Well first off i know the reputation of MAACO when it comes to their $250 paint job

But my friend had a ford taurus and he took it to MAACO and got the ambassoder paint job

(but he claims he bought the ambassodor and the guy upgraded it to Presidential)

and it looked like it just came out of the factory

my friend said that the guy used to paint for Mercedes Benz

but anyway

should i go the MAACO route??

My steatlth is green, but i would love for it to be black

or i could just let them respray the green to make it look better

What should i do guys??

 

Yeah I have been wondering the same thing.

 

Maaco is a tough call. I've a couple vehicles painted there, on the cheap, and for the money, it was just OK. I did all the prep work and only had them shoot the paint. It was not durable, nor did they do a great job shooting it, ie. couple of runs and some orange peel. The cars weren't show cars and the paint looked better than what was on it, so I was happy enough.

 

I had my old civic painted there, I bought the 2nd best and got orange peel and the paint on the fender began to chip..but hey its pretty cheap

 

No and NO!!! Maaco uses their "in house" Brandof paints, primers, sealers ETC. If its a car you care about dont bother. When a body tech at maaco get a car to paint he is given a kit, in that kit there is one scotch brite pad to prep the body for paint, some prep cleaner and some masking tape. You get what you pay for thats for sure. When I painted my old car, just the supplies alone were 1400 (canadian) thats, primer, sealer, base, all my reducers and catalysts, tape, maskin paper, and maskin foam. So if that alone was 1400 imagine what they can do for 250 with labour??

The second part is if it is a car that you care about and you eventually want a real paint job, that 250 dollar paint job will cost you alot more down the road. When Maaco preps the body for paint, the new paint needs a way to stick to your vehicle. Either Chemical adhesion (Etching primers, mid coat promoters ETC) or Mechanical adhesion (sanding, scotch brite) Maaco uses scotch brite (and not the good stuff either) and they quickley go over you vehicle. Not the best way for paint to stick over a large area. Eventually it will peel off. So then a while down the road after your car looks worse off then when it started, you want a real paint job, now all that 250 dollar paint job has to be stripped off to allow a real prep job. That stripping of the maaco paint will probably double your new paint jobs cost.

If your looking to get a paintjob done cheap, goto your local vocational school where apprentices are goin to school for autobody and see if anyone wants to paint your car. When i first started I painted 2 cars for free just to get it under my belt. So there are options. If your interested in doing the expensive part yourself, the prep work, you can save tons of money. Pick up the fall issue of Hot Rod magazines Paint and Body. It is a good starting point to understand paint and body, as well as http://www.eastwood.com they have tons of products and a forum for do it yourself body men...... check it out, do some research and if you wanna throw away 250 put it in an envelope and send it to: Darrel, General Delivery, Grovedale Alberta, Canada

 

I would never get a MAACO paint job myself, but it is possible to get a good job done by them. This car was recently painted by MAACO in Oceanside, Ca. Judge for yourself...


[IMG]local://upfiles/50694/829AFD7341E24DD8815C93A25B99B897.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]local://upfiles/50694/C1D885B12B5346279FC4278B4C36E2BC.jpg[/IMG]

 

wow surprising enough that MAACO job looks better then expected.

 

yea im not worrying how it looks

im just worryed about how long will the paint last

but that car looks just as good as my friend's did

 

That wasn't the "El Cheapo" paint job he got. He paid $730 for them to paint the car, but that was just the outside, no jambs, no underhood paint. We'll have to see how long it lasts, but since it's a SoCal car, the paint should hold up. Oh, and he got a lifetime warranty on the paint job, so if anything does go wrong, they'll repaint it.

 

hey can you ask your friend how much did he pay for the lifetime warrenty??

thanks