Paint shop blues
 

Finally getting around to getting the 92 painted, and nobody will do it! :eek:

We don't do whole cars. We won't paint a car over 10 years old. We do insurance work only. The vehicle must be a repair job in order to fully paint.

The only one I've found so far that will paint the whole car is that Earl Shieb thingy. They said "Drop it off today, and you can pick it up tomorrow afternoon." :eek: :eek: 3 cars freshly painted on their lot and all 3 look like some kid with a spatula and a texture sponge painted them.

Is it just Vegas? I never dreamed this would happen. :eek:

earl scheist/maaco
 

hey,

earl scheib is really hit or miss. i've seen VERY nice paint jobs come out of earl scheib for the 500 dollars and under paint job, and very bad ones too. the trick is to prep the car really nice before you take it in, since alot of the labor is in the prep they'll try to rush it or what not. if you take a hour to look at the cars coming out of earl scheib, and the majority of they look shoddy, you should def. check out a earl scheib at a different county near you. my friend was looking to paint his ae86 and got a GREAT earl scheib job 20 miles away from him vs the one 2 blocks away. same goes for maaco. although i'd go with earl scheib over maaco just by the volume of complaints or whatever i see on the internet and from word of mouth. later.

The reason that a lot of them don't want to do cars over 10 years old is that they don't want to be bothered with lookey loos, dusch bags who go in and waste the shops time with an estimate, then berate the estimator for giving them a price of more than the car is worth :rolleyes: or simply go away and never come back :mad: so many people who want an older car painted think that it should be cheap because the car is old, they have no understanding about all the prep work that goes into a quallity paint job. Insurance work is easy to get paid for, but cash customers can be real A-holes who have no idea why the shop can and rightfully does charge what they charge.

If you really want your car painted then find out what the going rate is and if you are willing to pay it then get in touch with the owner of a quallity shop and explain your situation, tell them that you have looked into several shops and like their work (best to actually look at a few shops first) and you have a car that is very rare and has some sentimental value that you'd like to have refinnished, if they resist offer to pay part in advance.

Wow! I've never heard of a body shop that won't paint a whole car at the request of the customer. Seems like they're turning down easy money!

I've had 3-4 cars painted at Earl Scheib and 3 painted at Maaco in the last 20 years or so, and proper prep really does make the difference, both in the quality of the paint job AND the cost. I just had an estimate done to get my '92 "claret" restored to the proper color at Maaco on their $249 Ambassador "special" that's always advertised. Well, with minor bodywork and prep, the estimate came back at about $800.00, most of the cost being prep work. This was about the same amount I paid them to paint a small 4-door sedan in similar condition about 6 years ago.

I quit going to Earl Scheib about 15 years ago when I could finally afford Maaco "quality". I'm pretty sure the first car I took to Scheib didn't even get WASHED before painting, as they painted over sticker residue, mud, and whatever else happened to be stuck to the car. Oh, they also painted over part of my windshield and my rear-view mirror glass, if I remember right. After that, I started prepping my own cars before painting. The ones I took to Earl Scheib pre-prepped seemed to turn out better, but the quality of the paint seemed only fair, and they didn't match factory colors at the time.

The Maaco shop I use (closest to my house) has been hit-or-miss, quality-wise. They've made a number of mistakes in the work they've done for me but generally are pretty good about going back and fixing it. They DON'T really like it if you prep the car though, especially if body work was involved, and they usually won't warranty any paint work done over bodywork they didn't do.

Wow. I never knew. In the last 25 years I've had one car painted and expected it to look bad. I never knew this would be such a pain in the rear.

I'm dwelling toward crossing over to the dark side. Go buy a compressor and paint gun, and do it myself. Honestly... the quality I saw over at Earl's I could easily match... it was truly that bad, and all 3 cars!!

I'm even scared to go back, cause I'd hate to show up when those owners do. There is definitely going to be gunshots ringing. I wish I had a camera on me.

Vocational schools...
 

You should look to see if any vocational schools in your area have an auto body course. If so, see if you can get them to paint your car. Odds are they will do it free / really cheap, and do the best job.Id bet a pretty penny they do better than maaco, and if they screw up...Who cares? it was free / really cheap. hell, even have them do the prep work too, itll be a good learning experiance
the only downside here is they may not be able to colormatch....But Im sure it couldnt hurt to ask

This was my first idea. I was going to donate 2k to the school shop that did it in the form of a prepaid account somewhere, since a publicly funded school is not allowed to make a profit.

There is actually a waiting list for this. The big one... Las Vegas Vocational on Mountain Vista, says they can pencil me in for the 2009 school year, but no guarantees. I must furnish all supplies, and no donations of any form will be accepted.
(I swear I'm not making that up.)

I think a Votech would do an outstanding job. I mean.... it's their grade, and they know some instructor will be inspecting their work. :)

Brings up a funny story. I was over on the far side of the University, and casually went into the registrar's building where they have an info island.

I said "I've never noticed a paint booth on campus. Is there one?"
She said "Paint booth?" I said "yeah, you know, like they use to protect cars when they paint them."

She stared at me for a couple of seconds. I guess assuring herself if I was serious or not. Then she said "I think they may have removed that requirement from the chemical engineering program, have you tried the Art Department?"

Still as dense as ever, I replied "Art department wouldn't paint cars would they?" Then it dawned on me. What am I doing?

Funny, but embarrassing.:D :D I just wasn't thinking.

You don't mention how much $ you're willing to part with for a first rate paint job, & I can't speak for semi-left coast pricing, but I got my '92 ebony done here in Merryland about 4 years ago for $2,800. Every panel that could be removed was; including the sunroof, bumpers, side cladding, mirrors, door handles, lights, etc., & were sprayed separately. (No, not the lights). All minor dings were erased. Everything was put back together perfectly. The job took over two weeks to do, & the paint still looks like new. Not that you're about to motor east for three days, but there's gotta' be a "real" body shop somewhere in the desert. You gets what you pays for. It's an SVX - do it right.

Ron.

I agree with Ron, You get what you pay for. A good paint job takes a lot of time and precision and they should get paid for that. Strip the car down yourself and take it to them in a dozed pieces that will save them a ton of time and save you the missed areas that PaintDonald's will give you.

The east coast has a much better service industry than the west. They really don't seem to care out here much. Not that I haven't been to some body shops and seen some excellent work lately, I went to one today that was phenomenal. They do the work for the 2 Mercedes dealerships. But they won't paint it. They were the one that said - no car over 10 years old. He did tell me how much he would charge to paint (no color change). Sitting down? If it was less than 10 years old, he would do it for $11,000. I went "Dammmmmnnnn!!" - how much to just throw an open bucket of paint in the car's general direction? They get rid of all door dings, etc is what runs up the cost he told me. And they won't do a full paint unless they do. He said door dings stand out with new paint.

I'm really having a hard time with this. :o

I may just do that. It sounds like I could get better quality for the same cash this way.

They get rid of all door dings, etc is what runs up the cost he told me. And they won't do a full paint unless they do. He said door dings stand out with new paint.

I'm really having a hard time with this. :o[/QUOTE]


Me too. What's the difference between a two year old ding & a ten year old ding??? Nonetheless, tell'em the car's a three year old custom Camero - "So paint the dam' thing"!!!!

Ron (formerly a Vegas fan).

honestly, dont go over to the dark side. me and my dad had fun fixing tne dings in the hood of my old legacy, and it took us over a month to make it look right. folowing the body lines, the curves. This as form a 92 legacy, so it had simple lines. Our cars are 10x more complex. deffinatly DO NOT do your own pain job, unless you have about a year to do it right. Noto to mention time + materials + tools, it will come out to about the same cost of a nice job. When i get mine done,im gonna have a proffesional shop do it. So im gonna have about 3.5k into it, but it will be worth it. custom color, total body re-working and repaint. You absolutly get what you put in. and a bad paintjob, on even the niceset of cars looks FUGLY.
If you have the time and money, by all means do it yourself, but dont rush at all, you will never forgive yourself if you F*^* up the paint job

I can give you few hints if you plan to do it yourslef :rolleyes: , I have been trying that on a piece of metal board, it turned out that I can do a better job than any paint shop I have been to ;)