Hey all im in washington state, lookin to get a paint job, i hate this gold color, so ****ty! Im goin black and my friend gave me a nice recipe for some nice black tails, anyone know how much it would be for a nice paint job, i was thinkin like 400? Thx for the help on the last few polls.

 

add 1 thousand to that and you may have a nice ballpark figure on what its gonna cost. any paint job woth a damn costs around 800 around my area and for a color change its more like 1300 plus for something that looks as good as stock. if you get a quote for 400 bux for a color change from your current color to black then i suggest you run cause its gonna be a half *** job, sorta like a maaco paint job

 

i've read thousands more than that if you want a truly good paint job, especially full color change. 400 is when they tape stuff off and half *** the job. the majority of the thousands is because of the labor they do preparing it.

 

Around here it's more like 400 + 2k. I couldn't get my front end done for 400. Maybe I need to move to Washington. More rain, less snow.

PS: Thats not for a color change. You want a color change. It just about doubles.

 

400? Plz... Maybe from uncle bob in his garage..

Be weary of black.. I love it, but it shows EVERYTHING..

Last quote I had here was 2000 for a repaint.. Thats high I know but hey what do you do?

Proph

 

yeah $400 is too cheap. I live about 30 miles south of you in Renton and it will cost you at least $1500 or so to get a good paint job, especially if your changing colors. Do not go to macco. Or youll be sorry.

 

my front alone cost about 500..

 

hey...u should remove ur pin stripes...

 

to change colors and have a good job done your looking at 3-4k.

or goto maaco! they paint cars for about 400 bucks.

or even better then maaco. just buy spray paint!

 

Your best option would probably be to sell your max and find one in black, if that's what you want.

 

why buy a car if you don't like the color of it to start with?

 

That's the best idea yet! Yeah what he said.

 

I agree with most of the posts regarding cost, $1500 to $3000 is a good range to consider. One way you may be able to save some money is to contact your body shop and see what prep you can do to cut costs. Some shops require that all prep is done in-house to guarantee a quality job, but they might let you do a few things that won't void their waranty. Prep items you could do yourself:

1. Remove all badges/emblems
2. TSP (Trisodium Phosphate) the entire car to remove wax.
3. Remove any striping.
4. Remove any parts they would need to paint behind/tape off - Grill, taillights, headlights, antenna, reflectors, splash guards.....
5. If you have some experience, you may even want to pre-wetsand the body with 400 to etch the surface.
6. If they let you do the prep, they might let you do the finishing too, like the final 2 wetsands, foam buff and wool buff (you should really have some previous experience with this though).

I restore antique cars as a hobby, and usually if I do all the prep and have the body ready to roll into a booth I save about $2k on my paint jobs, with a better finished product. On a recent project, I had about 60 hours in prep, 2 hours in the booth and 35 hours in finishing.... that shows you where most of the $2000 goes!


Good luck!
belosic

 

If you want a good paint job, you better expect to pay a LOT more than 400. That's not even close to what you're going to pay. I also have the gold (pebble beige to be exact) color, and at one time, I wanted it black. If you want just the outside painted, for a good job, expect to pay at least 1000. But, If you want the insides of your doors painted (I would highly recommend this, if you don't do this, it looks stupid and lowers the value of your car) expect to pay at least 3000. This is because the shop has to take off all the doors, emblems, everything, to get it right. So if I were you, I'd get used to your beige Maxima. If you want a black Maxima, you should buy a black Maxima. Just my 2 cents.

 

i remember i used to h8 my color too, but i got used to it and i actually think its the best color out there lol . i like the green ever since i saw jason saddler(?) maxima with those nice rims and carbon fiber hood and trunk. my car looks black at night so i figured why spend a couple g's when i have a nice color anyway. i figure with some gunmetal wheels, black cefiro lights, jdm bumper lights, and a nice 97 conversion my car would look sweet. i suggest you check out what cars in your color are out there to see what you can do to your car to make it look nice.

 

Also, don't you have to take stuff out of the hood so that you cannot tell that it was a color change? I mean, he will still have a gold hood underneath and everything underneath the hood will be gold too.

That is a good suggestion for how to save some money.........just do a lot of the prep yourself. They are right, that is where most of your money will go. The painting is not the hardest part, but if you don't prep, it doesn't matter how good the guys painting it is, it will look like crap.

You can expect more than $1500 for a good job.

 

Whoops... forgot he wanted to do a color change. As mentioned above, in order to do the job correctly, it would be best to remove the trunk and hood (and strip to bare paint), remove the doors (and all panels), and remove the seats, carpet and kick panels so that they can paint the sills.

belosic

 

yep, that is better.
Also, belosic, what do you do about the inside of the fenders and stuff? I mean, you want that to match too.
And the firewall? it will still be gold if you don't take everything out and change it.

 

In a modern vehicle, painting of the engine compartment is *almost* out of the question, especialy when the cost of the paint job may be more than the value of the car. As far as resale is concerned, the most important part of the paint job is going to be the door jambs, which is where most buyers will notice a contrast (most car owners open their hood much less often than their doors, I'm sure for some people on the .org its the reverse!) I can barely reach my hand in the engine compartment to change the fuel filter, let alone tape off everything well enough to be painted. I would rather leave the engine compartment the original color than have overspray on all the hoses and wiring.

For the inside of the fenders I would use some black undercoating to cover the wheelwells.

Hope this helps!

belosic

 

Good info.
Yep. Hope it helps the poster of thread.