Ok fellas I got an estimate from Macco today to get my entire car painted and to fix some rust spots around my car...The total estimate was $1512.00 Maaco was the only shop in St Louis that would do all this work, the other shops I went to would not fix rust. Has anyone used them?

 

we had our 1970's datsun painted by them when I was a kid. looked nice, but the paint was kinda cheap and started to ripple by the time we sold it

two questions to help you decide:
is there a warrenty? find out what it covers and for how long - then you may be okay
do you need to wonder why only one shop in all of St Louis will do this work? is it becasue of the location/extent of rust on your car

 

thanks for the information.....I will make sure I check my resources before I start giving out money.

 

wow!! $1500. almost the value of our cars..im happy theres no snow here in CA

 

Macco is the devl. I've seen 3 jobs come out of there.... NOt impressed. If you decide to do it. Make sure you CLEAN EVERYTHING off it even leaves. They'll spray right over leaves!

 

ive seen great maaco jobs, ive seen horrible jobs, have them itemize what theyre gonna do/not do, this way you know what you are paying for and dont expect a mountain when you only paid for a mole-hill. for 1500 bucks they are just prettying up your car

 

Well they fix rust because all they do is bondo over it. It will last long enough for the warranty to run out. But that's about all.

 

What is bondo?

 

Uh Oh. . .

 

filling compound

 

My car was macco'd when I bought it and I don't really reccomend it, but if your a little low on cash, then go ahead with it, but I'm with a lot of these guys who say that macco is the devil

 

Don't expect your car to look factory new. They won't even prep the surface and paint right over old paint. If the current paint is totally oxidized, I guess any new paint job will look "better".

As for rust, if they are going to put bondo over it, it will last 1 year or so before the rust behind the bondo starts to move out over the edge. Bondo is okay (if you are going to do work at home), but you have to make sure you sand off ALL traces of rust before you start bondo-ing. If not, don't expect much from the job.

$1500 sound like alot (because it is the average value of the 3rd gens), but if there is extensive rust, $1500 to "remove" it and repaint the whole car sounds too cheap.

Painting isn't too hard. I'd say getting a spray can from paintscratch.com or some local autobody supplier (most can mix colors and then put them in aerosol cans if you don't have a compressor/sprayer) might end up with results that aren't any worse than the Maaco job.

At least you know if you have really removed all the rust or not... But then again, if you have to ask what bondo is, maybe you should just get the Maaco job.

Good luck,

 

please read this from a professional(he wouldnt say it, because he's a humble person, but he's alot more professional that 98.6% of the people herehttp://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=343349

 

But we are talking about Jeff... I think he is up there with the guy with the HUD (who could that be???).

I wasn't trying to be sarcastic or anything before. I think the person should get the maaco job because I don't think he will be able to afford a real professional job. I also do not think he will be able to do the job himself, albeit I still think that will be better than any <$2000 paint job.

I was just worried because when I was in college, I did get a Maaco-ish paint job done on an '87 Ford, and they bondo-ed over rust and it took a year before the rust re-appeared and less than 2 years before I had a huge hole in the car...

Being that $1500 might get you another 3rd gen, I think it will be money wasted (considering it's maaco).

 

not even close to professional...not even close...thanks for the compliment though. I replied to your email a while back about the paints but didnt get a response so I am not sure if you got it. If not let me know...I did some research on that brand.


I will say this...maaco will probably not repair the rust correctly. If its just some surface rust they will probably just sand it down and put filler over it...them paint. Will look good but eventually bubble up and show.

I am working on a 1st gen prelude right now and it had this problem. I had to grind away the body filler then the rust. I got it down to bare metal on most of it (some will have to be cut out) and will treat it with some chemicals (PPG metal wash and metal prep) that will make for a good repair. There are a couple of places where it is too deep to grind out and I have to cut and weld a patch in. That is where you run into a major problem. A cheap place will just grind it out a little and patch it with filler or fiberglass but it will come back because its just like cancer...if you dont get it all it will continue to spread.

I think Maaco has its place. Its good for a cheap paint job if you do some prep or you just want a cheap paint job to make it look a little better for a sale. I just dont think I would pay that much for a Maaco paint job...UNLESS you make sure they will fix the rust correctly by cutting it out etc.

good luck with whatever you decide to do.

 

Actually awsm66 wrote that info, not Jeff. (and they're both better than me at most car things probably, just not wiring and stuff like that ) Michael is very thorough and knows his stuff so I know the prelude will turn out nice. Like shavedmax said, he's too humble to admit it, but he is definitely above most DIY painters.

If you're just looking for something cheap to make your car look better for a little while, then Maaco might work. But dont expect it to look great or last a long time.

 

I think the thing with Maaco is they have an "in and out" type of operation. Unlike most body shops, they don't take their time and do a thorough job. The reason painting a car is so expensive is the time involved in doing good prep work.

Another factor is paint quality. No matter how good the painter is, the car won't look good unless you use quality paint. Even a so-so painter will still have decent results with quality paint and clearcoat. Up close, you will see runs and orange peel, but good paint will shine nice and from a few feet away look fantastic. Crap paint with no runs and no orange peel still looks like crap paint.

Like these guys said, Maaco will likely just cover the rust with some bondo and it will eat through in a year or so. Rust needs to be totally removed (surface rust by grinding/sanding, total rot out by cutting/replacing). They will probably just use a crappy single stage paint, which will look glossy at first, but will have nowhere near the depth of a good base coat/clear coat paint job.

If you are that concerned with the look of your car, sell it for whatever you can and use that $1500 towards buying a car that already has decent paint and no rust.

 

I'd honestly would rather have a faded original paint than having to deal with a few layers of crappy Maaco paint that's all peeling off.

 

I'm just curious about those of you who have non-maaco paint jobs how much you paid for them(especialy awsm).
josh

 

Mike paints his own cars.

 

I'm going to get my ve5 painted and I have contemplated on taking it to macco.
seems like they lack prep work. Some people get a 500 dollar job and it looks great! (for the price) but the majority of macco comments are negative. I would advise on doing prep work yourself. save a few bucks, learn a few things. and if I ever gave my car to a shop to work on I would be there every day, ya know stay on their backs, make sure they don't get lazy.

 

i know mike does his own paint job i was just curious how much he spent on the paint(not including the guns).

 

i did not liek the job they did on my 93 maxima, it came back a different shade of blue.

 

Hey guys I want to thank all of you for your honest comments about Maaco I will make sure I do my homework before I choose a body shop to paint my car.

 

a regular repaint with MINOR bodywork(read:dings) around me starts at 3000, if they have to do any sort of real bodywork or strip panels, expect it to go over 5k. obviously if you have 5k to put into a 10+ yr old car you may just want to look into a better car. obviously we dont know what the condition of his car is now, for all we know there's holes everywhere, thats why maaco is trying to charge 1500, then again some maacos like to make money(go figure). if you want to clean the car up for a couple of years go with maaco, if not save your cash and invest it into something better. and most shops wont let you be up their butt everyday to see what theyve done to your car. besides the fact that their insurance doesnt let customers into work areas.

 

Well paint can cost a little or a lot.

For my 92GXE I painted it cost me about $150 but that was a SS (with clear mixed in the last coat for more shine and protection) paint. I painted it to sell and that was the cheapest route.

Cheap (but still good such as PPGs Omni) BC/CC paint will run you around $250 for enough to paint the car if you dont change the color. Also you have to factor in all the other stuff that shops buy such as cleaners, sand paper, primer, sealer, rags etc, etc. I would say that cheap paint job I did on the GXE cost me a total of about $300 once you factor in everything I used on it.

The high end paint is quite costly and I would say the average cost would be about $500-$1000 or more depending on what kind of paint it is.

Personally I am going to paint my 93 that I am selling with Omni BC/CC (would consider SS again if it were not metalic).

I will probably use Omni on my 92 as well...but what I will probably do is use omni base with Deltron (higher end PPG) clear. That way I have the better UV protection. The base isnt as important as the clear when doing a complete paint job. Omni is not a very good "matching" type of paint where you want to fix a fender or door or something. For over all paint jobs its fine though.

 

Crap, I wish my brother still worked for PPG...

He worked in the Automotive Finishes department and employees get up to $1k worth of paint (at cost) per year. I didn't have a car that needed painting when he worked there, so he gave my uncle a bunch of clear coat, reducer, primer and some other paint he needed.

He also told me not to buy Omni because it is the only line of PPG paint that doesn't have a warranty. I guess since you (Mike) aren't actually an "authorized" PPG painter (I know you do good work, though) you probably couldn't get money from them anyway. Anyone else that is going to have their car painted at a shop, if they are a PPG authorized shop and they use the mid or high end paint, it has a lifetime warranty. Just something to keep in mind.

 

Hey Maxima76, I think he is right. I would say that unless your car is completely rotted, you should be able to get few hunded (maybe upto a grand?) for that car, and putting that with the $1500, you should be able to get a nicer condition 3rd gen. I just missed a local '92 SE on ebay that had 90k mi, zero mechanical problems (owner said there were no VTC ticks either), zero rust, just really dirty interior, broken antenna mast, no radio, and I missed the price of $1026!!!!!!!! I was going to bid last second and my 10 month old decided to smash the keyboard with her hands...

Anyway, unless you owned the car in the family and there are sentimental reasons, even spending less than 3-4K for a rusted body re-paint would result in the rust coming back in a year or two (which means you can't keep it for years anyway).

If yours is a GXE fully loaded (auto AC mostly), then you are probably 1000 times better off getting another rustless 3rd gen with faded paint and then swapping parts in. Like Jeff said, I also agree that fading factory paint is 1000 times better than painting over rust.

Not only a 3rd gen king, but modest... I think that's why I love this forum.
Here's to Craig, Jeff, Mike, Matt, DanNY, InternetAutomar and others who I left out...

 

Hey thanks for the advice.

 

Yeah warrantee is not an issue for me but I agree with what you say. I have just talked to several professionals that say that omni is actually good paint...its just not for color matching and also the clear isnt quite as protective of UVs.