I need to paint my car

[slowboy101]

I was thinking of painting the ride this winter, can anyone help

[mdost03]

Help with what? Choosing a color? Prep? Tools? Spraying?

Should be a little more specific.

[Halon]

Maaco 4 life

[Kevin 1G Drummer]

That's quite a big to take on by yourself without any knowlege, or equipment. You should be a little more specific as to what you want.

[slowboy101]

Ive painted a vehicle before just wondering if anyone might wanna help with the preping and plus MACCO is JUNK!!!!!!

[JET]

I am sure Maaco is better than what you can do in your garage. Halon's car looks very nice.

[slowboy101]

yea i suppose so, Ive just heard so many bad things about them like the paint going bad after one year and over spray like a bit**

[Halon]

Is a Maaco job as nice as a $2000 paint job from "XXX bodyshop", maybe not, but I think JUNK is a bit harsh. You be the judge. This cost me $900, which included repainting the entire car the stock color, prepping it, and fixing a few dents/dings.

1st Day Home From Maaco:


2.5 years later, still looking great as you can see in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoNOh750GHU

[slowboy101]

i guess I will just do that then

[turbotalon1g]

B-mans car turned out great.
Although he knows the front bumper needed touching up and one other place, but for the price and the way the car looked i wouldn't cry about it or complain, i think he went back or is going back to get a piece painted and the bumper touched up.

[Goat Blower]

Maaco is hit or miss. Halon's car turned out very well for the money, but they've done horrible work on some of my cars before. Find one that a few people recommend.

I painted mine for a total of about $450 in materials, not doing the roof, and almost half of that is buying the wrong color blue the first time which I couldn't return. This and about 30 hours of my labor but I'm pretty happy with it, not show quality but I'm not a car show guy anyways. I'll be doing the roof pretty soon to finish the car, but even materials can be pretty spendy to do it right.

[polishmafia]

Originally Posted by Halon

1st Day Home From Maaco:

I see the Green Dragon!

[Halon]

Edit - Double Post.

Stupid shitty work computer

[Halon]

Originally Posted by turbotalon1g

Although he knows the front bumper needed touching up and one other place,

Before that statement gets taken the wrong way, let me set the record straight on that.

1) My bumper needed to be touched up because when I towed the car to Elite, it wasn't strapped down sturdy enough and the car rolled forward up against a large metal toolbox that was on the front of the flatbed, and the bumper was rubbing up against the toolbox for the 30 minute ride to Elite, which rubbed off some of the paint on the front bumper. Hell Momin was there and pretty sure he could vouch for why the front bumper was scuffed.

2) As for the other piece I got painted, that was my new door molding. My molding completely fell off the side of my door. This moleding was put on by ME when I bought the car because it came in the back seat when I got it. I used 3M double sided tape. So that would be classified as My Fault. So, I had to buy a used one from a car being parted out a couple months ago, that was RED, and Maaco painted it the correct color for me.

Tell me how either of those was a failure on Maaco's behalf???

You could get real close to my car and sit and nitpick if you wanted. If you ever want to see the car in person to see how the paint looks, feel free to stop by and judge it for yourself.

And as Steve said, Maaco's are definately hit/miss. I chose the Osseo location because I had heard good things about them. They are also the shop that Toyota City brings their cars to for body/paint work, which in my eyes, helped reaffirmed their quality of work. Also when I got there, the manager took me on a tour of the place, and showed me multiple customer cars that had just received the different versions of paint jobs they offered, and I chose the one that I liked. I got the 2nd to best one. They had a black civic there that just got that paint job and it looked great, so I chose that one.

And again, will a 2-3k paint job from Abra or whomever look better, yes it probably would. But I paid 2k for my car so I wasn't about to spend more for a paint job then I did for the car itself. Especially an 18 year old 1G DSM that would much rather have that kind of money spent on performance mods

[turbotalon1g]

Thanks for clarifying that stuff. But i remember seeing paint runs on the bumper.

[Halon]

That makes one of us. I don't remember seeing multiple runs on my bumper, and that's after staring at it for over 2 years. Everyone's a critic and likes to point out anything that's not perfect.

Again to the OP, anyone can nit pick it to death. I am sure I can nit-pick Aaron's spray painted interior to death if he wanted me to. Doesn't mean it doesn't look good. If you are seriouslly considering this, I welcome you to come and look at it yourself, nit pick it yourself, and judge it for yourself. Seeing it for yourself is the best way to make a judgement in my eyes. It was good enough to win 3rd place a year ago at the Cookout.

[x-pride]

Originally Posted by Halon

You could get real close to my car and sit and nitpick if you wanted. If you ever want to see the car in person to see how the paint looks, feel free to stop by and judge it for yourself.

And again, will a 2-3k paint job from Abra or whomever look better, yes it probably would.

I would agree Mr. H's got a nice paint job on his car. You could not tell it was a Maaco job unless he told you. Most people call Maaco paint job junk because they end up paying for a 200 dollar paint special Maaco sell. You get what you pay for.
Honestly Abra is not worth the price. I had three cars repaired at Abra and their work is a 6 out of 10. The shade of paint did not match my factory color for all three cars. The bumper on one car was flaking off and they did not even cover that under their life time warranty. They said that was natural for paint to flake off. After that stupid remark by them. I never took any of my cars for them to repair.

[turbotalon1g]

Originally Posted by Halon

That makes one of us. I don't remember seeing multiple runs on my bumper, and that's after staring at it for over 2 years. Everyone's a critic and likes to point out anything that's not perfect.

Again to the OP, anyone can nit pick it to death. I am sure I can nit-pick Aaron's spray painted interior to death if he wanted me to. Doesn't mean it doesn't look good. If you are seriouslly considering this, I welcome you to come and look at it yourself, nit pick it yourself, and judge it for yourself. Seeing it for yourself is the best way to make a judgement in my eyes. It was good enough to win 3rd place a year ago at the Cookout.

He is right, you could "nit pick" it to death or you could try to tell the truth to someone so they know all angles.
I remember the first time seeing your car that i loved that paint job and i said i would do the same thing because it looked great but i am 100% about the runs on the bottom of the front bumper that you showed me and i think near the bottom/front of the hood.
Also my interior looks ok, better than gray but not perfect cause i puked on it and didn't let it dry enough in some places, but it doesn't have any runs.

[Halon]

You win. I give up.

Spray Bomb FTW. Better yet, if you're Real Brown, then just use some Tremclad Rustoleum and a roller.

[turbotalon1g]

I will have to look into that. Paint and body work is something i don't care to mess with.