How bad is a MAACO Job?

All good points. I would lean toward finding a local painter. You WILL have and easy $400-$500 for quality materials. We use Dupont Chromabase. My dad LOVES to spray it. I would expect a "real" sand and spray (no body work, or anything) to start at $2000 to $2500. Labor is based on the shop rate for your area. Prolly at least $60/hr. But, you will get good work, at that rate. (I hope. Shop around.)
My bet is that NO painter is going to want to shoot over half-assed body work, so spend a lot of time on that. Can't stress that enough. Good luck!

If you're gunna do it, do it right. You always get what you pay for.

I payed $1700 for my paint and think it came out beautiful. I did all the prep work, took the bumpers off and everything, sanded, bondo.. .etc... my dad usta pain for porsche and own a body shop, but it's easy to do.. practice on an old car part or go to the junk yard and find a fender, make a dent in it then practice.

MAACO

My brother had MAACO do his 1967 Mustang GTA last year and it came out beutiful for the $3,800.00 he paid. Recently he took it back to repair his fender well (too big of front tires with Shelby drop) and they were horrible. The original painters and staff had since moved on. Check out there previous customers and verify the same people painters/prepers are still there.

Im with mo and others, good paint coasts $$. I just bought the paint for my car, $757 for paint, primer, clear, reducer, ect.. all cromabase,cause its the best in my book. If your staying with the black paint then you should really spend the $$ cause black will show every imperfection. Not nice to have a new paint job and still see pings and bad body work ect.. Final though you get what ya pay for, thats the bottom line. All total with body parts paint and labor I spent about $5000 to do my car. Good luck in your desion.

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The reason why Maaco's paint always rubs off is because they use single stage. Think of it like a gloss (clear is added in with the paint) rather than apply a few coats of clear to protect the paint. So if you buff it or maybe wax it, you'll notice the color coming off on the pad. And also, like stated they probably pack a bunch of body filler over your dents, it'll be wavy as ****. They'll probably hit your car with a scuff pad really quick and your paint will peel and chip in the corners probably. On top of that, down the road if they do fill in your dents the mud will probably crack overtime. On top of that, expect to have overspray all over a lot of crap on your car. IMO, i've been a painter for 3 years and have seen the work they do, and re-prepped it. It almost seems to me that your paying them to turn your car into a peice of crap. I'd say either leave your car the way it is, or get the work done at a good bodyshop. Why not just get some of the bodywork done like a quarter or fender or whatever. And maybee the rest can be buffed up or touched up? Buffing does wonders dude. I have original paint on my car and it's still holding up alright.

You really shouldn't have to pay $2000+ for a quality paint job

do you want to be afraid to drive your car?

this is assuming you do the prep yourself...if not, then yes, it will be over $2000 for the full job.

DO THE PREP YOURSELF! it may seem daunting at first, but like myself, many others on here jumped into it for the first time on their own cars.

the feeling is very rewarding when it's all said and done

some tips:

1. Get a D/A sander (assuming you have an air compressor)...my campbell hausfeld D/A worked quite well for this job...don't feel the need to spend more than $100 on the sander unless you plan to be doing jobs after...if you have the flow go nuts...but there is a reason you're doing the prep yourself. If you don't have an air compressor, you're stuck with blocking the car...that's ok...buy a 24 and get a friend to help

2. Tape off dings before starting initial sanding. go around the car until you've thought you've found all of them. then go around 10 more times. last thing you want to see is a dent once the car is fully painted

3. Take off anything on the car that will come off. mirrors, spoiler, front bumper, rear bumper, side skirts, a pillar mouldings (I couldn't get the buggers off) etc.

3. Take dented areas down to bare metal with 80 grit sandpaper. it will take a while to get through and you'll notice all the different layers of paint as you go. bondo the dent and sand with 180 to get level...then go into it with 320-400 to get it smooth. prime the area and let it dry sufficiently. go over once more with 320.

4. start with 320-400 grit with the sanding. There isn't any need to go any deeper than the primer unless the car has been repainted (poorly) before. most likely you won't be going as deep as the primer. Just sand until the sheen and gloss is removed from the paint. You will have to look from several angles to ensure you have sanded uniformly.

5. After you have all dents worked, and the car is sanded down, you will next want to wetsand with 600. Do this with blocks only. you will need to keep the paper wet at all times and you will find that you change paper often.

6. Tape off all areas you don't want paint on. Use 3M tape.

7. Take the car to a respected body shop and have the owner go over the car to ensure that there isn't any trouble spots you have missed. if you've done a good job he'll paint it for you...you're not going to do a bad job on your own car are you?

8. Should be able to get the car painted for between $800-1200 with quality materials.

here's some incentive

actually maaco it really depends what one you go to... ive seen decent pain jobs roll out just make sure you tape off **** you dont want over spray on... and some maacos in NJ are prision release program..

i'm 100% w/ Therian

I dunno. Not really sure how I feel about paint. If you can afford a nice paint job by all means go for it, but for the majority of us who are on limited budgets I say screw it. My car's paint isnt horrendous, but it does have dings, and the clearcoat is starting to come off the front bumper, but my priorities with modding lie elsewhere like as of now, in my turbo setup.

I guess if I was completely done modding my car I could see spending a couple grand on a paint job, but if you drive your car regularly and have a laundry list of mods you want to do to it, I just can't see spending that much on paint. To each his own.