Hey guys, I was just wondering why maaco paint was so bad?

I know they dont take their time in prepping, and their paint pretty much sucks (< well that could be the reason!)...

BUT

What if I prepped the car myself? And gave them the paint to paint the car?

All they would really need to do is spray... ??

 

if your gonna do all the leg work and get it all ready just for them to spray, it might be worth your time to just look at getting the gun and doing it all yourself. Prep is basically the hardest part, from my experience anyways.

 

^hmm well that's the thing, I dont have a paint booth but I have a friend who can prep it for me (i just dont really trust him with the paint)...

ohh and btw i am using a dark blue metallic from Auto Air Colors (water based) so I guess I will be custom

 

I did the prep work on a 69 Camaro. Then took it to Earl Shieb ( spelling?) to shoot the paint. It turned out great. Like you mentioned, they can paint but they will not take the time to get it ready. Several years latter, I did the same on an 84 Corvette. Same results, Turned out great.

 

yeah if you do all the prep work yourself it turns out great...a paintjob is only as good as the prep work...

my friends have prepped their multiple cars themsevles and took it the maaco in our town and they always turn out great...

 

A friend of mine had his car painted at a local Macco twice (he decided to change the color after 1 year). He did all the prep work himself and supplied the pain. Both jobs came out surprisingly nice for the money.. of course I still wouldn't even park my S within 100 meters of a macco much less let them spray paint at it

 

If youre gonna do it, do it right. Dont try to nickel and dime work on your $35k car.

 

Local guy here in ATL painted his own autocross CRX. Made a paint booth in his garage out of PVC and plastic sheeting.
http://www.briangt.com/gallery/crx/crx_paint1
"Total cost was around $150, including the sprayer, paint, pvc piping, plastic sheeting, and 1/2 of the clearcoat. It took about 2 full days of work painting, and a half day to make the paint booth and masking the car."

Of course he wasn't too concerned about the quality, but if done right, it could look good.

I've considered making a small paint booth out of PVC and plastic sheeting to repaint my front lip (damn thing scrapes too many times) with a spraycan from paintscratch.com. I can save myself from the huge expense of having a body shop repaint such a small item.

 

There are no masters who work at MAACO. If you do all the work then have a real painter paint it in a booth and you do all of the wet sanding, polishing and buffing after wards then you can save a massive chunk of change and have a good paint job. It's a huge amount of work and why a quality paint job costs so much money.

 

I at times dabble in the used car business (it is my father's company). From time to time cars would need to be resprayed, especially light colors like red and yellow. We have probably had Maaco paint 20 some cars in the last 5 years and the results are the same everytime. Overspray everywhere, windows, mufflers, license plate lights. There was always orange peel, or blobs where the held the sprayer for too long, or too many coats to quick. And anything plastic would chip after a month. If you were going to go to Maaco I would advise you do your own prep work and tape the car up yourself, and be prepared to do some serious detailing afterwards (wet/color sanding, etc). There price is hard to beat, but you get what you pay for. For my money I would get it done elsewhere.