Body work and paint for 211/1000

After staring at a white bumper, crunched quarter panel, faded roof and hood for almost the entire time I've had this thing, I finally put some money into the body and paint. I'm cheap and went with Maaco. I'm so cheap I didn't even have them fix the door dings /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif. I did some of the prep myself to save some money.

All said and done I'm very happy with what they did. I no longer cringe when I see my car. There are some flaws. I need to take it back and have them fix a drip on the driver's side rear door. There are a few other little things, but I'm certainly not a perfectionist. Here's some pics.

This is a before pic of what my 1/4 panel looked like. I don't have any pics of how faded the roof and hood were, but in some places it was bare metal. I also don't have any pics of the white bumper.


Here are the after pics:

 

[Tre3zy]

looks good.... may i ask how much it cost?

 

[DR1665]

Solid. My poor KG car was last painted - partially, and randomly - with a roller. I've been thinking about stripping it down for a re-spray. I'd be happy if she looked as nice as yours does now. Also interested in price for such a paint job and just how much prep you did prior.

 

+1^^ looks good considering all the negative feedback you here about maaco.

 

[2of9]

looks pretty good to me. I was also thinking about Maaco also because my cousin took is accord there. the accord paint was good but wasn't showroom good. how did it cost, I remember them doing a $250 special about a month ago.

 

[NateCrisman]

My experience with Maaco: it's not that the PAINT is bad, it's that the PREP work is sloppy at best. When I had my 1g painted yellow years ago...(2001) it was still pretty nice 4 years later. The only areas that I had issues were the bumper covers and ground effects had started to chip. I guess the didn't use the right flex agent in the paint. The car also had some horrendous overspray into the wheel wells, window moldings, tail light edges..ect. They didn't really do a very good job with masking at all. I ended up paying about $1100 for the job, but that included a color change to yellow, a "two tone" black roof, removing most of the body dings, using a separate clear coat, and all of the prep work.

 

Thanks for the compliments. It's definately not showroom worthy (orange peel is bad in some spots), but it is 1000x better than it was. It's perfect for a daily driver with a book value of about $1000. I really am pleased.

The entire thing cost me $1300. Most of that was the body work. The only work I did was stripping and priming the hood, pulled all the lights, door handles, lock cylinders, and front/rear window trim. They handled all the rest, which really isn't much with their value prep package. Oh, I also got the pay-in-cash discount /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif.

The more you pay, the higher quality you get. They do a 2 stage base/clear coat for $1000. They also charge more for their upgraded prep package. Just depends on how much you want to spend. I didn't want to spend a lot so I got the $399 paint job.