Cost of a new paint job

E

ezitag

Daily Driver
I'm thinking of treating my X to a new paint job.
So what should it cost?
I don't want it concourse - just nice and neat.
Nor do I want to change colours or paint inside the trunk etc.
There is no rust to treat.
Some of the panels don't look "true" - they may need straightening.
I don't know if the old paint should be stripped off or just paint on top.

Thoughts?
 
Round numbers $$$$

In round numbers I figure 100 hours to prep and paint with minor bodywork. Plus R&I time ( remove and install) plus parts and paint. R&I will be about 25 to 50 hours and parts will be seals, clips, and anything else that isn't perfect. Paint should be $350 to $700 for materials. If the labor rate is $40.00 per hour that adds up to $5,300 to $6,700. To save money do all the dissasembly yourself. Some shops will be a little lower, thinking the car is small and the work is less. Your advantage, but they will soon see.

If you are quoted less the shop is doing it at a loss. This is OK, but you will find that the shop will take VERRRY LONG to do the job, as they have lost interest in the loosing job. You will need to keep after them in that case, so your car does not become a fixture in the shop. Typically the quality shop for this kind of work will be at this price and the collision shop that is slow will be less and end up regretting their quote. The budget paint shop will butcher the car it is a nice car, but if it is ratty, that might be the way to go. A budget paint job can be had for about $700 .


Regarding quality, if the job is second rate, or the shop is not qualified you will never be happy and the money will be wasted. Just my opinion. Everyone of course has their own threshold.

One final item, the texture of the paint should be discussed. Original has orange peel texture. Some folks have so much dirt in the booth that they must sand and buff out all texture to hide the contamination of dirt. They call this "color sand and buff" for a flat texture. Doesn't look O.E. and shows slight imperfections a lot worse. Your choice.

Good luck,
Bob T.
pridebody.com
 
Buffing the paint

If the paint is just dull or has a lot of swirls in it, you can have the paint buffed and sealed for less than $1000. My wife's car looked like someone washed it with a scrubing pad. After having it buffed, it looked like someone dipped it in paint!! (except for the paint chips that were still there) If the paint doesn't have major chipping or orange peal issues, look into just having it buffed and sealed. That's just my $0.02...
 
ezitag said:
I'm thinking of treating my X to a new paint job.
So what should it cost?
I don't want it concourse - just nice and neat.
Nor do I want to change colours or paint inside the trunk etc.
There is no rust to treat.
Some of the panels don't look "true" - they may need straightening.
I don't know if the old paint should be stripped off or just paint on top.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

It all depends upon what your desired end result is, the quality of the materials you use, the final color, and how bad your car REALLY is.
You will quickly find out if all your old paint needs to come off or not, the 1976 128 Wagon I recently sold we thought we could do really quickly, but the original paint & factory prep was so bad we had no choice but to go bare metal.
My advise is to get your car to a company that wants do to completes (most only want to swap & paint fenders & doors anymore), completely discuss what you want in the end so there will be no surprises, have them do it in the very best materials possible, and be prepared to spend money to have it done right. If you are inclined, delivering a car that needs nothing removed or masked will get you a better job, but can be intimidating for you to reassemble (easily a quarter of the jobs I do these days are ones that the owner realized he was in over his head on when it came back from the body shop). Of course many body shops will NOT want to do a complete dissasembly for the same reason (the body guys I have working for me tell horror stories of shops they have worked at where one guy took it all apart, then quit when it was time to reassemble & no one else had a clue!)
A car with nothing really wrong but done right, similar to what you describe above, will run $5,000.00 to $10,000.00 in my shop. A complete, like the ones I often do, can & do run many times more.

Of course you can run it down to your local (insert cheapo body shop name here) who will take nothing off, do a quick sand to knock off the dirt, do a sloppy masking job, and spray your car with cheap paint that in two years will not buff out IF it hasn't peeled off yet. In 1975 we used to pay $39.95 for that, I imagine today it would cost you a grand.
 
Thanks guys. One more question.

I'm not clear about the types of paint.
For example, I've heard of "clear coat" and "2 Pac".
What is the best paint type for an X - without changing color?

Once again, thanks for your input.
 
how much

money do you want to spend? I never herd of 2 pac .there is single stage ( has a built in clear coat ) and 2 stage base coat or the color you have chosen the second stage is clear coat.

My two cents you really need to decide how much you are willing to budget for this panting project.

I have seen some really nice paint jobs that were do on the cheap and some big money spent that looked horribly.

a lot of it has to do with how well the car was prepped and that's the most time consuming part allot of sanding priming and more sanding to smooth it out the better the prep the better it will turn out.
not to mention taking the car apart taking care of any rust and dents masking it off then sand it all down than prime it than sand it smooth than paint it than wet sand it than buff it than put it back together.I'm not trying to scare you hear but just to let you know why it can cost so much money to have a high end paint job. a high end paint job can be done on the cheep if your willing to put the work into it.
 
X19 Paint

There is an auto paint supplier here in Adelaide who has all of the original colour samples and codes for the X19. He can mix up to match exactly the original colours and is very reasonable, if you are interested, I can post the details, Cheers, Terry
 
Interested.

What base does he use? (Dupont? Imron? Other?)
Is this single stage or 2 stage?
Do we need to give him the color numbers or can we just give him the car year?
 
Color choice can have an effect on this price as well... White for example has not metalic flake and can be done cheaply and not need to be color sanded or buffed out right away. where as a Metalic Black or Sometimes even Red costs more because the actual paint costs more. Homework to do.....:hammer:
 
Hi Bob,

The paint he used for my car is manufactured here in Australia by a company called Protec and is Acrylic Lacquer. It costs about $70 per litre, mixed to match the original Fiat colours, as I mentioned, he has an old book with all of the paint samples and codes for Fiat cars from the 60's, 70's and 80's.
The paint supply shop is Lonsdale Auto Paints, Lonsdale, South Australia
www.lonsdalepaints.com.au/

Cheers, Terry
 
repaint

Where are you in Melbourne? I did mine at a mates place down here on the Peninsula. I would recommend a clear over base, which done well will cost you around $5K. Its the time taken in the prep that makes the job, do it well - do it once . Email me if you want info.
Cheers Lappy
 
A word on paint

I have had a few fiats painted--including a spider done by Maaco when I was 19 years old. The guys at the shop were amazed at how amazing it turned out--why--because of PREP WORK!!!

I had about 15 coats of rattle can primer that I spent hours and hours HAND-sanding. I rotated between rust colored primer and grey primer so I could sand out every imperfection in the body. Also--I removed everything off of the body prior to going to paintshop myself. How much did this paint job cost 20 years ago??? It was $249.50. Yes, it was the $499 paint job 50% during winter. Did this paint belong on a Barrett-Jackson car, no. Did this paint look as good or better than your average new car--yes.

The X I had painted a few ago cost around $800--and all I did was remove every piece off the car possible. There was zero rust--but lots and lots and lots of door dings. It was two-tone and the metallic charcoal base was incredible.

On both of those cars--I did not paint the door jambs, under the hood, etc, as I kept the original color.

Car # 3 that I did not have painted was my 2000 BMW 740i--why? The estimate was $900 at a different shop to fix a keyed door and fender and a scrape on the rear wheel well from a post--all done by the PO.

Prices vary wildly depending on the work you do yourself and who gives you a quote. I had a body shop quote a body of mine $5k to $6k to paint his 4runner with zero damage and zero rust (just the clearcoat peeling). Why--the shop did not want the work.

I recommend searching on craigslist and then looking at cars the guy has done in the past. Chances are you will pay less than half of a full priced shop that used to doing $30k restorations or insurance work.

My $.02!!!

Eric
 
OregonMTB said:
Prices vary wildly depending on the work you do yourself and who gives you a quote. I had a body shop quote a body of mine $5k to $6k to paint his 4runner with zero damage and zero rust (just the clearcoat peeling). Why--the shop did not want the work.
Eric
Click to expand...

That's been my experience... I've got a Spider that's in desperate need of a paint job. So for a couple years I've been casually looking around for shops that would do the work... and so far what I've found is that the high volume collision outfits have no interest (if they do qoute, the numbers are just ridiculous ...and I've had to listen to the "why would you bother painting a Fiat" heckling...) and the "restoration" type shops are simply too expensive for my budget... (as well as giving me the "why would you bother..." line) I'm not trying to make money on the car, but a 6 to 8 thousand dollar paint job on a car that I might, on a good day, be able to get $5K for just doesn't make sense to me...

...and this is on a rust free car where I said I would deliver it dissassembled ready for work...
 
Like someone here said...

...go to Craigslist.org. There are A LOT of good painters out there that care about the work they do, and are looking for work... doing it on the side, whatever.
Just get a close-up look at some of the work they have done. You'd be surprised at some of the good deals you can get.
 
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