[V8] new paint for a V8?

Roger M. Woodbury rmwoodbury at fairpoint.net
Sat May 12 08:28:35 PDT 2012


Hey, Rick and all:  

The total tab on the paint work I had done on my car was around $3300, but the entire car was not repainted.  I also had no body work done to speak of, except for the little place above the rear bumper where it had started to corrode.  I asked my body guy what it might cost to do an entire repaint, and he said not to even think about it, because to do the job properly would blow away at least six or seven grand...that would be a complete repaint to change color, of course.  

So the comments about mostly five grand for a repaint is pretty much correct, assuming NO body work at all.  And if you look really, really closely, there are always those little places that drive a professional body man crazy if he can’t just do this or that.  In my case it was the right rear wheel well where the previous owner had gently scraped the garage door opening when backing out...once or twice.  It wasn’t hugely expensive, but it was a bit of time.  Then there was the trunk lid that just didn’t quite look right, and the rear bumper that was peeling (which I didn’t even know....).  So, five grand.

Now, if the car is relatively young, let’s say less than 200,000 miles, and all the rest of the major work is already done, such as the car will not need new brakes, brake lines, new exhaust and a dozen other things to get past the next safety inspection, the five grand is cheap to have a great looking car. A side benefit is that there are fewer and fewer V8’s even running around at all regardless of condition.

Fix it. They aren’t making any more and few new cars are as nice and satisfying as a nice running V8 Quattro, in my opinion.

Roger

P.S.  I have decided I may indeed look around for another 200 20V quattro Avant.  Not this year, but perhaps next.  The project will be on of long duration, and the goal to have a really, really nice Avant as a driver...just because I liked the ones I had, and think they still look an awful lot better than most of the platicky crap that passes for cars these days.  Besides, the 200 20V Avant Quattro was in effect almost an original crossover, and crossovers are all the rage now, aren’t they?


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