RE: paint

[Richard Beels <beels@technologist.com>]

Exactly.  The local Maaco guy told me he has to do 13 cars a day to make
money.  Also: every car gets the same prep work; the only difference in the
prices is the quality of paint.  I was repainting my wife's old Civic Si
and got the cheap job because we were going to sell it rather quickly.
Well, six months later and the hood looks like it's served as a backstop at
a stone-skipping contest.  :-(  There are more chips on the car in the last
six months than in the previous 10 years.

Maaco can give a good job if you do the prep yourself.  Call the owner up
beforehand and tell him/her what you're going to do, that you knwo how the
system works and since you're doing a lot of prep work yourself, that he
could afford to spend a few extra minutes on the masking.  Also, that they
can do a better job on the transition parts of the car (rear edge of the
hood is usually feathered poorly, etc...).  Bondo and prime any dings and
such yourself.  Sand the primer and re-prime if reqd.  This also includes
sanding down the previous paint job (for better adhesion) and doing any
masking you want to be done right.  I live 1/2 mile from one so it wasn't a
big deal to do the detail masking.  Remove any trim pieces, fender lips,
etc... that can be removed easily.  Once they paint the car, they bake it
and then it gets wiped down and delivered.  it takes them 30 minutes to do
a car - regardless of package purchased and what size it is.  Only makes
sense to do as much yourself as possible with our 'larger' cars.

One other idea is to see if you can get the can of paint from them _before_
you take the car in for the total re-paint so you can do the hood, trunk
and door sills (unless you want to pay the $75 per - basically doubling the
paint job) and inside the gas filler door.

At 02:41 AM 7/18/1998 ,  PAT MARTIN said:
>Not so fast.  I have heard from several body shops that Maaco has all the 
>latest spray equipment and does a great job painting the car.  Where they
suck 
>is the prep work.  In fact for a friend of mine he prepped it and sent him
to 
>Maaco to do the paint work.  Then he brought it back and did the final
buffing 
>and finishing.



Cheers,
	Richard
	88 90Q - <insert pithy witticism here>
	88 Golf GTi - PRO Rally