Every car I've had, there's been a couple things that just make me shake my head in disgust every time I see them. Some are easy things to fix once I finally get around to them, others take a little more time, effort, and cash.

One of those things is the paint on my car. It looks pretty good from anywhere farther away than 5 feet, but I can see every flaw, and they all bug me, so its time for me to start planning to get the body work done. I don't know how best to attack it, as the best I've done in the past is a flapwheel and a rattle can. I don't know what I'm capable of doing myself, and what's best left to the professionals. I don't know what I'm going to end up paying at the body shop, or what tools I'm gonna need to buy to do some things myself.

Things that need doing:
Floor pans. They're rusted through at the edge where the bottom fender bolt goes, and they're soft pretty much everywhere else. I think I can do this one myself, its just a lot of work. I also need a patch panel in the spare tire well.

Flaws in the visible sheetmetal:
Its got 3 coats of paint on it already. There's a dent on rear fender flare. Its maybe golf ball sized, but right through one of the body lines. It cracked the paint. There are two small rust spots. One just above the GFX on the door, and one on the rear end, right by the tail light. Both were painted over by the PO when he took it to maaco. There's a rock chip in the hood, seems like it took paint off clear to the primer. The spoiler was bought at the scrapyard and resprayed, without even bothering to sand the chipped paint smooth. Paint is flaking off the front bumper from the plastic flexing during various incidents like being towed with a strap.


I really just want to know what's involved with each problem. So if it goes to the body shop, I may be able to recognize some things they're not doing right, or verify that they're going to take some steps (like flex agent in the paint for the plastic parts). Or if I should be doing some of these things myself, I have some friends in the auto body business, so I may be able to borrow some tools. What's involved in removing all the paint from the car? Is a newbie capable of doing it without doing more harm than good?


Here are a couple pics from more than 5ft away

 

cant tell if your lens is dirty but, nothing looks to bad to me, and i'm pretty good at autobody

 

No, nothing is TOO bad, but still, it needs paint bad.

I'll get some pics of the damage later. The latest and greatest is the big flake of paint that came off when I bumped the jack post when I was loading it onto a tilt trailer.