Hey, anybody here ever have or known any full body paint services?

A auto shop is charing 1800 for it, and I'm wondering how does it actually come out?
Does it look like a brand new factory car paint? or is it noticeablly different?


*plus, how are you suppose to rotate your tires for ur protege5? becuase my dealer said your suppose to switch the tires from the front to the back or something since its only a 2wd car >> to keep the tires in good shape.

 

When I had my Protege repaired I saw a few newly painted cars at the shop. They did a Tacoma in that expensive two tone paint that looked great. Dont know how it compares to factory paint though.

 

a repaint of the whole vehicle would probably make it more resistant to paint chips as long as the body shop uses high quality paints and doesnt skimp out on prep work... prepping the paint is key to having a good job... some shops might just surface sand the old paint then prime and paint over... other places will do a complete sand down to metal.. prime and paint.. it really depends but the more work involved the higher the price.... factory paint is all done by machines... and the spray is just enough to cover the bare metal...minimal paint to reduce cost... from the factory paint thickness could be ablout 3-4mil... where as aftermarket paint by hand is about 7-10 mil... pretty much the thickness of most window tint.. it doesnt seem like much but you car getting about twice as much paint on the panels compared to factory paint..

 

if you found a reputable body shop that will do all the prepwork and a quality paint job for $1800....go for it....but before you do....find out some people that have used this body shop before and ask them how satisfied they were with the quality of the job....I say this as a good quality paint job will EASILY go for that much....and as much as $3000 and that is just using normal paints, nothing fancy.........I paid $2500 for the last full body paint job I had done...and that was 15 years ago...and the car was already stripped completely....little or no prep work needed.

as for your tire rotation.....the manual says rotate them ever 3750 miles....I do it at every oil change just to keep it easy to remember and as long as I am there with the car jacked up, why not....and yes...move the fronts to the rear and the rears to the front....that will do it.

 

1800 is still rather cheap for a paint job, this is my personal opinion, if I were getting a whole job done I'd make sure I had at least 5000$ (mind you thats Canadian money so not sure about the exchange rate how much that would be).
Iv'e talked to a bunch of body guys here and there and they told me that through experience, wether the car is rusted to hell or in perfect shape, the only way to go with a paint is to strip the parts to be painted right to bare metal and then prime, sand paint etc.....
They were't trying to sell me anything either.

 

anybody here have pics of a repainted car?

 

You can get a cheap CRAPPY paint job for about $500 and they go up from there depending on the quality of paint job you want done. A decent paint jos with out graphics or anything would probably run you around $3000 and a good custom paint job could run around $5000.

Here is a picture of a friend of mine's old civic that he had custom painted. I'm not sure what cost would be on a paint job like this cause he did some trading for it, but it looked WAY cleaner than any stock paint I'd ever seen.

Custom painted civic

 

Here is a pic of the car I had done last....paid $2500 for the paint job...and as stated before...that was 15 years ago..

 

wow sir nuke, i can actually see the reflection on that
haha nice.

ahh how can i know how well an auto shop paints, without being rude and demanding to see some car pictures they have done before? >> because i dont want to invest 3k on a gamble/risk hoping it would be nice

*and noo, i dont know anybody that has done any paint jobs in my area so i cant ask theem :[

 

Larry, going into a REPUTABLE shop and asking to see their work and pictures of previous work is NOT being rude...in fact if the people there are good....they will be proud to show you their work.....if they arn't......then you should pass on having them do the work for you.

 

a quality aftermarket paint job will always look better than any OEM's paint job. you have to figure that all the custom colored cars you look at all have aftermarket paint jobs on them. the local quality paint shop told me that their materials per car start at $1000, but they only do high quality work.
bodywork is what really makes a body shop stand out. if you spend the $$$ all of your body panels will have even seams, they will be perfectly straight (no waves) and the paint will be perfectly smooth.