Repaint question....
 

Not too far off I'll have to repaint the '85 300D, and today I was nearby an EconoPaint shop so got an estimate ...older guy; seemed experienced....

2x Dupont polyeurathane....there was a sealed vented booth...quoted $375.

My car was repainted a few years ago by a PO; but it is peeling a bit on the sunroof, and I will be doing rust repair below the rear windshield; when it gets a little cooler here in FL.....

Is this decent paint? Any advice on a repaint?

He suggested using fiberglass to cover rust after I get rid of it...Any input on this? I've seen the JB Weld repair here and that looks pretty solid....

Thanks!

I took mine to the Econo Auto Paint shop here in Raleigh for an estimate, they must have identical pricing because that's the same price they gave me. He also said he'd do a coat of clear for an extra $50. I am kind of worried about the quality of their paint job though. I looked at some of the cars on their lot, and none of them would be what I call professional. One of them looked so bad it was laughable. The cars I looked at at Maaco's looked better, and they gave me a similar price, so I have to decide between the two. The thing about Maaco is they told me they's sand down to the metal and prime the whole thing, but the guy at Econo said they were either lying to me or the sales lady didn't know what she was talking about. I'd like to hear of anybody's experience with either one of these companies.

you get what you pay for
 

Well IMO, if you just want to spray a coat on to get the car through a few more years of life, I guess it's fine. Personally I would stay away from the cheapo paint shops, they usually give you the old experienced guy to do the quotes and call out junior to practice his painting on your car. Either way, if your car has already been shot before, adding another 2 part coat will probably have unpleasant results, simply put, the quality of the substructure is poor already, unless it is removed, whatever you put over it will suffer.

As to fiberglass repairs, they, as well as bondo and other fillers, JB weld is good but not for this type of repair, are fine, just make sure to remove the rust.

I can vouch that JBweld can fix anything, as evidenced by this enourmous thread where we used it to fully repair our rusted out rear window area, it is still leak and rust free!

Thread:

http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/bodywork-repair-paint-tools-tips-tricks/129289-w126-horrors-rear-window-rust-help.html?highlight=rear+window+rust

Enjoy :D

Are you sure they didn't leave a zero off the estimate :rolleyes:.

Seriously, you can't expect any kind of professional results for that kind of money. If you are just trying to make it look decent for a year or two, OK. But $375 wouldn't cover the labor to remove the trim for a pro paint job. IMHO, paint is one area where you usually do get what you pay for.

but on the other hand
 

it seems foolish to me to spend 5000 on a really good paint job on a 3000 dollar car. cause it wont make it sellable for 8000. really new paint doesnt make a car worth that much more so you should prob do it for yourself unless it is a truly valuable collector car, not a daily driver.

i have had many cars painted. some at maaco and some at other places. mostly i have been satisfied considering the price paid. mostly though i have had non metallic cars. the metallic colors are a lot harder to make look decent on a repaint. that is a big reason i dont buy metallics if i can avoid it.

tom w

Paint is as only good as it's prep work... if you're just taping stuff off, you have to worry about other things such as overspray, drips, cracks, etc. Spend the time to strip it down properly

There's probably some reasonable middle ground between $375 and $5000. I suspect you could get a halfway decent looking paint job for around $1000 if you were willing to do some prep work yourself. Just depends what you want, if you're going to keep the car long term or not, and how much it will bug you if you have to look at a mediocre paint job every day.

If we based auto decisions on economics only, we'd all be driving 5 year old Hondas like everyone else.

true
 

enough!

tom w

You can do a rattle can paint job yourself for even less money :D

You should have seen the VW bug I had in college.

Wal-Mart has their $.94 cent paint that is almost the exact color of my super Beetle. The previous owner had already started touching it up with it. When I get all the dents out, I am going to splurge, and reapint the whole thing for about $10 :D

no really, have
 

you tried the rattle can? on a car you would prob use 375 worth of paint and still not get it covered. i once did just a fender on a chebby pickup and i think it took like 8 cans.

i once had a 78 volvo that i got from my dad. when i went to sell it i decided to put a cheap paint job on it. a friend had a 88 thunderbird that he had a farmer who did paint on the side paint and it looked really good. the price was unbelievalby cheap. so i took that volvo up. he gave me a cheap price dont remember how much, maybe 400 or so 10 years ago. so when i went to pick it up it was jus thorrible. he must not have even washed it before spraying it. there was loads of dirt and on the back near the window was an actual whole moth.

made maaco look like bob smith restorations. ( a major ferrari restorer).

tom w

good luck
 

good luck to you and i hope it works out, but you might look into spending just a bit more to get something reasonably good, like $1000 or so. i recently spent $9500 on a w113 paint job, but i had some specific expectations, it was engine out, body only and stripped to bare metal. the w123 wagon here is showing some delamination on the rear gate and also the sides, i really hate it. i am considering a cheapo paint job on that, but wouldn't consider anything less than $1000 from talking to the guys around here. i don't think you can get decent paint sprayed over masked chrome for less than $1500-2000, but i have never been to maaco. i think i will give maaco a call tomorrow though.

good luck.

You are not very helpful...So why not go to a Honda forum..........