Paint

[geoff5093]

What are peoples experiences with getting their car painted? I havent looked too much into the pricing, but I was thinking of getting my gen3 painted, since there are a fair amount of scratches. I would also like to paint over part of the rear tailights and possibly buy a spoiler first as well.

I checked out Maaco but they dont tell you too much.

I dont want a cheap paint where they just apply a basic coat, I would want it to be a high-quality job, where the paint looks like they do on new cars.

If anyone has any experience with painting their Camry's (especially a Gen3), or know of any good sites/places where you can get it done, it would be appreciated

[geoff5093]

I saw this ad online:



Does the $399 deal sound like something that would look very good, or just a basic type job?

[lildog64]

everyone says maaco is bad, they just spray over with 0 prep work, or very little
if u do take it to a place like that do the prep work urself first
also say that the paint chips and stuff after about a year

[geoff5093]

I did hear from a few people that Maaco was a bad place to go to, but if I went to a place like the one I posted above, they offer a 6 year or higher warrenty, so it seems like they would do a decent job. Too bad they dont have any locations near me

Maybe there are a few individual places that do it.

What I really want to know is what a fair price would be for a high quality paint job with a high gloss. From what I've seen in certain packages, for about $500+ you get a clear coat applied after the paint.

[CJ Otey]

good paint jobs start at 1000 dollars if you get a basic single stage you probally wont be able to tell the diff between that and base clear and single stage tends to last longer

[ghettosled]

just remember, you get what you pay for. oh, and macco SUCKS. i did their cheapo paint special and it was not worth saving the money. they painted over my pin stripes, tons of overspray and there was orange peel and grit all over the car.

probably half of the price is the prep work. see if a local place will let you do most of the prep work yourself and then drive the car in.

[geoff5093]

There actually is, I remember a guy I work with talk about how they let him do all the prep work, and all they do is paint it.

But if I did do my own prep work, what exactly would have to be done? There arent any rust spots so I dont think any body work has to be done. Would I just sand it down?

[CJ Otey]

if you dont know i wouldn't try it because you could leave scracthes that will show through the paint

[geoff5093]

Most likely i'll just end up polishing it to get rid of the smaller scratches. I just wanted to know about how much it would cost and what peoples experiences were.

[DarkMastyr]

Expect to pay well over several thousand for a real good quality paint job.

[ghettosled]

are you drastically changing the color of the car? in other words, would you want the door jams, inside of the trunk and hood to be painted as well? this is were prices start to really climb. a grand would probably get you decent paint, but it probably wont be as good as factory. if the scratches arent too bad, maybe consider doing some polishing and buffing to get the smooth gloss back and have the spoiler and tail lights painted seperately.

[geoff5093]

Thats what I was thinking of doing. This is what the paint looks like after a wash (ignore the dent, lol:






Once the spring/summer come around, im gong to invest in a buffer and do some polishing and waxing.

[marc780]

Do the prep work yourself and buy some good paint and bring it for them to spray it. They do minimal prep and you can bet the paint is the cheapest to be found. I went to earl scheib once, years ago, a huge mistake and expensive lesson - they did a trrible job and the paint flaked after less than a year. id buy a compressor and spray myself if i were to do it again, or i'd count my pennies til i had a thousand bucks to have a shop do it right.
These cheap sheib and maaco paint jobs are only good for tightwads who are thinking of making an extra $500 when they sell the car the day after tomorow. If you are keeping the car for you, forget them.

[travismorg]

I know alot of people that will say Prep yourself and take it to a a cheapr place like Maaco, but I'm of the opinion that the prep-work is as important to the final product as the painting itself.

I've never had any of my cars painted because I knew I'd never be satisfied. If I'm paying for it, I'm going to want it to be perfect. And I know only one person whom I've seen that had a PERFECT paint job. When he rolled it into the shop to get sprayed, well, slid in on a cart, because it didn't have one bolt, wire, piece of plastic. It was a bare Civic hatchback shell. He got a discount and he did all that massive prep work and the putting back together as well, and he still paid $4000 for an OEM Honda Vogue Silver Metallic on a 92 Civic. If that's what it takes to get a perfect paintjob, I'll pass.