I want my 89 tgp to get painted and i got an estimate from potiac that it would cost me $2,600.00 to get it done. Does any1 have any suggestions on if i should do that? Is that too much money? We dont have a Maaco around and I haven't found any1 who can paint besides dealerships. Any ideas? Or does pontiac sound about right?
go through your yellow pages and start calling all the body shops in your area. Get some estimates from them before you take it to the dealer.
Paint your wheels black, trust me it looks way better
And stay away from Maaco.
$2600 doesn't sound too outrageous for a black metallic base/clear, by the way. But dont take it to a dealership, they sabotage vehicles in hopes that you will buy a new car.
Just take your time and talk to a lot of people
HEY! whats wrong with Macco
(http://aldridgec.home.att.net/images/gallery/Joestgp/DCP_0547sm.jpg)
Thats a Macco paint job, looks pretty good.
I did do alot of prep before sending it to them though, so it may have made a difference.
LOL, I know what you mean about macco though!
Chris
I had a car, a Pontiac 6000 that i took to maaco one time, they didn't sand the primer so in like 6 months of NY weather half if it was peeling off.
i was told the same thing about maaco. they dont sand or prime and its only good for almost a year.
Yeah, well what do you want for $300? :roll:
It really depends on what you get for their paint. They have better packages that include better prep work. Many folks don't car to wax their car so getting it painted is an easy way to get it shiny and clean!
It also depends on how much you want to spend. $2000 to $3000 isn't unreasonable for a paint job. If you want a really good paint job, visit the shops.
Try and avoid collision centers. They will do a better job than Macco, but typically they won't cut things in super well, as they figure the average driver won't really notice hidden areas. I would, but I'm not average. I had to give specific instructions when my fiance's car was repainted. They did ok the first time, but they wanted to redo it for a better color match and got some overspray on things.
My dads truck got completely repainted because of a theft recovery and instead of blending all the panels, they repainted the entire truck. I have a hard time telling its been repainted. Blending iswhere they spray color and clear (2stage paint) on the panel replaced/repaired and then clearcoat the existing paint on adjacent panels to help the transistion between new and old paint. But they masked off the body at seams around the door skins (where the skin folds around the edge of the door) to make it really hard to find where the paint ended and removed as much trim and parts as possible. They also mask where the fenders go under the hood. Many times shops won't mask the seams, so over spray will be apparent in the cracks, or on lights etc. The best shops will remove everything that is removeable, including mouldings, mask off everything that isn't supposed to be specifically painted, and paint the vehicle with the hood and doors open to get the edges properly. Unfortunately the place that did the work, won't paint an entire car on a walk in basis.
When I was looking for a place to do a good paint job, I called around to several places to find out what kind of work they did, then visited them. The ones I found to do the best work would have custom cars sitting around, not just collision junkers. Get the counter person to show you some examples of their work, and how they do things. If your gonna drop the dough, they should understand. Be serious though, good guys time is valuable so don't waste alot of time if you already aren't expecting to pay $2000. Trying to get the best price is understandable, but don't nit pick about a couple hundered dollars, "oh, shop x will paint my car for $200 less, can you match it?" There is a reason you want to get them to match it, you feel they do better work, so pay them for it. If you are gonna play those games, then go to Macco.
Also, you can help lower the cost by unbolting as much stuff as possible. This is kinda labor intensive. Since I know that Macco wouldn't remove anything regardless of what i wanted, I stripped the car completely and drove it to them with just the taillights in.
(http://aldridgec.home.att.net/images/gallery/Joestgp/tgppaint.jpg)
When I got there the taillights were easy to remove, so I put them in the trunk. I also removed the louvers since the paint will crack around the edge because the hood flexes so much. They were nice enough to remove them from the trunk and paint them seperately. I was actually surprised! However, they did manage to paint over all light sockets that were hanging out :(
Chris
whoa, sorry its kinda long!