Projects Eight Thousand Dollars for a paint job?

Too many see the Maaco ads for painting an entire car for under $500.
Cheap paint and that the labour for painting it, oh, its needs to be taped off, oh, needs some body work, oh, need this too and before you know it...its a lot more than the $500 they advertise, but the paint job is only $500.

Had mine painted a single stage solid colour.
I was told to leave it for 2 weeks or longer before doing a cut 'n polish.
The new paints are softer and take longer to cure.

 

After block sanding just one (and it had good no problems prior to primer) I no longer bitch about the price. I just learned to love suede!

 

YEP, I deal with that everyday, people think your insain, then they try it themselves and figure it out, but sometimes that bites em. cause there is no way they know everything a guy who has been doing it for 20 years knows. so sometimes the paintjob goes bad. but yes it is very hard work.

 

Only time I remember Lynn the painter that I shared a body shop with color sanding was if he had orange peel.

I did see a lot of cars go out the door, smooth as silk with just a light buff. Maybe that is why we didn't charge 8K or the '80s equivalent of it for a paint job.

That said there is a lot of labor that goes into a paint job and if there is a lot of overhead aside from labor 8K is just wages and nothing more.

 

$8000 is reasonable for a good paint job and prep aorund here--the guys that do this earn their money. I have had 9 painted in the last 12 yrs in pieces and I assemble then they cut and polish,etc. Cheapest was $7500 and the highest was $14K.

 

looks like I need to learn how to paint if I ever want some shine on my car...

 

Being in the middle of wet sanding and buffing a 66' Belair wagon I can relate. Sorry I'm too old to say cut and buff.

 

Love threads like this validates what I do everyday,thank you.

 

I would do a scuff and squirt macco style @ 500.00 a pop anytime anybody wanted. Shit I'd
do two a day. Red cars with blue jambs, color coordinated weather stripping, DA textered paint, dirt, Orange peal, minimal reflection everywhere and actually shiney in some spots paint all the dents, waves and bubbles. kind of like the BFI dumpster.

They do an alla-cart baked potato style paint job. Oh butter is extra, sour cream is extra, Bacon extra, salt extra, pepper extra, chives extra,

 

Hey for you guys that don't know Chaz or anything about him---he's not clueless---he builds carousels(yeah, hand carved wooden horses and stuff) and probably is best known here on the HAMB as the builder of the "Finkosel" Look it up. The man is a perfectionist and truly an artist.

 

Everybody should now have respect for Earl Sheib

 

Wow - Did not know that. And I was just about too argue the staw diameter with him.

Those of us who do it know exactly what you feel like.

No one said he was clueless. He pretty much admitted that he didn't realize what amount of work it takes. If he's a perfectionist, he now realizes that the last 10% of the job takes 50% of the time.

And that's where the money becomes an issue. There are many people whom are perfectionists and artists that are restrained by customer budgets. Just nice to know that Chaz realized that it isn't easy. It takes time and work. Experience helps. Some of us like to know that someone else did it themselves and "figured it out".

 

Holy shit. In 1964 I had my 55 Chevy painted for $50.00.
Times are a changin'.

 

My husband accepts your apology. To do a show quality job, just the paint and materials is $5,000. That does not include all the body work, polishes, buffing compounds, etc. He has been doing this for almost 40 years, and very hard for people to understand the artistic ability it takes. He definitely works HARD for the little amount of money, and he is a perfectionist, so it is always done right, but lots of time and hard work! It's very hard to make money in this profession because the materials are so high, that we have to take less for our labor which many times goes into the wee hours of the morning. That's why a lot of guys are putting cars in black sealer, or driving them rusty looking. THANKS FOR YOUR APPRECIATION !!

 

I learned this lesson a couple of years ago....on a much much smaller sample. I slicked off my firewall - yes, only my firewall - thats it. After "finishing" that, i walked away saying that I don't give a flying "F" what body/paint guys charge...its F'ing worth it. I hated every minute of that. Arms were exausted, I'd work on it for what seemed like eternity, and seemed to make no progress, then all of a sudden, in what seemed like an instant, i had gone too far, and had to fix it or redo it.

I hated life while doing that. Also hated coughing up and picking out dust and bondo out of my nose for the next week.

Hats off to you paint and body guys...

 

Come on-spray paint can't be THAT expensive.

 

Five grand for materials, i call BS.

 

most people don't seem to realize that the biggest part of the car is the body/paint but when they hear $8,000 to build a motor complete carb to pan they think well that sounds about right but when you talk about paint they all think it can be done for $50 in materials and a couple of hours of work.

 

A few years back I brought my 57' to a local Vette restorer to get a quote for a paint job. 12 to 15 K...that's taking it down to bare fiberglass, then gel coat and let cure, prime, sand, paint etc. Probably a couple of grand more now. YIKES...but it's a ton of labor.

 

I always told them to go to Peaches or Maaco because they would paint the car for way less than I could buy the materials for. That usually shut them up.

 

Eight thousand isnt too bad, my son had an estimate of 22K on his 67 Mustang a couple of years ago, we did it ourselves for about 4K and a year and half of weekends and evenings. He did most of the work himself, I helped when he ran into problems, this is his first body work so it took a while but turned out great. Not a HAMB car but shows what you can do if you set your mind on something.

 

That's not a difficult number to hit for materials. You purchase a couple gallons of some REAL quality custom-mixed reds with some pearl added, and you'll be well on your way in no time. Premium quality primers and sealers aren't inexpensive, either.....
Add in all the tapes, fillers, sandpaper, clear, reducers, hardeners, lacquer thinner, paper, etcetera.

 

I too fell victim to the MACCO and Earl Shieb ads. I didn't have my car painted, but I thought that it would be cheap. I took auto body in High school so I know the amount of blood sweat and tears that go into a quality paint job. And it isn't the paint that's the hard part. I'm a big fan of the do it yourselfers, so anyone that attempts to do it on their own and see it's through is already ahead in my book.

 

This clown doesn't agree. And he don't try to "hide" anything with a satin job. To the contrary, this clown doesn't like how a booger can't be fixed in satin without some repainting and he thinks shiny is waaay easier.

 

I work PT at a PPG store as a driver, I saw my 1st $1700 gallon of paint leave the other day. It was a "Vibrance color" in orangish copper. But any how, enjoy while you can.....There is a hard move to eco paint. All will be waterbourne in the near future. So hide that laquer and acrylic enamel, it will be a trophy soon.

 

The Earl of Scheib.... never could figure out how he could do a basic (6 main colors...) for $29.95 even in 1975. My dad had one on a '59 Parkwood that looked pretty good.

Bob

 

back in the day,earl worked on volume,but still like a sore @#$* you can't beat it

 

I can certainly see the time and effort, having done a couple myself. However, paying $8K - $15K for a paint job would have me in the looney bin from worry. Imagine parking someplace and some arsewipe runs a key down the side of your car..... most modern paints will require major repaint to fix that.
At least if it happens on my $50 brush and wetsand enamel I can touch it up for nix. I like being able to park anywhere and not worry.....

 

You are going to be really sore when you find out you painted that nice Chrysler green !!

 

In the 70s I used to do complete overalls for $225 and that was body work included and removed all the chrome, no wonder I quit doing it. And I aint jokin.