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Post your macco paint job and success/fail story.*Got a quote for $1444*

Guy down the street had his Mustang painted red at Maaco....he stops and revs his engine every time he sees me in the driveway...says "I don't know why you work so hard on that thing...just take it to Maaco"...

I walked up close to his Mustang and the paint looked like a refrigerator from all the orange peel and where there wasn't orange peel it is hazy looking....:dunno:

I agree....it's all boils down to the guy spraying because the equipment is bound to be professional....and also...I can imagine an element of that your car is just "another POS on the list to get done"...unlike if you are painting it yourself, you will be overboard cautious....
 
My friend since 6th grade is a painter at the Maaco here in Billings. He is very, very good at his job but, Maaco is just a quantity shop, not really a quality shop.

He does his best to turn out some really nice looking paint jobs, but he still has a quota of 10 cars to paint a day. You can't spend a lot of time on one car alone because the boss starts screaming at people to hurry up and get those other cars painted.

If you go to Maaco to get a perfect paint job, you probably go to a lunch truck and expect a T-bone steak.
 
10 cars a day for one spray guy would be less than an hour per car. I find it hard to believe they could turn them out that fast. With that kind of a pace it makes sense that their paint jobs are often not that great.
 
I did 20, 25 a week for almost 4 yrs... and I was bangin pretty good... that was MANY long week's...
 
It just depends on your needs. I wanted a show car finish but with quotes from 5000 to 15000. for a paint job it wasn't in the budget.
There are two shops in town one I wouldn't let then paint my mailbox but the other shop is really good. He was up front told me he would have the car a couple weeks and when he had extra time he would paint the car. He knew I was on a budget and if I wasn't in a rush he could work with my budget.
This is the third time I have used them. It just boils down to the guy running the place and the quality of work he is proud to put his name on.
 
CGT80 said:
10 cars a day for one spray guy would be less than an hour per car. I find it hard to believe they could turn them out that fast. With that kind of a pace it makes sense that their paint jobs are often not that great.
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You have to remember that not all cars get entirely painted. Some have spot jobs too. His jobs can go from a fender all the way to a complete re-spray.
 
snuffy74 said:
You have to remember that not all cars get entirely painted. Some have spot jobs too. His jobs can go from a fender all the way to a complete re-spray.
Click to expand...

That makes more sense. I couldn't see 10 fulls cars per day, even if all he did was pull the trigger. I have been lucky that the only damage to my trucks has been small chips and dents or minor peeling, other than when I replaced a door on the pickup right before I had it painted. Knock on wood.

It does seem that most places either want to do maaco quality for a low price or charge show car prices for a street car. I was looking for a near factory appearance on my truck (for 1979 era), but not absolutely perfect.

Now days the factory jobs are very nice. It helps when a robot sprays the car with an electrically charged paint and it can be cured properly without all the plastic pieces in place.
 
Well I stopped by Macco today. Got an estimate for the burb at $1444. 10 year warrenty. Thats with me doing all i can as far as removing trim, glass, bumpers, etc. I checked out their work and the only thing i didnt like was the orange peel. I know i have seen factory jobs just as bad and i know it was what i would consider"standard amount of orange peel but i dont want any dangit! On the flip side, i know that it is a ton more work to get NO orange peel and i would pay for it big time at a different shop. If i have time tomorrow im going to stop by a couple other reputable shops and get estimates from them. One part of me says, "get the dang $1500 paint job and be happy!" and the other part says, "get the dang $3000 paint job and be happier!"... Oh what to do...
 
Truck they were working on while i was there.

IMAG0970.jpg


My quote,

IMAG0973.jpg
 
good paint job with out orange peal is color sanded out / wet sanded after paint is dry and then pollished / buffed.

dont care how good you are you will get some orange peal.

if going to color sand it go a little thicker to keep from blowing threw and needing repaint. :doah:
 
I dread painting the white stripe area...
 
that'll be the easy peezy part of yours.. i keep forgetting the 2-tone.. your doing the white in base/clear too, right? talk to me in your thread about it...

orange peel can be achieved for various reasons, if you desire ;) and in different "styles" of orange peel too...

we used to match the manny's different orange peels.. Ford was the worse generally... the german cars the best...

you can spray a car and have virtual no orange peel..... it is NOT some prerequisate for all paint jobs... most people don't mind a "bit" of peel, but with slow reducers, quick viscosity, proper technique with the right materials, you can get a baby-balls smooth finish if desired...

excessive peel tends to be most related to thick paint... but there are techniques that cause it too.... thus why you tend to thin out paints/clear later in the coats.. it lays it out and the solvent flows it better..
 
Im pretty much thinking im going to go through with trying out the maaco job. I know i wont be truely happy with it, but opposed to $3k paint job that will take two months to complete, i think i can live with the results. In the grand scheme of things $1500 just isnt that much. Its about 2 weeks pay. I think if it turns out like poo poo, i can chalk it up to two weeks of my life that i wasted at work to pay for a sucky paint job. If it turns out even in the decent range, i would be thrilled with the fact that all it took was showing up to work for a couple weeks to pay for a truck to look decent for the next several years. I KNOW that it will not be flawless and that it wont last all that long(shooting for 5-10 years) but i also know that i have the money right now and it NEEDS paint. At the worst it will look better than it does now. So, with that, I do plan on dropping it off down there in the next 2-3 weeks. I gotta get to work stripping it down. Saving $100 bucks by removing the bumpers, grill, mirrors, glass, etc. So as soon as thats done i'll drop it off and 7-10 days later i will have a truck thats all blue again! So, i guess i will have something to add to this thread before long! Wish me luck!
 
Good luck man! Anxious to see how yours turns out, as this will be the route i need to go eventually. I put mine off a bit by rattle canning my roof (white's easy :)), but the top of the fenders, hood and cowl are looking baaaad.

For a rig like ours, i bet the paint job is good enough.
 
I think i know exactly how it will turn out already. It will be an obvious maaco paint job. But i dont think that it will be a wreck seeing the work that they did on the pickup and a couple other cars. If you know me, you know that there will be massive pic whoring to come...
 
Whats the cost if you just drive in off the street....no prep/disassemble by you?
 
I didnt ask and its tough to say. That had figured in my quote 7 hours to fix my big dent in my rear quarter. So maybe about the same price if you had no dents and stuff?
 
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