taping some stuff off myself before i haul it there.

I have had them paint cars for me before i did them myself. The paint is fine, it is acrylic enamel. It will usually last about 5 years before you have serious fading. The problem is preparation work. If you remove all the trim before you get there and do all the body work and have it all ready, wet sanded with 400 grit, ready to go, it will come out ok. You will have some overspray here and there, but for 200 bucks it is hard to beat.

overall it was $2577.77, but this was the ambassador paint and pearl I did have them do some body work and had them align the front bumper. one thing I did was take out the brake lights and turn signals when I dropped it off since it is an easy thing to do and since they probably won't take them out for you unless you ask. I also heard that jobs vary from Maaco to Maaco being that some take more pride in their work than others, so I would just take a look at some cars that they recently painted and see if their work looks good.

i bought my car with a macco paint job. it was red and the painted black. the paint started to chip and you see the red that they painted right over with no prep. they also painted over the pen stripes.

mine looks pretty good, but they only do what they gotta to get the job done, they did a horrible job at sanding and getting the car ready for paint.

they got paint all over the plastics in the back and on the carpet for me, and all over the wheel wells and on the black headlight cover things.

they fixed all the dents that i told them about, nothing more (some little dents i did not know about) what they did seemed to be really good

but it was great for about a month.... till i hit a barrier and screwed up the whole passenger side.

In my opinion it'd be worth it to paint it yourself even with little to no experience. If you're going to do most of the body work and prep your self. take it a step further, see to it that its done right and be proud of the work you did. Theres so much stuff i didnt know how to do before i got this car, but no one has or will touch it except for me or my dad since he has some knowledge. I value the car much more and take better care of it. I'm painting it myself this summer and i have very little background in paint, but i know i wont be satisfied till its right so i know i'll take the time to do it.

Stevo,
yup that was your car I was talking about. I sould have mentioned you were at the Trans Am Nationals and Indy a month later...

John

....

My thought is if the part you don't like is the different color hood, put the same money into painting that to match, at a higher quality shop, and don't mess up the rest of the car. I don't know what the rest of your car looks like but a little buffing a coat of wax and some touch-up paint may be all it needs to look good.

I have a shop that I have taken three different cars too on five different occasions. Notice I said three cars on five different occasions.

When I first took my cars there, I had recently moved to the area and didn't know any better. Let me tell you that the paint jobs I got on the first two trips were crap after the two years they were supposed to last. It's kinda like that warranty you have on something that breaks and find out it expired just days before. Fast forward a year later to the same shop, new owner. With the new owner came a huge and I mean huge increase in detail.

My old 300ZX that I sold was in really bad shape. The hood had completely lost it's clear coat and became very rough just like running your hand across a chalkboard. I had that car painted three years ago and I still keep in touch with the new owner. He said the car still looks as good as the day he bought it from me and this guy puts about 60 miles a day on it. I took my Nissan after the accident to this same shop to get fixed and it was the same price just to paint it all over again. I was so impressed, I took my Chicken back to him to paint it also.

Not only did he do what I told him to with the Nissan, he did more and to me that meant alot. He even polished out my faded headlights and saved me the money on the restoration kit. On the 'bird, he did a great job painting the fiberglass hood too. I have yet to find any nicks from highway debris and in So. Fla., this is very common. I have three Maaco's in the immediate vicinity and I have been sitting at the body shop I took my cars too before and twice I had people coming in pleading with the shop owner for a "helluva" deal because they got hosed by Maaco.

I originally went to that same Maaco shop down the road myself and was like "f@#k them!!!!!" Crooks!!! However, I have not heard bad things about the other two. It's like some members say, it really depends on the shop. Just because one is "more expensive" doesn't mean it's any good and just because one is "more reasonable" doesn't mean it's bad. The best thing to do is ask around and get some opinions before making your decision.

I have seen nothing but crappy jobs from the Maaco around here. $200 and done and believe me after a year, oh yeah, DONE!!!! I have seen $2K paint jobs from "specialty" shops that look like crap also. However, I have seen $500 to $1K paint jobs that were damn good with little overspray which can sometimes be claybarred out anyway after a few months. So bottomline, ask around and do some research!!!!!!

well....this car is kind of a test car....i want to get my 91 z painted to, but i wanna see how this one turns out first. i would just paint the hood, but i also swapped drivers door and the clearcoat is peeling bad on it...its still red....but looks crappy. and i think im gonna change rear bumpers cause it has a rip in it. i'm gonna tell them to that i have a second car i may have them do if this one turns out well....if not i'll do the z elsewhere. i'm gonna get the car in the garage soon and start masking some stuff up....before i haul it there.

Ditto on Stevo's comments. My buddy got his fox body 5.0 painted had them paint the hood and rockers off the car (new body kit) had them paint it without any other trim on it and look pretty good... but its not show room but pretty good for a DD