Please don't laugh..but I have to ask...
 

One word.

Maaco.

For $500 they say they can give me 4 hours of body work and new paint.

I have a decent dent (6" around, 1/2 deep) in my rear quarter that needs to be either pulled out and/or filled and then several dozen door dings that the dent doctor guy said might be easier to just fill the whole door.

I drive over 80 miles per day at 80MPH+ all highway. All year round in NE. Winter snow, sand, salt, summer heat. The paint (or lack thereof) up front shows it. I bought a front cover (hate the term bra) but it's so bad up there I'm not sure it's worth it.

I love the car and I get to enjoy driving it fast every weekday. Long ago I've settled with trying to save it or drive it. The car is a DRIVING car. It loves to be driven I love to drive it -- he says speaking to the choir.

So I ust can't see spending several K and then driving it and worrying about all the cash being stripped off as I follow the sand truck at highway speed.

Comments welcome...

Macco
 

Find yourself a good independent paintshop and get an estimate for what you want done. Tell them that cost is an issue. Macco pays its employees like $10 an hour and they are very unexperienced, they also use CHEAP paint. You should be looking at around $200 per large panel, $100-$150 for the smaller ones. So for the hood $200, Bumper $200 and $300 for both fenders. You'll be much happier with the work, esp. 3 years from now.

Granted, I'm just waiting for the next $100 deal for Macco to take my justy in although that'll be 2x what I paid for her.:D

don't follow the sand truck!
i suspected the front spoiler on my old Lesabre T was painted by MAACO, because the paint would peel off in strips, and the screws were painted over. if you do get a cheapo paint job, make sure they use some flex agent on the plastic pieces - or after a while it will be much worse than a few chips. you get what you pay for.
if you shell out the $$$ for a good paint job, you could get that 3M clear paint covering applied to protect it. i don't like bras, and not just the way they look - if you don't remove them when they're wet (every time it rains, washing) and let the car dry real good, they'll mess your paint up as well. you could just put a bra over the already bad paint and not worry about it as a cheap solution.
when will Subaru learn to put a good coat of paint on their cars?!?!?! on the i-club, people complain about the thin paint on the new WRX's, too.

Paint quality
 

Actually, I'm pretty sure the front-end was after market painted because I know the car's been in a front end collision.

I don't make it a habit of following sand trucks, it's just pretty darn hard when they make staggered wall four lanes wide in front of you. You have two choices, drive 45mph ALL THE WAY TO WORK, or blast past them.

The previous owner (leasee) must have followed trucks as a matter of course. The windshield is so pitted I can barely see out of it. The paint is not peeling at all, just pitted. I wouldn't expect any paint job to hold up to that kind of abuse - if the windshield is any indication.

Remember, my car is a '97 with 'only' 80K miles. Some of you guy's/gal's '92's with 100K+ look a million times better.

Its still better than the paint they put on Nissans. I just hope that they don't start getting a 20% share of orange peel in the paint that GM puts on their cars.:D Thin paint you can deal with by not driving too close to the car in front, bad paint you can't. Its amazing how different the front ends looked in Lafayette on the mid-western SVXs compared to eastern SVXs.

I have more chips than paint on the front of my car. I live next to a quarry, and have to follow the stone trucks every time i go somewhere, plus there is sand and small stones all over the road! UGH :(

Mike

Green1995 SVX,

I cant get into SUBARUSVX.org. I don't remember the password and it still has my old e-mail address at work which is no longer valid.
Can you change my e-mail address to my current ones? Thanks.

that's no excuse for a $36,000 car. Subaru had better wake up and start rectifing these problems that keep occuring year after year (paint, transmissions, alternators).

Problems?
 

Problems? The paint is equal in quality to any over car in the price class. Most BMWs have orange peel! EVERY Lamb. has mismatched paint! Jag well its a Jag:D . As for problems. Remember, Consumer Reports had the SVX as a Recommended Vehicle up until about 96 or 97. Reason why it wasn't on there after that is simple. There wasn't enough SVX owners sending in their questionaires. Its not like they rate cars themselves, they simply go by what the actual owners report. When compared to other cars in its class it was and still is one of the most reliable vehicles sold. How many people do you know of that have driven a Vette to 100+K. Now how much do you think it would cost to mantain at that point? The Stealth/3000? You do know that a tranny for this car is upwards of $7k installed. Nissan 300zx? Clutch is good for about 50-100k depending on driving and will cost ya a good $1000. Sorry I know virtually nothing about the RX7 just like 98% of the mechanics in the world:D .

If you want a car that doesn't have problems sell your SVX and spend $5k to much on a Honda. Granted, you'll probably fall asleep behind the wheel and total the thing but at least you won't have to complain about the money you put into your car. You'll just have to spend 5xs as much time looking for it in the parking lot.

Sorry, I'm still a little salty over the Pittsburgh loss this weekend. A win over Notre Dame would've made my year!!!:D

i'm not whining and going to sell my car - i like SVX's as much as everyone else on this site, but i'm not so in love with the car to be blind to its faults, and some major ones at that. i'm willing to accept them, though (with wallet open.)

sure you can drive an SVX over 100,000 miles, but how many transmissions are you gonna put in it? Consumer Reports' recommendations mean absolutely nothing to me. all i was saying was that Subaru should correct some of these ongoing problems and they would have GREAT cars.

Pitt - ha!, i went to Penn State :D how 'bout those Steelers and Penguins - they redeemed themselves this weekend!

I'll stop on my 15th tranny.

What problems? Subaru makes very reliable cars, just as much as hondas. So Subarus had problems with the front seals on the motor so did honda, but I would rather take apart the front of a Subaru motor than try to wedge my hands between the strut tower on a honda. And just try changing belts on a nissan Altima or Sentra what a pain in the ass..


As far as I am concened Subarus ARE one of the best, most reliable, and preferable to work on real cars in the word.


REAL CARS:
All wheel drive
Turbos
Participate in a motorsport that can actually better the prodution vehicle.
or something like that.

The new WRX STi should not have any of those problems and that little beast runs like a bat out of hell. I'd never get one though... but got to send in my 3 cents

guess what a popular mod for the WRX is? you got it - grounding mod - just like we've been doing with our cars for the last 10 years.

so 15 x $3000 (low est.) = $45,000 spent on a car worth less than $5000. makes sense.
like i said, i really like my SVX, but to be foolishly devoted to a car is kinda silly. if it starts giving me a BUNCH of grief, its gone. hopefully, it won't and i'll enjoy it for many miles :)