theres a really good paint shop out here and I took my comet by there and he gave me a rough estimate of $2000 and no less than 6 months time to complete. so it takes a while for a good shop BUT paint jail for YEARS is ridiculous. the problem is that shop owners take in more work than they can get to and as soon as you leave a deposit they spend that money and have there guy take the car apart the first week then they can act like theyve done something or atleast make you not want to come get the car because its all in pieces and everyone knows when someone else takes something apart youre going to play hell putting it back together yourself
around here they work on the old stuff when there isn't any of the quick money Ins. jobs to do. another thing...a lot of todays body Guys don't know how to repair "old bent, sometimes rusty metal". they are...swap parts people, if it's bent or broken...replace it.
That is pretty much how it works in my area too. If the shop is slow they will make progress on your car. If they are busy with insurance work then your car may sit for weeks or even months without them working on it.
So how do you get your car painted? Just play the waiting game. I just talked to a shop here and asked a ball park figure for show quality (before I knew how expensive it is) and he said $10-$15K and that includes hydro blasting. Would take 3 months at least and I have to bring him the car completely stripped. I am going to keep looking since I don't need SHOW QUALITY. I am going to ask for quality paint job.
I have a local shop that has painted many cars for me over the years. I usually set up a time frame that I'm looking for to have the car completed. I usually try to get it to him ahead of schedule and do frequent checks to see how he is progressing. It usually still takes him longer than first quoted but I have never experienced the 'paint jail' like some have mentioned. I will say that most of the cars that he has done for me he has had for 1-3 months. I usually try to plan to get them to him right after the start of the year so that I can be enjoying my new paint job by the time the cruise-in season starts in April.
I took my orange car in like this.....disassembled, media blasted, rust free Arkansas car. I was told 2 to 3 weeks. It was 2 1/2 years.
all these stories are why I started painting my own stuff years ago. Course.. I was a painter already so the transition to HVLP guns and thinner hotter paint mixes wasn't all that tough. Worked in a couple body shops during the my "off-seasons" too. I was amazed at the large amount of nice.. un or partially finished cars sitting in the shops back corners and even outside in the weather under tarps. It's a business through and through and they will almost always take and execute the projects that make them the most money in shorter time-frames. When the Wisconsin Badgers won the Rose Bowl there was a flood of damaged Police cars, a big "pain in the ass" ambulance, and even a couple of postal trucks that were vandalized by drunken college kids. EVERYTHING, and I literally mean EVERYTHING, got pushed back and that's all we worked on for a week and a half solid including weekends. I still vividly remember a customer screaming at the owner in the office and slamming his hands on the counter because his simple "3 day turnaround" was going on 3 weeks. Having seen both sides, I would highly recommend doing absolutely as much as you possibly can if given the correct space to do such tasks. Take batches of removable parts to your media blaster of choice.. or.. hand strip them yourself and save fistfulls of cash to help towards affording to up the material/paint quality if need be. Up to the point of bases and clears.. all else can be done within a simple makeshift spray booth and cheap spray guns. From there onwards the booth just needs better filtration and the price of the guns go up, is all. Best to pay them to bake your car too but the transport costs can get away from you if you're doing much yourself. There are tons and tons of garage painted cars out there so don't underestimate the potentially good results. Plus.. even a novice can learn to do a paintjob themself in 1 or 2 years time. So, why pay someone 3 times as much to lock your car up for 2 years when you can do it much cheaper with beer-n-buddies in 1 year. lol As for the costs. Figure between about 4-7 G's for a show-n-go type driver deal(obviously depends on much variable and overall condition of car). Show only jobs will easily double or triple the costs as material prices skyrocket from both volume and premium quality prices. Not to mention the extra labor hours required for all the stoopid ungodly amounts of sanding that's involved with each and every coat that's laid down. No joke, sometimes hundreds of hours spent on clears alone just to give it that really deep look. At that point, you may as well take the motor out of it because you can't even drive that kind of paintjob.
The car in the quote before his would fall into that quality of paint job and no doubt there's a reason he threw out that number. The expense of paint is the main reason I will do mine on my own. I have painted my bike a few times so I'm ready to try a bigger piece, what's the worst that could happen, it turns out like crap and I learn not to do it again? Wouldn't be a first time!!!
I painted my first Maverick three times. Spray-balmed each individual piece off the car in my parent's basement (I was 14). I got a compressor, gun, and paint for Christmas and my Birthday one year and painted it outside in a weekend using Acrylic Enamel. A few years later, I painted the car again, outside. I used Urethane paint this time (I was 21 by this time). If you luck out and get the right conditions, you could probably hammer it out yourself if you have any kind of aptitude for that kind of thing. Removing all the chrome and pieces makes for a better job, too. Doing THAT yourself will make for a better job, and keep the costs down a bit. I know a few guys here that paint but usually don't like to paint over someone else's bodywork. A buddy of mine did the bodywaork, block sanded, sprayed colour and clear and then cut/buffed a 1985 Dodge 1/2 ton. It was for his brother-in-law, so he gave him a deal at $3800...
guys.. man hours needed for mid to higher end jobs are MUCH MUCH more expensive than premium quality paints will add to the invoice. If I had to just ballpark here.. I'd say most show-n-go jobs run into the 100-200 hour range pretty quickly. Can't even think of many small shops that'll do this kind of work for much less than about $45-50 an hour when needing to pay their guys between 20-30 bucks per hour on average just to get the job completed. Not sure where you're at Metro-wise.. but there was at one time a growing trend towards "booth time rentals" years ago. Not really sure what's out there anymore but I thought about checking into it myself if my "long-time buddies nephew's shop" can't turn it over when I actually need it done. PS. finding a good painter that lays out a nicer coating can also reduce end result cutting/polishing/processing time and cuts costs as well. Less cutting is better and preserves the MIL thickness that you payed so highly for. And @Paul. Exactly what I was talking about. I also once did a stationwagon with Walmarts .99 cent paper thin el-cheapo paint. Once it was wet sanded and buffed out.. people would argue with me because they wouldn't believe it. One year that car sat broken down and uncovered in the Wisconsin winter. Pressure washed it, removed some sap, lightly polished it and it was right back to a solid 5 footer showcar. It can be done and as with any paint work.. it's all in the prep work before the paint ever starts flying.
groberts101 Thanks for all that great info really helps Paul Masson thanks for the vote of confidence I think I may drive it a while and look for a fellow car guy that paints. Or fine someone with a booth. Going to go ahead and do my engine swap and clean and paint the engine bay myself
Its still difficult to imagine $25,000.00 for a paint job for ANY Maverick or Comet .. regardless of the body work necessary to begin applying the paint . Maybe to SOME folks out there .. $25,000.00 is NOT a stretch.. but to ME it's out of MY range , and I wouldn't consider a paint job for that amount!! All my cars are painted .. with a GOOD paint job .. but most certainly ..I did NOT pay anywhere NEAR $25,000.00 and the cars look Great !! I raise the bar in OTHER areas ... mostly mechanical procedures. Cometized (Chip)
