Paint Bumpers And Fenders...or Whole Thing?

paint it all, 23 year old single stage paint will not match new paint. plus you can have the added benefit of a clearcoat put on this time around.

Not according to my body and paint guy at least the vibrant red doesn't

Mo need to here. I used scratch and haze remover on a soft cloth and pulled up tons of paint either it was never there or it all fell off
My paint guy came over to give an estimate and called it out as single stage right away
Doesn't matter which it is because it is all coming off when I can afford it.

Find someone that paints professionally bit does side jobs. My estimate for a whole repaint with me helping is a grand. Thats taking it all apart to paint too.

Luckily this is what he does he has all the equipment and a booth paint is expensive but prep is where it would kill me I believe I will be prepping under his guidance

Mine was painted a little over a year ago, had a few dings and some screwed up paint on the roof from birds and Mother Nature. Cost 3,500 to strip the damaged paint, remove the bumpers, quarter windows, trim and stuff and paint black.

It now looks brand new, in my opinion if you wanna save your money paint the bumpers, they're black I assume from the picture, how bad could it look? When your ready to spend the money on the whole car you'll be able to do it right.

Nice to hear that someone has had positive results from Maaco with some good prep work, I am considering going this route with mine.

Mintsick said:

Nice to hear that someone has had positive results from Maaco with some good prep work, I am considering going this route with mine.

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Just for the record... it was not Maaco who painted my car. Sorry if I caused any confusion.

A couple things,

you said, "Yeah, I would have the whole thing re-painted but that would cost over 3k I assume. I am definitely not dumping another 3k into a car"

Sounds like you made up your mind about not painting the whole car. A Maaco paint job isn't going to look better than having a professional repaint your fenders and trim. A pro should be able to tint paint to match the older paint so long as your clear coat looks good. If not, buffing it out would probably be a good thing to do and can really bring life back into your paint. That is the big benefit of BC/CC paint is that you can cut the clear again and make it look almost new again. You can't really do that with single stage.

A paint job is 50% prep, 15% materials and 35% with cutting, buffing/polishing and a S**T ton of patience and will still cost you a bunch of money. If you don't have a good foundation (prep/body work) then you will not have a good paint job even with the most expensive BC/CC. SS can look really good if the car is prepped and sprayed correctly and cut and buffed to perfection.

I can't stress this enough but there is more to it than just getting a compressor and HVLP gun, they have to be matched to each other!! You can't spray with a 15 SCFM gun if you have a compressor with an output of only 5.5 SCFM @ 40psi. You need to drain the compressor, get a water trap, build a booth with a ventilation system and filters. Sand, wash parts with soap and water, wax and grease remover, tack cloth, 2K prime, filler primer, block sand, filler prime again, block sand, and again.

There is sooo much involved in prep and what I mentioned isn't even the half of it. Completely disassemble the vehicle and masking and body work is a major chore as well.

Right now I'm in the process of body work on my 87 T-top GT and i'm prepping for primer. It's a ton of work and i'll be painting my car in my garage. This is not my first time either.

$1500 is worth it! Maaco does a horrible job prepping. They scuff it up real quick and wipe it down and shoot it with everything still attached for the cheap paint job and it won't last long. They'd paint the car with dents and scratches because they know they don't have a reputable name in the business that represents QUALITY and lasting paint jobs.

danny g said:

Hi, I never said I would use Maaco. But my neighbor did get nice results. I am familiar with what goes into doing the paint work myself. As I said earlier I dont know if I feel like upgrading my compressor etc to go that route. ill get some prices and debate again in my mind. On monday I hope to go down the shop that did some work on my ML after it was in an accident and get some prices. They run a very top notch shop. Ill update the thread with that info.

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Some confusion? As the title states you're pondering doing only some parts of the car or the whole thing. Then you say you don't want to dump another $3k into the car so I guess that rules out your question as stated in the title of your thread you created (to do all or some of the car).

you said "I am familiar with what goes into doing the paint work myself."

So what's this thread about? What advice are you looking for exactly?

Guess it all depends on what the car is worth to you and what your plans are for the car? Are you dating the car or marrying it? I'm sure you're well aware you'll never get the return on investment in the near future. My $.02 is always DIY especially if you're going to keep the car for a long time. Paint a couple pieces and compare it to your the body of the car and if it doesn't match right then be prepared to paint the whole car. Professionals know how to blend and tint paint to help match it to existing paint and that's where paying somebody to do it starts becoming worth it.

I've gotten in a couple accidents over the years from other people running into me. Had to repair/replace some hoods, grills, fenders and bumpers on both of them (they were trucks). They came out great but the paint on them were good to start with (not 22 years old). The older the car the harder it gets to make it less obvious that only parts of the car has fresh paint.