i'm just curious how a macco paint job looks like. i googled it and found mix reviews. thanks/ no flame please.

 

 

There appears to be some rusting... ::

 

Warning: Theft of head lights may occur.

 

Looks like they forget to polish

 

HAHAHA that is hilarious.

 

Actually looks pretty darn good for a Maaco job....

 

You don't need Maaco, just buy a roll of masking tape and a few cans of Dupli Color.

 

did that thing have HIDs?

 

i cant tell if its facing forward or backward.

 

it looks like it's been lowered a bit.

 

I had Maaco do some work on an old Celebrity several years ago. I walked away really, really unimpressed. I had overspray on the tire and marker light. This was a simple fender/trim repair, nothing complicated and they botched it most impressively.

 

On a more serious note, I had Maaco do my car in college...like confused, I too walked away REALLY unimpressed. The front bumper had crazing marks that were simpply painted over. NOT recommended.

 

so many post ******. macco sux from what ive heard. stay away

 

maaco is good if you want to sell the car and get some more money for it

on the other hand maaco over here did my boys Honda Accord, but he really really kept talking to the painter

its a custom 2000 accord paintjob, the guy has one atleast 9 trophies. and it was a color change


besides that maaco sucks

 

Only one I can find right now.

 

believe it or not/ they are not that bad. i've seen some nice work there they have done that impressed me so i'm having my beater car painted there for $500 2 stage paint/ complete color change. we will see how it comes out this friday.

 

i felt so bad for my beater/ it's treated me so good/ still runs strong as hell and has 487k miles. it's getting a make over. i just don't want to dish out 3k on a beater. macco was the way to go.

 

Ask you're local Maaco shop to let you see cars that have been finished. I do this at any body shop. A place that does decent work will let you look. If they won't run, do not walk, away.

 

man if its a beater then go for it but if its the max, hell no

 

Here's a write-up with a few pics of a guy who restored his VW Bug and had Maaco paint it for $500.

 

wow the paint looked better before

 

Holy crap, I've seen better results from Dupli-Color

 

guess he got his moneys worth

 

I had maaco do our 89 celica ... it was baby blue before but was oxidizing real bad. We paid around $800. The prob w/ maaco's cheaper jobs is the prep work lacks .. therefore issues w/ paint. We pretty much had em do the whole job.

They also mix the clear, base and pearl together ... so it's stage 1 job.

We got gunmetal pearl (LOTS of pearl) and I like the color. They did an good job and it looks just as good as it came out 3 yrs ago from them.

pics:

 

I had it done to a 1991 S-10 pickup about 8 years ago. The truck was no longer red and more like pink. It was a cheep $250 so I didn't expect much. There was a good amount of overspray, I guess it was OK for $250. I would never have them do the max though. I also heard they mix the colors in house and don't use OEM stuff.

 

My uncle had his 90or so cavalier done , this was in texas, it had some rust on the door, the car looked nice for about 1 year after that all the rust came back. Like mentioned above only good if your doing it to a beater.

 

I don't believe there's any prepwork involved in the $250 "ambassador" job. Like I mentioned, that's where maaco gets you. They don't do stage 2 or stage 3 jobs so you will never get the real clear coat like you get in OEM cars ... they probably do mix their own paint.

 

Done in the summer of 04....has seen better days but due to winter in Philly...paint came out nice...I did most/all of the prep work...down to stripping the car of lights, trim and handles...all external things were stripped....and sanded....they did more sanding cleaning and painted it....including the kit...off the car. I reassembled the car as well....

 

I've heard as long as you take it upon yourself to prep the car and remove everything, then it won't be too bad. However, I did see a terrible job done on my bro's friends S10. For 1500, they removed all of the dings (there were a lot of them) and gave the car a respray. Nothing was removed, everything was just taped, and it shows...so by removing everything yourself, it leaves the maaco guys with not a whole lot of guess work.

 

Maaco guys don't spray the paint that well either. Obviously everyone knows their prep work is non existent, but I've never been impressed by their paint work either. Often, there are fisheyes in the paint, runs in the paint, uneven color. It's really obvious sometimes where they make one pass and then go back the other way, you can see the spray patterns. It really does just look like a spray can job at times.

Several friends of mine own body shops so I've seen dozens of Maaco jobs that came in for repaints. I think Maaco just doesn't hire good painters. One of my friends does cheap $600 one coat paint jobs (he also does $8K custom paint jobs) and even though the paint he uses is essentially what Maaco does, the work is much cleaner.

If it's a beater car, then Maaco will be fine. But if it's something where you'll care about the details, then stay away. FWIW, on a color change paintjob, there is absolutely no reason to overspray the seats, carpet, and steering wheel, but I saw that once on a Maaco job.

 

I have a friend who has a friend that owns and runs a Maco shop and the owner took his Altima to a custom shop for painting.

Ask yourself this: If the owner of a Maco shop will not get his car painted there, would you?

 

no. but given that maaco is a franchise shop, it really depends on the individual one. the maaco in my city actually painted the police cars for the new batman movie, very nice job, saw them in person, but then again ive seen this WRX they did and it looked about 17 years old (it was one of the newer ones) so it really depends on what you are willing to do to the car before giving it to them. A good thing to do is, like stated above, do all prep work yourself, and when you bring it there ask to watch the guy paint it. if he knows someone (especially the owner) is watching, hes less likely to shortcut and screw your car up. Otherwise, just go somewhere else. better to pay 1500 for a good paint job than half that for an OK job. big diff between good and OK

 

single stage = no clear
2 stage = base coat and clear
3 stage+ = base coat, mid coat(s), and clear

single stage is old tech...they stopped making cars w/ single stage in the 80s.
paint don't last long with single stage unless you're very good about washing and waxing the car. good part w/ single stage that it's more forgiving with paint mistakes.

 

franchise or not...if you pay $250 for a paint job...you're going to get a $250 paint job. recently i painted a front bumper with PPG (DBC BC and concept 2002 CC). the supplies alone cost me close to $250 and i didn't buy enough to paint the entire car either.

now remember that you need to sand the old paint so the new paint will stick...that's labor time. figure labor is $50/hr (very conservative #)..how much time you think the guy is going to spend on your car? even if your body panels are dent/ding free and flat...they still need to sand. they will probably hit the panels with a DA for 15 min and call it the day. if you're lucky the guy will splash some prepsol on it and start shooting right after that.

 

yeah i'm sure they are rushing through the entire job just to get the color to stick and move on to the next car.

 

I'd like to personally thank MetalMaxima for making my day. I'm still laughing to this very minute! My family owns a bodyshop, and I write all the estimates here. I see Maaco jobs all the time, and they're usually pretty obvious. I wouldn't recommend them, but they do actually have a place in the body shop market. Where that place is, I won't say, though! We actually just fixed one of their estimators cars......so go figure. But, they must be doing ok though. I met the owner of the Maaco near our shop, and he drives a Benz. How come I can only afford a Nissan, and we do good work here???

 

went by to check it out/ they had it stripped, sanded and primered ready for paint 2morrow. i saw a few cars they finished today and they came out sweet! no run, nice even coats and a smooth finish. i hope i'm that lucky.

 

That's some interesting info. My cousin is thinking of having Maaco paint his newly purchased 2000 ex-cop car Impala.

When we had our Blazer repainted we just had my friends Uncle paint it in his garage. Same color for $600 Cdn. There were drips all over but it covered up all the rust and made it way easier to sell.

Hope they do a good job on your Max!

 

it is single stage because they mix the clear and the base coat together.