How Better Or Important Is The Original Paint?

[coolwater]

How better or important is the original paint?

Comparing to the most expensive paint job at Maaco (costs over a thousand), how better is the original paint?

If you had found a great used car at a great price but with bad exterior color, would it be a good idea to buy it and have the whole thing painted in your favorite color?

[Bali26]

Factory paint is like 7 coats plus couple clear coats, very high quality. Maaco is ok. Better to keep it same color it came in when repainting.

Not a good idea to spend too much on a paint job. Diminishing returns and all...

[SW03ES]

Maaco sucks. I have seen many different Maaco paint jobs while detailing and they are all awful, the factory paint is far superior.

Repainting the car is a bad idea unless you must and will definately lower the car's value, especially if done at a place like Maaco.

[NewGuy19]

I am having my car repainted next week. The surface shows its age with many dents, surface rust spots and chipped paint. Normally I would never paint a daily driving car but I plan on keeping this car around for a long time and don't want it to start rusting out on me like most of my previous cars.

I got a lot of bids to repaint my whole car and bids to just do spot work and blend it in. Most bids for a total repaint were in the $4000-5500 range. To just fix the damaged areas and get rid of that god awful light green pin stripe most bids ran from $1000-1100.

I opted for the second option seeing as the majority of the car is in good shape and only certain areas needed fixing. Just for fun I ran down to the Maaco store in town to get a bid from them, and they told me they'd repaint my whole car for $1250, something about that sends out a red flag in my head.

[SW03ES]

Your car is 20 years old though, anything within 10 years I wouldn't paint if I could help it...

Painting it will increase the value of your car...

[Marklouis]

Factory paint is like 7 coats plus couple clear coats, very high quality. Maaco is ok. Better to keep it same color it came in when repainting.

Not a good idea to spend too much on a paint job. Diminishing returns and all...

7 coats + 2 clear???? no wonder these cars are so heavy!

[Marklouis]

I am having my car repainted next week. The surface shows its age with many dents, surface rust spots and chipped paint. Normally I would never paint a daily driving car but I plan on keeping this car around for a long time and don't want it to start rusting out on me like most of my previous cars.

I got a lot of bids to repaint my whole car and bids to just do spot work and blend it in. Most bids for a total repaint were in the $4000-5500 range. To just fix the damaged areas and get rid of that god awful light green pin stripe most bids ran from $1000-1100.

I opted for the second option seeing as the majority of the car is in good shape and only certain areas needed fixing. Just for fun I ran down to the Maaco store in town to get a bid from them, and they told me they'd repaint my whole car for $1250, something about that sends out a red flag in my head.

you truly get what you pay for in paint jobs...and stay away from blend-ins! good luck and hope you find the right place! B)

[PureDrifter]

Your car is 20 years old though, anything within 10 years I wouldn't paint if I could help it...

Painting it properly will increase the value of your car...

corrected :)

[NewGuy19]

Your car is 20 years old though, anything within 10 years I wouldn't paint if I could help it...

Painting it properly will increase the value of your car...

corrected :)

Well the increased value of the car isn't what I'm going for here, its just an added bonus I'm just looking to make the car look better while I'm driving it and hopefully prevent any future rust problems. I chose to go with the best body shop with the most experience in town even though they are the most expensive and I had to wait well over 3 months to get an appointment scheduled. There's usually a reason for all that.

[SW03ES]

corrected :)

An excellent correction!

[SKperformance]

I would try and keep the oringal paint in best condition as possible . OEM paint will always command a higher reale value.

[SLORICK]

Caution: when you CHANGE COLOR (like your original post says), you ALSO have to paint: door jams, interior edge of all doors, underside of hood and trunk lid, interior edges of engine hood and trunk area. VERY EXPENSIVE.

When you look at a blonde, brunette or redhead for a wife, you can always ask her to wear a wig to bed.

It's different with a Lexus.

[Brett in AK]

Run, don't walk away from Maaco! At the most they will throw on a couple of coats of color and probably one of clear coat. Their prep work is atrocious. Rather than remove molding, they simply do a half "donkey" job of masking it off. For the non-believer's simply take a look at one of the cars they have done. Look for the overspray on anything they masked off. This isn't so much a slam against Maaco, but applies to any of the paint, drip and run specialty shops. Check with some of the restoration shops and they can probably hook you up with a reputable painter.

Don't be fooled that a fade-in job will look good. It will never match no matter what they tell you. A quality paint job is going to cost you a good quantity of money. But if the car is worth it, you'll be far ahead in the long run. This is one area where you truly get what you pay for. A few months down the line you don't want to see the paint lifting or peeling due to "PPP&P".

Regarding changing the color, that is almost impossible to do a quality job without a frame off restoration. It'll look okay to the bystander until you open a door, trunk or hood. You're much better off sticking with the OEM color or if you really don't care for the color then go looking for one that you like.

Just my 2 centavos worth!