fair price for the paint job

Being in the middle of restoring my 73 Vert here's what I've spent so far:

1400.00 To have the striped shell media blasted.
1000.00 In body parts (New quarters, deck pannel, quarter post, tail light pannel, NASA hood
10,000.00 To have the the new / used body parts installed, primed and first coat of paint.

Left to do after the engine/trans are installed:

1000.00 Chrome trim refinished
2500.00 Final paint, two more coats of paint, one coat of 50/50 (Half paint, half clear), one
coat of clear.

Now I've had the eng bay painted and the bottom painted and then under coated, so you
can subtract some, but you get the idea.

I'll let you know tomorrow when I write the check. Gulp, I don't think I will sleep well tonight. I am already getting writers cramp.

wow, thats freakin depressing. Guy here does pretty good work for around 5-6k.

I had mine done for 6k, stripped to bare metal, and fully painted. Don't think i'll ever be able to get that deal again tho.

73vertstang, I have to say that after all that work I really think going with only one coat of clear is a huge mistake, that won't even last thru the colr sanding. 3 coats should be minimum.

Blown65, how good is "pretty good"? Is that just for prep and paint or does that include full panel alignment, skim coating, gapping etc...

Pakrat said:

73vertstang, I have to say that after all that work I really think going with only one coat of clear is a huge mistake, that won't even last thru the colr sanding. 3 coats should be minimum.

Blown65, how good is "pretty good"? Is that just for prep and paint or does that include full panel alignment, skim coating, gapping etc...

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The car that was done for 5k was fully stripped and straightened. The builder of it is doing a frame off restore. Black paint and its very very straight and nice. (after body work) Only thing the 5k didn't include was the final cut and buff cause the person restoring it does his own.

15k price would be if your paying for a name IMO, or a trailer car that would never see the street.

it all depends on how much time is put into the job, and the cost of materials used. i have seen ok daily driver paint jobs done for $200, and really nice show quality paint jobs done for $25,000. it just depends on what level you are looking for.

blown65 said:

The car that was done for 5k was fully stripped and straightened. The builder of it is doing a frame off restore. Black paint and its very very straight and nice. (after body work) Only thing the 5k didn't include was the final cut and buff cause the person restoring it does his own.

15k price would be if your paying for a name IMO, or a trailer car that would never see the street.

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Then again you do have to live in Oregon too, so I guess it's a wash.

I paid $4800 a few years back with the family discount. Without the discount
it would of cost me $5600. I also installed all the lights bumpers and chrome
myself. I went to 2 cars shows and won a trophy last year so I was happy with
the paint job. Here are a few pics.

<a href="http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/shalver66/?action=view&current=m_1aaddf646bfbeb4c1b48a56f420ae2f8.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/shalver66/m_1aaddf646bfbeb4c1b48a56f420ae2f8.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/shalver66/?action=view&current=m_f4f230157fcf42838a81babd095d6182.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/shalver66/m_f4f230157fcf42838a81babd095d6182.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>


<a href="http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/shalver66/?action=view&current=m_371e36186ee19e5262202cd75551aefc.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/shalver66/m_371e36186ee19e5262202cd75551aefc.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

Spank my a** and call me Charlie! That's a lot of cash! I guess it does all depend on what you plan on doing with the car. So what does a $5000 paint job get you?

I guess it all depends on the condition. I'd think that if you disassebled the car completely and stripped it down 2 bare metal it'd be significantly cheaper. For me it was a family friend who did it; i gave him the car running, he took off trim and painted, he didn't media blast it, it was stripped by sanding, its a CA car so there was virtually no rust.

I spent about $3000-$3500 on my paintjob that is worth about $12000.

How did I do it you might ask? I did a lot of work myself! I took all of the panels off, did bondo work, sanded the primer, did most of the wetsanding, and reassembled the car myself. I was 17/18 at the time of body work, so it can be done easy enough by anyone. I worked at the body shop too so that helped a lot- the body man only charged me $15 an hour

It depends on the body shop (whether or not they will let you help out).

My paint is not perfect (ie barely visible sanding marks on the roof), but for what I paid, it's show quality enough for me!




The painter is also really really good.. He painted this car as well

I think I'm $10K deep and I haven't got color on mine yet. I got a good guy price. If I'd ran this through the front door of the shop? Maybe $20K. For a really good job? More.

Resprays on these cars are bucks. Nobody want's to do them.

67rcks said:

What is the "level" is what I am trying to understand. No matter if you have $2,000 or $20,000 job you have to prepare the body to have nice smooth curves, no dings, and align panels so they fit. A bit more hits by hammer to be perfectly aligned I believe is not making this difference. When applying paint, same procedures are needed in both jobs - body filler, water sanding, 2-4 layers of basic paint, 3 layers of laque, some polishing. Then quality of the paint. What wrong could happen to $100/kg paint from a reputable manufacturer compared to $300/kg paint (eg MaxMeyer or PPG)?

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It really is not a matter of "a bit more hits by a hammer". It takes a lot of time to prepare the surface for final color. Many hours of priming and block sanding, shooting guide coats and more block sanding. When a shop will spend easily in excess of 100 hours with out major repair work, the costs go way up. When you take into account the "cost of doing business" (workers comp, insurance, rent, equipment, EPA "environmental polution agency" etc.) it adds up fast. I have painted probably 15 special interest cars (~8 mustangs) and I have spent a mininmum of 100 hours up to 250 hours per car. The reason the "One Day" shops can do it cheap is they do absolutley the minimum of preparation (a couple of hours surface prep) and lowest cost paint purchased in bulk quantities, in fact their colors are limited. If you ask for a factory color their costs change. As far as cost of paint, the costs are more than just the base color. There is activator, reducers, hardners, clear coats with their hardners etc. Material prices can easily exceed $1,000.

As in an earlier response, I said we paid $12,000 for our Mustang paint and metal work, which included fitting some FG parts (I stopped painting, too much work). We got a bargain at that price. It all depends on what you want and how long it will last. One thing I would do is to look at their work on special interest vehicles. If a shop mainly does newer vehicles and insurance work, they tend to shy away from earlier special interest vehicles - their reason is that as they get into them they find many hidden problems and don't want to deal with the issures. Find a shop that does a lot of work on older cars if possible.