I'm ready to get my IROC painted. It is the first car that I have ever had to get body work and paint work done, so I am new to this. I have gone to three shops to get quotes.

Ive got quotes that vary alot. One shop told me it takes about a week. Two other told me 4 months.

How much did you pay for body and paint work? How long did it take? Did you guys de-trim the car?

Here is the car. It is a 10 footer with a good bit of door dings.

 

Generally a good shop can get it done in a little over a week for around 2000-2500 for a nice urethane 2 stage finish. That's with them doing all the R&R, spot repair, and priming with epoxy primer. If someone says 4 months, they are pretty much saying I don't want to deal with it or that they have a backlog of cars already. I worked as a painters helper in a body shop when I was 15/16 and there was defiantly an incentive to getting a car done before the quoted job hours, you still got payed for the estimated time but if you got done quicker you could move on to the next job and make more money.

 

I've found that prices can vary a lot on paint jobs too. In general you get what you pay for. Opinions on what a good paint job looks like vary a lot too. I would expect to pay around 3k for a decent paint job in my area and closer to 5-6k or higher for a show quality paint job. The sky is the limit, how good of a paint job do you want?

Assuming you are painting the car the same color..are you having the door jams and engine bay painted too? If so that drives the cost up quite a bit too.

Time can vary a lot too, your car sounds like its in good shape and won't require much body work so it should be a pretty quick job. 2-4 weeks is what I would expect. Some shops don't want to work on older cars at all anymore. And some only work on older cars in between insurance work which can make it take forever. Don't let your car get stuck in paint jail for months...had that happen to me once.

I would go to some car shows, cruise ins, and race events and in your area and talk to some people about where they had their cars painted. That's probably the best way to find a good body shop. Be very careful about where you take it, spend the money once and do it right especially if its a car you plan on keeping and want it to stay looking good for many years.

Hope that info helps.

 

Here's what I received by working with a friend that just happens to be a pro painter and we worked on it a few hours after work each day and the weekends at a shop were he was helping out the owner. It took about 3 weeks at that pace.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/body/543541-prep-paint-photos.html

 

It definitely depend on what you want done. You can go as low as a $300 Macco paint job or as high as a $20,000+ show car paint job. The difference is mostly the time put into it. At the last auto body shop I worked at a full paint job started at $5,000 but you had to pay more if you wanted door dings fixed, jambs painted, stuff disassembled, ect. In my opinion watch out for shops in the $2,000 range. At a shop rate of $60 and hour that job only pays 33 hours and the painter would only put in 20 or so hours of actual work. And at a low price like that the shop may be using budget paints (which may be fine with you but you should still take it into consideration). In my opinion high quality paint jobs are hard to get for under 7.

At my current shop an 84 trans am came in for an estimate and they quoted him over $10,000 for a full quality paint job including fixing the door dings.

 

I should add that you might be very happy with the way a 2 or 3 thousand dollar paint jobs looks. It depends on your standards. My uncle painted his truck himself in the garage and he though it turned out great. I thought it turned out like garbage. Not that I'd ever tell him that - all that matters is that he's happy with it.

 

that car looks great. are you sure you want to paint it?im assuming you are poor like me.id just add better looking wheels.just my opinion.

 

Wow finally a paint thread where people actually give approximate amounts lol... OP car looks good if the door dings didnt break the paint maybe some PDR would be best

 

^ That might not be a bad idea. If a $5,000+ paint job is too much to handle then consider this- a skilled paintless dent repair guy can do some flat out amazing work (but don't cheap out on PDR, the cheap guys do a lousy job). If your paint is just scratched up you could consider paying someone to buff it. I recently spend 8 hours sanding down and buffing every panel on my 04 grand am and it made the car look much newer than it is. That takes care all the scratches except the through the clear coat ones. Then get some touch up paint for the chips.

 

Thanks for all the input.

I do like the PDR idea. I will go and get some PDR quotes. However I think the Iroc is still in need of a paint job. The picture was a cell phone pic and doesn't show many flaws in the paint. The front bumper has alot of spider web cracking and chips and that really takes away from the overall appereance of the car.

The paint is a single stage metallic. That means I can't really buff the paint without distorting the metallic flake which would leave a splotchy finish. So from my understanding I am stuck with what I have?

 

My fox body is a single stage metallic. It sucks when the paint starts getting hazy. I am going to polish it by hand and see what happens when I get back from overseas in 6 months. I did a couple spots by hand and it did look better. I would try some polish in a hidden area and see what happens.

 

Hmm.. is it the original paint? If so, I didn't realize they were using single stage in 88. My 89 is base clear. Yeah I wouldn't recommend buffing single stage metallic, I've never tried but I've heard its not a great idea

 

Yep, that's about right with jams, weatherstrip, dings, repair driver's bottom door edge rust, sandblast rocker arms and wheel well areas, even weld up deck lid holes and drill new ones for '97 wing, and down draft oven. Spies Hecker factory red and 3 coats of clear. Left in shop at room temp for 60 days before bringing out (outdoor pic). Did it right, but the cost it not for the person who would ever sell it - you don't recoup this cost. Once you have it, it's worth it. Not everyone can/should afford to do it, though.

 

It was repainted with a single stage. The original paint was a base clear.

 

I had a car get stuck in paint hell for 8 months. Of course, when you take it in, they tell you, 2-4 weeks. But as was stated above, they'd rather do new cars and insurance work, so you go to the back of the line. It took the shop i chose 3 months to even start pulling off parts (i did a color change) It needed minor body work. But it was NOT on the top of their list for sure. I paid $3000 that included door jambs, underhood, etc. NOT the firewall. But it took them 8 months, and constantly yelling, begging, pleading to get it worked on at all. IF i ever needed to paint another car, i'd have a clause in the contract stating the timeframe, and penalties for going over.

 

My convertible has been stuck in paint for almost 2 months now. I expected 6 weeks from our talks. With the small ding dent repair, stripes and polishing I'm gonna have almost $3500 into it. Not cheap, but reasonable for the quality of work he puts out.

 

Every time I read one of these threads I am soooo grateful about the work I had done. I just happened to have saved enough and he just happened to be in town working at a paint/auto body shop with a booth. What a coincidence.
I asked around town and got the same runaround about it taking 5 to 6,000.00 and I can see that happening but who has that kind of money.