Hi Guys,

I have a '97 Dodge Ram with about 90K miles on it. I don't drive it much anymore, probably less than 3 or 5 K miles a year, depending on the year. It's now about .... if I can do the math ..... about 14 years old. For the first 9 or so years it always had a place in the garage. In the past 5 years it's been outside in the blazing western Colorado sun. About a year ago I noticed the paint on the hood on the south side... which is exposed the most to the sun start to fade bad. Now a place or two on the top of the cab are also showing fading... and actually some peeling. The interior of the truck is still near perfect and it runs great.

I don't use the truck much anymore except for special occasions ..... hauling some things on occasion or going off road with me when I don't want to take my jeep.

Here's my dilemma ...... deciding whether or not to do a paint job on a fairly old, little used truck. I recently went to a paint shop and they quoted me a price of $800 just to paint the hood. I didn't go for it.

So I guess what I'm asking is what would it cost to paint the entire truck? I'm almost sure it will cost more than I want to pay for a relatively old, little used truck. My other choice is to decide my old truck is about to look like a beater truck...... and let it go at that..... It would still get me up in the forested mountains or out in the desert in Utah.

So what would you do? How much money would you spend to have a half way decent paint job done ....... and what would that cost?

Sorry for being so wordy..Hope this makes sense ... Thanks.......

 

I just had mine painted for 1150. That was some body work and everything. Now it's not "perfect" but for the price you can't beat it.

 

I would see about what you could do for it yourself.... Sure, it may not be perfect, but, would it end up looking better than it does now?

I have a REAL hard time justifying spending a thousand or more on appearance, when the first time I take the truck off-road, it is gonna get scratched up.....

 

I'm starting to think that way too. It's a good truck.... but it's primarily used to go offroad..... and an occasional trip just to pick up bulky stuff and that doesn't happen too often. It's only getting about 15 mpg at best so that's another reason I drive one of my other vehicles. I might spring for $1000 but not more than that.

 

When I priced the materials to paint mine myself it was over 630 bucks. So I figured it was worth the extra 500 for them to finish some body work, sand it down and all that fun stuff. Paint is not cheap lol.

 

WOW!........ $630 for materials??? That's a lot more than I thought it would be.

I'm going to try to get some quotes today...... but it looks like my '97 Ram isn't going to get a paint job.

 

i had rock chips and dings mostly on the bottom of my truck from the P.O. dring down dirt roads alot.

i went to my local tractor supply and bought a sand blasting gun for $30, a can of black enamel tractor paint for $8, and a can of truck bed liner for $20.

painted my truck in my gravel driveway! looks really good and gave my truck a NEW look!

 

It was 637.22 for a half gallon of the top color, a quart for the lower half, and the clear coat with the activator and reducer. There is cheaper paint but it doesn't hold up as well.

 

You could probaly get a gallon of single stage for maybe 200 or so but it's harder to shoot and bccc.

 

What? Did you use Imron or something?? (airplane paint...)