Maaco paint job

Anyone ever try maaco for a paint job? alot of people say stay away but my boss used them and his car came out great, my riv has a complete steel wool effect right now and is losing paint on the edges i dont wanna spend anywhere near 3 grand for paint but would they tell me it has to be stripped down to bare metal because of the lifting paint?

Do all of the prep yourself. Remove the trim, sand it, bondo/prime if needed, and even tape it off if you want. It will come out great then. Make sure you get the clear coat.

Cause when they paint they just spray no nothing else you get what you pay for there

ok cool i dont mind doing the prep work, i heard that prices range from 250 to 1000 plus depending on the package am i right?

I paid 400 for the ambassador paint job...them hoes painted everything muffler wheel well under carriage... they give you what you ask for

Haha wow I wonder if you can pay them to prep I should eventually just drive there and ask them but I work all day, I really don't want silver windows ��

h20man wrote:

Anyone ever try maaco for a paint job? alot of people say stay away but my boss used them and his car came out great, my riv has a complete steel wool effect right now and is losing paint on the edges i dont wanna spend anywhere near 3 grand for paint but would they tell me it has to be stripped down to bare metal because of the lifting paint?

If you have paint flaking like many of our Rivs do, spraying new paint on top of it is pointless.

Ohh and the car was done in like 3 days

1998 Riv wrote:

h20man wrote:

Anyone ever try maaco for a paint job? alot of people say stay away but my boss used them and his car came out great, my riv has a complete steel wool effect right now and is losing paint on the edges i dont wanna spend anywhere near 3 grand for paint but would they tell me it has to be stripped down to bare metal because of the lifting paint?

If you have paint flaking like many of our Rivs do, spraying new paint on top of it is pointless.  

my paint isn't flaking off it just has the steel wool effect could that be sprayed over?

it shows in the paint every thing dull spots are the worse

Like I said before. Just do all of the prep yourself. If you can get a nice surface for the paint to lay on you'll get a nice result. Be nice to the people doing it. Look at examples of the work. Check a couple of shops. There is supposedly a good shop near where I live, but the other 2 where I live do crap work. Read reviews on Google.

It all depends on the owner and their workers. We have an AutoMetric that does all of our repairs right down the street. We own the property they're on. Not one person that works here sends their car to them. They're effin terrible. Now, the AutoMetric 2 cities away, is amazing. All employee repairs go to them. We've been trying to get away from the one down the street for awhile now, but our owners won't budge.....

Abaddon wrote:

It all depends on the owner and their workers. We have an AutoMetric that does all of our repairs right down the street. We own the property they're on. Not one person that works here sends their car to them. They're effin terrible. Now, the AutoMetric 2 cities away, is amazing. All employee repairs go to them. We've been trying to get away from the one down the street for awhile now, but our owners won't budge.....

Came here to say exactly this about Maaco - there are two Maaco shops near us. One has a bad rap for doing "typical Maaco work". The other had a great reputation for being an upstanding shop performing excellent bodywork. Unfortunately the 'good' shop's foreman left and their reputation left with him.

So the answer to your original question about Maaco - it all depends.

Spraying on paint is the easy part of the job. Making the metal straight, patching rust issues, removing trim and masking off properly - those are the time consuming parts. If you remove all the trim (and headlights and taillights) yourself before you go to the shop you'll get a better end result.

Maaco is not a pro company....if we want something more high- quality it'll cost us a lot......especially the metallic white diamond dust ...man. that's hard to do

I just want something decent, it doesn't need to be show quality in fact white hides the most imperfections so after this winter I might go with that. If all else fails ill most likely vinyl wrap it

You would get a cleaner look with vinyl, but the finish wouldn't be as great.

h20man wrote:

my paint isn't flaking off it just has the steel wool effect could that be sprayed over?

The "steel wool effect" is the first sign before the paint eventually starts to lift and flake off.  Trust me, I've been through this.  The only way to do it right is to strip the car to bare metal, and then prime and paint it.  Painting over the factory paint will just be throwing your money away.  I believe the problem was an incompatibility issue between the factory paint and primer.  I had my Riv painted over 4 years ago.  It cost me 4200.00, but the shop I chose took the entire car apart, glass and all, stripped it to metal, and painted it.  If you ask me, I think it was a 10,000.00 job.  It took 6 weeks.  I'll never get another deal like that again.

vinal wrap cost upwards of 3000 and only last 5 years max. i was considering this before i found the forum and looked into it. i finally concluded a good paint job or even custom job is the better choice. and always if capable do the prep yourself and it will in the long run save you a ton of money. one of my friends is a great painter and has a shop in my town. with me doing the prep and supplying the paint he will only charge me 200 bucks! doesnt matter what kind of paint i decide he can do it. if he supplied the paint and did the prep id be lookin at around 3000 again, but heres the thing. a paint job will last many many years if taken care of. vinal wraps 5 years tops no matter how good you take care of them.

$hit....mediablast is the best way before paint.

Wow that car looks great as far as my ribs paint it looks like it will have to wait, I don't have the funds to paint or wrap anyway, my only option is to buy the wrap and do a panel a day myself the 3m material isn't that hard to lay down

Stupid autocorrect I meant riv not rib haha

I did the prep work and had someone spray it for me and it turned out pretty well.

not bad.....

^^^^^^^
THAT SMOOTH SHAVED LOOK. I WANT IT.