Car Painting - Got it done at a cheap place - now what?

[Nifty]

2 years ago we got our car painted at Maaco... it was just one of those $299 specials and we figured even if it wasn't perfect it would be better than what was there before.

Well, now we have paint chipping on our car and I'm wondering if having the cheap paint on there was worse than not having anything at all. My guess is that now if we want to do a new pain job we'd have to have all the crappy paint stripped off and then everything sanded down for the new paint to adhere to.

My questions:

1) Is the above true? Will all the old paint need to be stripped off
2) Do I always just "get what you pay for" and the only good paint job will be one that is more like $700?
3) Any other ideas or suggestions on what I should do for this car?

Thanks!

 

[Denim Deb]

Sell it?

 

[~gd]

The factory finish was baked on. Macco probally not. In a good body shop the prep is the most expensive part. Macco probably cut corners there. If it were mine and I wanted to hold on to the car I would take it in and let a pro look at it and estimate cost. There is no good reason for it to be failing but original paint is better than any repair job.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

1) Is the above true? Will all the old paint need to be stripped off
2) Do I always just "get what you pay for" and the only good paint job will be one that is more like $700?
3) Any other ideas or suggestions on what I should do for this car?

Thanks!

ummm Rob? Don't get mad at me...

I owned an auto body shop for about 8 years...

1) Not if you get a 299.00 paint job. For that price you get the chrome and glass taped off, everything rubbed down with steel wool and the cheapest paint in the world sprayed on by the bottom guy on the totem pole. They aren't going to sand or fix anything. I would suggest never washing the car with a high pressure hose though.

2) Yup. You get what you pay for. And unless your car is the size of a high-top tennis shoe, I'd think even a decently done cheaper paint job would cost about twice that or around $1,500. That's assuming it has no major rust, dents or other problems.

3) If you could see my truck you'd see my advise would be to just drive it. My paint on my truck is terrible... but a few years of dirt covers the worst of it quite nicely.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Now that's funny Farmboy!

Nifty, I'm sorry for your problems, but I'm glad you posted it here. I've been contemplating one of those cheapy paint jobs for my old farm truck. It looked good until my son must have driven behind some tanker leaking caustic or they had a 'non-toxic' release at one of the chemical plants. The truck has tons of tiny little spots where the paint has been eaten through.

I only paid a grand for the truck, but that was the special father/daughter price. The truck is 20something years old and has over 200K miles on it - but it runs perfectly. I'm not sure I'd drive it across country, but I use it whenever I need to haul something and it's never let me down. Soooooo, do I spend $1500 on it, or let it rust away? I live in a place where cars rust out just for fun. Honestly, I think I'd rather spend the money and have a truck that lasts. Even spending $1500 on a paint job is cheaper than a new truck.

 

[Denim Deb]

Nifty, is there any kind of warranty? I'd check that out first, then go from there.

 

[Nifty]

Thanks all!

I'm pretty sure the warranty was only 1 or 2 years, so we're definitely out of luck there

Honestly, if I had a super old vehicle that ran great and had really bad paint (and didn't have a wife that cared about what her car looks like) I'd probably be just fine with doing one of these super cheapo paint jobs every 3 - 4 years. Heck, it might be fun to have a different color on the car every 4 years.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Nifty, that's really not a bad idea! Maybe pink one year for me...and camo the next time for hubby!

 

[Emerald]

Heck.. Do what I did with my first car.. an old blue maverick two door. It had a few rust spots here and there and a couple that were kinda holes and my friends and I kinda sanded the rust off and bondo'ed the holes and sanded them and bought as many little pint jars of rustoleum as I could afford in pretty colors and we painted daisys of all colors all over the little sanded and bondo'ed places. only problem was... EVERYBODY knew it was my car.. I couldn't get away with anything in our small town! But it didnt' rust anymore and was so pretty to a 16 year old girl!

 

[Denim Deb]

OK, Nifty, if you paint little flowers all over your car, I wanna see it!