Prep is one of the most important steps that is taken when painting a car. Maaco and Earl Scheib will not do a good job, and they will be even worse when masking. Also you will deal with overspray and paint or clear runs. The paint is also not very high in quality. I've had several cars and customer cars done their because they were looking for something cheap. They weren't driving anything over $15k. My friend took his Del Sol into there recently because we needed a temporary color change cause his car was damaged and it needed to be somewhere for an event and he isn't happy. Sure it was about $400 for everything including some dent removal, but now he's going to paint it again. So a paint job can run as low for a good place for about $1500. He wanted to save $1000 so he opted for them. Now when he paints again, it might be $1500, but then it already cost $400. So he's spending around $2000 total which could be an even better paint job.

Just want to reitterate that there will probably be paint and clear overspray to say the least, on your rims, grill, windows, moldings and weather stripping, and exhaust. Good luck.

 

Any professional painter will tell you that prep work is >80% of a paint job, that being said, prep is WAY more than simply masking things off. You need to involve someone who REALLY knows what they are doing or you will be sorry in the long run.

 

The quality varies from Maaco to Maaco. There are some people who have had great results with them, however it's really a crap shoot and I wouldn't risk it.

 

Prep work is indeed most of the work involved in a repaint. So, if you are going to do the prep work yourself in the CORRECT manner, why would you take your car to some place like MACO? If you go to a GOOD paint and body shop and tell them you are going to prep your car yourself, and tell them accurately how much prep work you are going to do, and tell them what kind of point you want, you will get a fair price. And, if you are willing to do significant prep work yourself, it will be a much better price than just bringing in the car.

But, there are significant issues here. OK, you are going to wash, remove wax, and sand your car. But are you going to mask it? Are you going to remove the trim pieces? If you don't, you'll have "tape lines." If I were to do all the prep work RIGHT myself, I would want somebody better than MACO to do the actual painting.

But, yes, if you are REALLT going o do ALL of the prep RIGHT, you can still save money on a repaint -- at a GOOD paint and body shop.