Has anyone had any experience with any of the Chicago Earl Shiebe paint shops? I saw a post on the Diesel Discussion page about his Shiebe paint job and he was happy with their job, but this was in Cal. He got their 4-pro deal which is warranted for life. He said he paid $500 with a coupon for a normal $750 job.

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1998 E300Turbodiesel
1980 300d

Ready- Ronnie

i think you would have to do your own investigation..

someday...i want to get a 500 job for my sons car.... but i will pre-wet sand and spot prime...

i will also take off the headlights, tailights, bumpers and trim... i would probably leave the door handles and side mirrors.. i would also take off the grill and de-badge the thing..

i think if you make it a bit easier for them..you are likely to get a slightly better paint job... you also might have to slip the painter 50 bucks up front...

those are my thoughts...

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1989 300ce 129k
( facelifted front,updated tail lights, lowered suspension,bilstein sports, lorinser front spoiler, MOMO steering wheel, remus exhaust,stainless steel brake lines). (Gone)

1997 s320 154k (what a ride). Sold with 179k miles. Replaced with Hyundai Equus

1994 e320 Cabriolet 108k



1972 280se 4.5 153k Owned for 12 yrs, sorry I sold it


[/SIGPIC]

I have read numerous sources stating that if you bring in a pre-parts stripped and good, pre-body worked body, Earl Scheib and Maaco can do a very credible paint job at a very good price. If you do something every day, you eventually get good at it. However, the "low-ball" paint is very low quality material - I'd get the better/best that they have.

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86 560SL
With homebrew first gear start!
85 380SL
Daily Driver Project

http://juliepalooza.8m.com/sl/mercedes.htm

Good, most certainly not. If you want an OK job for a car you don't want to spend a lot of money on, well than its a good way to go. For what you pay you seem to get a decent job, that looks far better than shot paint.

A good paint job costs about $5k and goes up from there depending on what other body work is needed for prep. If you have any rust expect the price to increase at an alarming rate.

It all depends on what you want from the car and want to put into it.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

It all depends on what defination of "good" is.


I heard of dealer doing paintjobs for as little as $2k. Sure, a $500 job would be better than having a rusted, beaten up car.

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-1983 VW Rabbit LS Diesel (5speed, VNT/Giles build)

A good job is perfectly smooth, with perfect gloss. Orange peel, sanding marks, and fairing marks do no exist. Every part of the car needs to be removed stripped and painted. Any rusted panals are replaced or new metal is welded in. Only the highest quality paints are used.

You should be able to get 6in away from a good paint job and not see any imperfections, look at any nice car show for examples.


A $500 paint job, is a $500 paint job. Some are down right horrible, I saw an SDL and I swear 2 year old must have sprayed it! I have seen vintage BMW's with $500 paint jobs that look pretty decent. Well until you get close, you can always spot an area where corners were cut.

In my area I have been rough quoted $3k-$10k for a quality paint job. Will take the SDL in for written quotes sometime this month, I'm thinking the hard numbers will be somewhere in the middle. I asked one shop, whoes owner does tons of work on high end cars and is a MB fan himself, what a new MB quality paint job would cost on the SDL if I stripped all the various trim parts off it first. Basicaly the car would come to him ready for body work. He said $4k-$5k.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

I'v had bad luck with inexpensive paint jobs. I had a car painted for a niece of mine at MAACO, it was their "diplomat" job or some such nonsense, and when I went to pick up the car I could spot light spots from several hundred feet away. Up close I could see nothing but orange peel. They re-did the job, and got rid of the light spots, but the orange peel remained. I must say the paint did hold up pretty well, though.
I had a nice 1977 280Z painted at the local Nissan dealership, and they totally destroyed the car - they painted it while it still had morning dew on the surfaces, and one year later the paint started blistering, and hasn't stopped since. (I still have the car 10 yrs later, still looks terrible).
If I were going to go that route again, I'd go look at some paint jobs that have been done by the guy that's spraying the car. I think that Lee's idea of slipping the guy $50 or so before he shoots the car is a good idea also.
A good paint job is going to be expensive, and it's going to be worth it on a car you want to keep. It affects the resale value of the car, probably as much as any single thing, so if you want to get the most value and be satisfied with the car, have a good job done!

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Richard Wooldridge
'01 ML320
'82 300D 4.3L V6/T700R4 conversion
'82 380SL, '86 560SL engine/trans. installed
'79 450SL, digital servo update
'75 280C

Having actually done body work and painted my cars and my friends cars when I was a kid (no doubt, knocking 10-20 years off my life), I'll say that the preparation is 80% of the work; knowing how to paint under the conditions you are in (temp, humidity, etc) and how to adjust everything to it is the other 20%. I did some pretty good jobs, but I had lots of free labor to help me at the time.

With my original comment, I should have added that the paint job should be somewhat proportional to the car in terms of expense. There isn't any point on doing a 5K paint job on a car that is within a few years of rust-through or parting out. OTOH, I'd expect to pay at least 5K on paint (with me removing the removeable parts, yet) for a car that I intended to keep for a long time that was fundamentally in great shape and I intended to keep it that way.

It's also much easier to get "very good" results with solid, light colors; the paint is generally cheaper and solid, light colors (white, yellow, etc) is pretty forgiving to the eye from a few feet away. Obviously, you aren't going to get anything even remotely acceptable in pearl black for $500. Ironically, "orange peel" tends to mask body defects...

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86 560SL
With homebrew first gear start!
85 380SL
Daily Driver Project

http://juliepalooza.8m.com/sl/mercedes.htm

I have had very decent BC / CC paint jobs for around $1500. When you factor that shop rates are around $35/hour and good paint costs about $600 in materials. Your talking around 125 hours of labor to get to 5k. That's a lot of labor for just paint.

Granted, if they had to do rust repair, filling , lead loading or anything else. It could get expensive.

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With best regards

Al

Here our shop rate is $43 an hour and materials to paint a big 126 body will run me $1000 to $1200 ,,,, easy. $200 a gallon for PRIMER is the going rate these days. It is very easy to put 100 hours in one of these cars IF it is in very nice shape. You can see where the 6 to 8 thousand is needed to get a good job and for me to stay in business.

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95 SL500 Smoke Silver, Parchment 64K
07 E350 4matic Station Wagon White 34K
02 E320 4Matic Silver/grey 80K
05 F150 Silver 44K

I have never painted a car, but I have done paint work and other prep intensive things on boats. I can say that I can see 100-200 hours put into a cars body without any trouble.

Pete Geither any favorite brand of paint? Du Pont seems to be popular.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Paints themselves, the basecoat, don't seem to be that different. We use BASF just because they are well represented but the clears are definately the difference between a long lasting paint job and a 5 year one. The Euros are very good, but very touchy. Solvent popping is very common with the Euro clears. We have been using Transtar clear for 8 years now and have yet to have a comeback because of clear breakdown. Some of the new Euro cars have what is called a Ceramiclear which is harder than hell: and seems to resist scratches better than the average clear does. Repairability is an issue with these clears though. I particuarlly like the BASF system because they give me a sample chip display with literally thousands of color chips with a lot of variances for most colors. The chips are always dead on to the color you will end up with. Hope I didn't bore you. Pete

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95 SL500 Smoke Silver, Parchment 64K
07 E350 4matic Station Wagon White 34K
02 E320 4Matic Silver/grey 80K
05 F150 Silver 44K

Most certainly not boring, I want to get the SDL painted next year so I want to learn about this stuff.

One of the shops I talked to liked Glastrot(sp???) its the same stuff I think my car came with from the factory. How is that piant?

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

I believe you mean Glasurit. That is a Euro paint, that is, as I said, no better than most others out there. Pay more attention to the detail that the shop pays attention to and the jobs they have put out in the past, along with customer reccommendations. There are a LOT of very good shops out there,,, you just have to find out who they are. Just a side note,,,, even the very best shops will screw up now and then, but the good ones will always make it right.

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95 SL500 Smoke Silver, Parchment 64K
07 E350 4matic Station Wagon White 34K
02 E320 4Matic Silver/grey 80K
05 F150 Silver 44K

Hmmmm I hate to point this out but most new cars don't pass your paint test. Ever looked at the orange peel on some of the new cars coming out of detroit?

Im not convinced about the 5k paint job on Mercedes cars. The older Mercedes cars did come with glassurit paint which is not cheap but when you get into the 5K range your talking about a Rolls Royce or a Ferrari paint job. Those are not production cars like a Mercedes and tend to wear a more expensive coat of paint. A really nice factory level paint job can be had for a lot less than 5k even with good paint.

I don't like "show car" paint jobs myself. A paint job that is identical to factory is what I would want even on the most high end car. It kind of irritates me these people who destroy the historical accuracy of high valued cars by painting them to a level that they were never painted from the factory. Its sort of like giving Joan of Arc breast augmentation.