Maaco Paint Jobs?

[Andrew1990]

Well I am on a quest for making my car look better than it does right now. Right now one of the most noticeable things about it is the worn paint on the hood.

I had a bra on it over the winter and some salt got underneath it causing the paint to get really bad on the front of the hood.

I heard maaco jobs are cheap but quality is lacking on full paint job.


What I was thinking was to

-Take my hood off myself and do all the sanding/priming myself.
-Bring the hood to maaco and get them to try and match the color of my car.

Now, my car is a weird mystic teal color that may be hard to match, and therefore I may just get it painted shiny black to match my black convertible top.

Now would you guys say maaco may be decent if I did the prep work myself? Also, figuring an entire paint job on my car from them runs about $600, what would I expect with just the hood?


Also, I am not looking for a $1500-3000 paint job as my car is probably only worth $2200.

 

[RU482]

are you talking about painting the Camaro?

 

[Andrew1990]

are you talking about painting the Camaro?

Yea, the body's paint is in pretty good shape, its just the hood that is bad.

 

[zerocool84]

My sister went to Earl Sheib which is similar to Maaco and got her car painted about 2yrs ago. The paint is already peeling on the bumper but it's probably cus she's a girl and almost never washed it or waxed it.

 

[Zenmervolt]

My sister went to Earl Sheib which is similar to Maaco and got her car painted about 2yrs ago. The paint is already peeling on the bumper but it's probably cus she's a girl and almost never washed it or waxed it.

Peeling paint isn't the result of failing to wash or wax. It's the result of either inferior paint or, more commonly, inferior prep work. This is particularly true of plastic bumpers/facias.

These plastic/composite pieces flex a good bit as well as expanding/contracting with temperature much more than metal does. Because of this it is vitally important to include plasticizers in any paint applied to plastic/composite panels or the paint will soon begin peeling off of the panels. Many inexpensive body shops will omit these plasticizers in order to save money up front because the majority of their customers don't know enough to know they're needed and the peeling problem won't become apparent for a year or two.

For the OP: Paint work is only as good as the prep work. Most of the issues with Maaco or Earl Scheib paint jobs can be avoided in your case as you can remove the hood from the car entirely as well as prep it yourself. It's unlikely that the paint will match perfectly regardless of who does the work, but if you do decent prep the Maaco respray on the hood should be perfectly fine.

ZV

 

[Vette73]

If just a hood do this...

http://www.instructables.com/id/Paint-Your-Car-With-Rustoleum/&sa=U&ei=roDNS6KRH4HS8ASWouimDw&ct=res&ved=0CBkQFjAB&cd=2&usg=AFQjCNEGf3qNHzr-u-QQojGLA9w2KLGvdw

 

[essasin]

I've seen Maaco paint jobs look good with some grunt work of your own. Do all the prep work and make sure it's ready to go. Pay extra for multiple coats of clear and wet sand/buff it out yourself for a nice finish. Price really depends if you are painting the underside/liner of the hood. I'm guessing around 100 bucks to shoot the top only.

 

[SooperDave]

I worked for Miracle in the mid 80's (same thing as Maaco). Definitely do the prep work yourself. This idea of spraying just the hood may not work out well. Even a slight difference in color is noticeable when two panels (hood and fender) are edge to edge. Normally they would paint the tops of the fenders and blend in on the sides. Ask what kind of paint they use. Miracle used to use (I don't know if they still do) some really cheap synthetic enamel. It was easy to shoot and looked really good at the get go but it would oxidize and fade quickly. More coats helped. Up front the paint jobs were sold under one name or another but in the back it was either a one coat, two coat, or three coat job. The more the coats the better the prep also (featheredge chips/scratches, sand edges, masking, clean up after). I digress. Make sure the paint is equivalent or better to what came on your vehicle (don't take their word for it). Get the name of the paint and research.

 

[BassBomb]

go with that rusted hood look thats all the rage now

 

[CurseTheSky]

As others have said, there's not much that can go wrong with simply spraying the paint on (except for overspray, which taking the hood off the car eliminates). I doubt they're going to hand you back a hood with obvious drips or debris caught in the paint.

So, as long as you do the prep work yourself and good a good job of it, you should be good to go. Now you just need to price out the cost of a new hood vs. the time it'll take you to do all the sanding.

 

[radioouman]

Took my sister's car to Maaco and had it sprayed after a hail storm. Maaco did no prep work. They sprayed right over bird crap on the top of the car. We took it back to them and they sprayed it again, and we sold the car not too long after. I wouldn't even think of using Maaco. I'd rather use a rattle can.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Weren't you planning to sell this in a year or two? IMO, don't bother. It won't add much to the car's value and will cost $$$ to be done right. I don't know about you, but it would bother me more to have a poorly painted & mismatched hood than one with paint that was as faded as the rest of the car.

Take all this money you keep wanting to spend on your car and put it in a savings account. If you have a checking account already and are 18, you can open an ING Direct savings account as a cheap way to separate you from your money Everytime you're about to blow a big wad of money on this car, put that cash in your savings account. Also put $X per month in there. Before you know it, you'll be able to sell this car and get something that you REALLY want to modify and keep-up.

I *completely* understand the desire to improve what you've got. I had the same itch for many years with the 99 Sonoma (4-cylinder dog), 95 Grand Prix, and 93 Concorde that I drove in my teens. I never did much and am glad. You *won't* have this car for that long and most anything you can do for it wouldn't be worth the money, in the end.

Just my $0.02!

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Hit up thirdgen.org and look in the body section ( I know yours is a 4th gen) but there are a few threads on the ultimate cheap paint job (like $100) and you can do it your self and get pretty damn good results.

 

[exdeath]

Those places don't even do a base or clear coat. They just sand it down and throw down a single coat in one pass and that's it.

A decent paint job approaching OEM quality starts out at $1,000 minimum.

As said above, not really worth investing money into something that either isn't worth the money or something you are in love with and will keep forever in which case it's priceless to you and worth the expense.