1997 Dodge Ram v8 5.9L.
Well, when I bought my truck I got it from my neighbor, it was stolen in the past, so it has dents and scratches all over. Besides that, I love the truck. But, There is over atleast.. 10 dents in it, the only major dent is near the bottom of the bed and it's bent in.

But, where would the best place to get a paint job, and dent removal.
Most the people i've spoken with said it would cost about 900 bucks, but they never said where. I'd like NOT to spend that much on a paintjob. There is "Maacos" but, I did research on them and quite a bit of people said they did a horrible job and said you had to do prep work, they didn't sand properly, ect..ect.
Their prices are about 300-400 dollars though.


-Houston, Texas.

 

So nobody knows?

 

Body work is expensive. It is extremely labor intensive, and, at todays labor rates, adds up in a HURRY. A complete QUALITY repaint, is going to cost in the thousands of dollars, unless ALL they have to do is spray it.

 

I wanted to get the front and rear fenders and the gas tank painted on my bike and they wanted $400.00.........................PER PIECE!! That's right $1600.00 !!
If I could get my vehicle painted for $900.00, I would be ALL OVER that deal, like a fat kid on a smartie!! LOL

 

i know body work can be extremely labor intensive. also from what i have heard paint can be extremely expensive. from what i heard it is about $100 a quart.

 

i paint for a living, i work on boats. Same ones you see on Deadliest Catch.

Put it this way, on a boat, just doing the cutting block, wheel house, boons, outriggers, and seabreaker is about 40,000 bucks. the paint we use is $100 a gallon. but we use 300V, primer and paint, as well as labor. between me and my boss, it costs them $40/hr to have the two of us. and today there was 4 of us, so figure the math....adds up quick.

best bet is to just do all the sanding and prep work yourself. and pay only for the spray....just my .02 cents.

 

I don't really know much about painting and rep. I have quite a bit of big dents in my truck. I wouldn't know what tool to use to sand my truck down

 

Dude getting half way decent paint is going to cost you at least $600, and minor prep and paint will put you over a 1k, Macco and places like that will use electric sanders and blast through body and cut corners so they can finish cars quickly, the paint they use is the cheapest you can get and they order alot of it.

A basic paintjob to last 5-10 years with minor body should be around $1500-2k a good one with factory quality and completely smooth body could be up to 4k

If your looking for cheap read some books and get to work

 

I would suggest taking a auto body class at your local community college for like $150. You will get to bang dents out, bondo, and learn the prep work for your truck, the best part is that you work on what you bring so its a good way to learn and save some money in labor for all those dents. Then depending if you take it the following term you can usually spray it with the teacher as well. Thats what i did with a truck i had last year and it turned out great.

 

you could try borrowing some books from the local library on body work. i know i had a book that did a pretty good job explain how to do body work. i'm lucky because my dad is a retired body guy and will lend me any tools he has if i need them. the only thing that sucks is i live in town and don't have a garage so i could media blast and do all the body work on my trucks at home but i would not be able to paint it.