Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

 Adventures in Bargain paint. Part One.

This is the worst area.

Another car painting adventure! 

Getting my Navigators front bumper resprayed.

A lot of things happen in 17 years.

My Navigator is 17 years old, there is no escaping that fact. Mileage is only a bit more than 109,000. So it hasn't been used that much. But it's lived a bit already. Overall the paint still looks pretty good. There's a few chips here and there, even what looks like a pellet gun divot on the left rear side. Along with a faded portion on the rear wheel well trim. I decided that with such a big repair to the front bumper I really wanted the repair to be done the best as reasonably possible. If it wasn't for the area of clear coat failure, I would have just touched up the chips and called it a day. 

This will be done at the Almost Everything Auto Body shop in Fremont. 

I have prior experience with this shop, they painted my '70 Mustang Highland Green, and they did a pretty good job. They fixed a dent on my Son's Porsche Boxster and he was satisfied, the repair wasn't even noticeable. 

There were a few coupons on their website, bumper paint for 329.00, well I didn't read the small print. Large vehicle bumpers are more, certain paints are extra. My Nav's bumpers fit under both of these two exemptions so the price of the estimate was 100.00 more. 

After they wrote up the work estimate I read the small print on that document. They won't disassemble any parts, it's just mask, and spray. They warn that underlying defects will show through the new paint. There might be some over spray. Dirt may be kicked up when the paint spray hits body seams and such. I had mentioned this in a post years ago. I plan to wash the front bumper thoroughly, and will clean out any seams and use compressed air to blow off the radiator, under the hood and under the bumper area, before I drop it off. I will also remove the front licence plate mount. This way I'll make sure that they'll paint the bumper under it. Besides, it's cracked, maybe I can fix it or find a replacement.

They also state that they won't polish the paint after it's dry, since it's only a single stage repair. There's bound to be a bit of dust on the surface. I think that I'll be able to hit it with some Meguiar's cleaner wax and smooth it out.

It sounds like they aren't going to do much, doesn't it? You'd think that for 400 bucks you'd get more, but no. Costs have been steadily rising in auto refinishing. I imagine that body shop labor has to be at least 140.00 just like the mechanic's labor was in Sacramento. Supplies are also expensive, especially the paint itself, I've read that a gallon of paint can run several  hundred dollars. I'm pretty sure that they will blend it on site, making just enough paint to do the job. 

There aren't a lot of shops that will do a complete paint job. The shop that repaired my Flex, Caliber Collision, did a great job blending in the repair. When I asked them if they would do a complete repaint, they told me no initially. Then they quoted me some crazy high price. 

The current budget re-spray at Almost Everything is 799.00 with a 100.00 savings coupon. That's for small to midsize vehicles. Something as big as the Nav would be extra. I also had to pay Miracle auto painting extra to paint my old F250. I added a few extras when I had my '70 Mustang painted; a complete base coat/primer coat, and a UV protectant added to the color coat. I recall that the base paint was 599.00 (coupon!) and I added another hundred dollars or so, for the extras. 

Almost Everything's best paint respray in the original color is 4,300 bucks! That is for a true base coat, clear coat job. That's a lot of money. That's almost as much as I paid for my Nav, I don't know of too many twenty year old cars that would be worth painting at that price. 

I was satisfied with the paint job on my Mustang, but I had my expectations held in check. I have to remember this when I pick up the Nav. I'm sure I will be able to find some faults, but I have to be realistic. I told the counterman that I wanted to make an improvement in my cars' looks, but I was looking to do it at a low price. 

I decided that I would even pop for a professionally applied set of pinstripes, just a little detail to set my car apart.  I certainly don't plan on swapping out the nice chrome wheels that came stock on the Nav. They are in perfect shape. I'm not into putting custom wheels on my cars, when I swapped the wheels on my '96 Mustang it was for a set of OEM New Edge '99 wheels. 

I guess that I wanted the pinstripes to look nice and straight. These will be vinyl stripes. My 40,000.00 (new)  Jaguar XJS had vinyl coach lines as well. These pinstripes are setting me back two bills, but like I said, I don't plan on any other modifications, and I figure I might as well get it all done at once. 

Bargain paint prices aren't the bargain that they used to be. But consider the alternatives. Trying to spray paint your car at home would call for a sizable investment in equipment, and materials. You would need an empty two car garage as well as some skill. Respraying an entire car is probably illegal in your city. It is in mine. There's a good chance that your neighbors might call the police or fire dept, to report suspicious smells in the neighborhood. Trying to use spray cans becomes more expensive as the number of cans increases and spray can paint isn't very durable. Plus the smell might  also be reported.

The best course is to take your car to a shop like I did. Do a reasonable amount of prep, and pay your money. I think that the wisest choice is to stick to the lower priced options, even if you pay a lot more you're probably not going to get a show level paint job. In a few days you can pick up your freshly painted car. I assure you that it will look much better, if not perfect. Pay a couple hundred bucks extra a month on your credit card, and you'll pay it off in less than six months. It will be worth it, I've been happy with every car that I've had painted. You just have to have realistic expectations. 

The other alternative is to just keep on driving a junky looking car. Be honest with yourself though, if you really want a nice car, the best bet is just to buy a newer car.

I'll share how well the job turned out in my my next post.