What did a Good Paint Job Cost you???

[Bob Andrews]

I've worked both sides of the street; insurance and body shop. Just what exactly is a 'driver' paint job? Anyone spending more than a few thousand dollars will be disappointed with any flaw any where on the car. Where does one allow the short cut? Yes, you can go with single stage vs two stage, but really, who wouldn't be disappointed if there was an issue?

You bring up a good point, Tom. Enough so that I decided to start a new thread on the subject.

[Flashback]

The paint job on "The Saturday Night Special" is going to cost about six to eight hundred dollars. Single stage black, sprayed by yours truly. Now this is the only option I have. Five to fifteen thousand for a paint job??? Insane

[JBOYLE]

I don't want to talk about it!
I bought a low mile 1997 Mercedes this summer. The PO was honest about the trunk paint being bad (a PO backed into a tree) so I mentally allotted $1500-2000 to fix that. Well, the rest of the car was bad too..it seems that after a an front accident, (properly repaired with a clean Mercedes dealer PPI) some previous CAMO had them shoot the entire car rather than match paint...and the entire thing went semi-matt. It was still a nice 10 footer, but it drove me nuts.
The total came to $3500...it didn't need any bodywork...with expensive factory color metallic paint. But since I had already budgeted $200o for the trunk repaint (which was taken into account when we arrived at a price), the extra wasn't too big of a shock.

To get back to your main question, Allen Barth said that after doing several Avantis, he's raising his rates for a glass-out job.
I'll let him give the exact number

[52 Ragtop]

When I painted my 63 Avanti 4 years ago, I used Standox base coat clear coat. The materials 5 liters of paint, 5 liters of thinner, 2.5 liters of hardener was right at $1800.00 This did NOT include the 2 part epoxy primer and hardener, sand paper, tape, paper etc. plus the hours of prep work!
The best bet is to find somebody that does body repair at a shop, that is willing to take on the painting of an older car. Production shops will not mess with it, as it takes way too much time in the shop.

Jim

[jnormanh]

How good do you want it to look? I've seen Maaco jobs at $600 that were about as good as a fifties factory paint job. About a year ago a friend and I (we've both done show quality paint jobs...and "show quality" means a two footer, were invited to look at some cars in a private collection. All of them were best in class at any show. One of them, a '53 Buick, we spent about twenty minutes, noses almost touching the car, looking for the most minuscule imperfection. We could not find a flyspeck..It was the best paint either of us has ever seen. The owner said it was a $20,000 job, after al the bodywork was done.

However, painting is the easy part. Stripping all the trim and rubber and glass, repairing the rust and dents is the hard part.

If you can get the car ready for paint,and I mean actually READY, you can probably get a first class job for $1000, and then you get to put it back together.

Forget the orange peel. Good painter laying down base/clear won't leave any.

[Kdancy]

Forget the orange peel. Good painter laying down base/clear won't leave any.

I've seen a lot of high end paint jobs and talked to a lot of the painters. I have yet to see even the best non stock paint job with absolutely no orange peel after fresh paint. I can get it very close to none but
none? Maybe in a climate controlled $100,000.00 spray booth. Orange peel has every bit as much to do with climate and weather-temperature conditions as it does the painter and type of material and equipment he is using.
Maybe Ive never seen a "good painter" paint job.
Now it has been my experience that the higher end supplies - Primers, paints, clears, hardeners, and reducers, tend to lay down flatter then the Maaco level of material. Usually easier to cut and buff plus lasts much longer
then the Maaco level. It's too much work for me to cut corners on cheap made materials (not necessarily cheap cost as there is some really good stuff on the market today that is high quality, just not the main brand)
Its not 1970 any more no matter how much one might wish it! Even the cheaper brand material sold nowadays is much better than it was back in "the day".