cost of new paint job

[Subie59]

what are your experiences with the cost of new paint jobs. My wife's 2001 Legacy is looking a little old and has some rust spots developing around a wheel well and along the bottom of a door skin. My belief is that if you keep a car looking good you will
a) take better care of it .
B) the better a car looks the more liklihood you will not get bored with it and want to keep it longer.
So the cost of a new paint job can be a good investment.

My choices are to just repair the rust spots and paint them or paint the whole car.
Any ideas on what costs I can expect?

second question: should I wait until the Spring to get the paint done so I can appreciate it for the entire spring and summer or try to deal with it now before it gets worse?
Thanks

[JaySVX]

I agree for the most part, except being a good investment. The price you pay for a good new paint job, you will never recoup. I would only consider painting a car I do not intend to part with for a long time. I'd say you can get a decent job with not to much body work for $3000-4000. I would reccomend new side cladding, new front and rear bumper cover. They're relatively inexpensive, and it's much cheaper to buy new than the billable hours to make the ones you have in good enough shape to look new.

[Crazy_pilot]

It's often said that Subaru's rust from the inside out, so there may be more rust there than meets the eye. Rust repair, done properly, is very labour intensive.

(is searching for body shops to replace my rotted rear quarter panels, and working on saving considerable money for it...)

[demonsvx]

Why not the rollerpaint job?

+

=

Its cheap and you can say you did it yourself for under $100

[williamshuck]

Is that a joke? Or did you seriously paint that car with rust-oleum?

[demonsvx]

not my car but it is a well known thread over on the Mopar forums and Hot Rod magazine did a article on it
http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/b...job/index.html
cheap on the wallet but more labor intensive. My 86 F150 is halfway primed with enamel and I work on the paint when I can, cheap and easy to repair. Get a scratch , bust the same color out, watersand till your hands fall off, looks like the scratch never happened. Some other cars painted with rollers