Maaco paint job

Not for me. Paint looks good though.

chi what did ya use to fill the strips?

I miss the strips.

joshuadalegrimes wrote:

chi what did ya use to fill the strips?

I sanded the paint down to metal then filled it in with bondoglass. After that it was smoothed in with filler.  You'd be surprised to know that when you remove the strips it doesn't take much to fill in that groove behind them. I actually also shaved the chrome trim off the wheel wells and filled in the locks and antenna.  I still have all the trim.  I just wanted to do something different to the Riv that I hadn't seen on any other Rivi.  I had replaced the passenger side fender and front bumper so they were white instead of pearl.  that's why I did the paint job.  I couldn't be driving my Riv with any flakiness or dullness in my paint!  It looks soo shiny in the sun.  I'm thinking about hitting it with a gray or satin blue plastidip this summer maybe( Sorry for the delay in response)

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weeeeee......

stan wrote:

weeeeee......

Whats up Stan?

means...COOL.

 

Haha.... 

What grit are yall using to take it to the metal

I had my car painted by MAACO nearly 2 1/2 years ago. I left it in their parking lot on Sunday night with the keys in the lock box.On Monday morning I called then and told them to paint the car and they of course asked what color did I want.my reply was just be creative and give me a surprise. Three days later I went to get my car back and they had painted it two tone, a nice green top and bottom with a cream mid section.The look and paint job was absolutely stunning and to this day still looks as fresh as the day I collected it back, cost $450.00 and well worth it. Since that day I have seen a couple of other cars with the same paint job (not rivs) so I know that someone else likes the paint scheme enough to copy it. MAACO do a good job for the price and for 15-16 year old cars well worth it, at the price you can have a new paint job every year if you have the mind to. As a foot note I think that keeping the cars in good mechanical condition is preferable to any expensive paint job.

I assume they did the prep work then? Did they fix any rust? Any overspray? Did they paint the lower trim to match the body? Pictures?

Sorry for the onslaught of questions, but I'm seriously considering getting it done. We have a Maaco shop around here with a decent reputation and I'm willing to give it a shot.

At $450, I doubt they did anything except spray a new coat over the old paint.

Johnny5 wrote:

What grit are yall using to take it to the metal

I used 80 grit to take the paint down to metal then changed it to 120 to prevent any heavy scratching. I only took it down to metal where I used any filler. The rest of the car I scuffed the paint up very well removing the clear coat with 400 and 600 grits. You have to be careful using the lower number grit sandpaper cause you can put deep scratches in the metal. If that happens tho you can always use filler or a good few layers of 2K primer to cover any minor imperfections. My car isn't perfect, I still need to do a wet color sand on it this summer to remove a little orange peel and a couple of drips. THey are barely noticeable and it looks 100 times better than what I started with.

Ruben, is your Riv white now?

If mine didn't need so much prep work, I'd consider a cheap paint job to make it a bit more attractive to my daughter, who's taking it over this spring. There are sooooo many places that the paint is flaking off, that it would be simplest to strip it down completely.

Re my MAACO spray job. No they did not take it down to the bare metal but they did do a very good prep job otherwise the finish I have would not have lasted and my old paint was flaking so a mere spray over would have shown the spots where the old paint was flaking and cracking. There was a little over spray on the wheel arch trim not much and it was easily removed. The $450.00 price was a promotion and the paint used was urethane. As I said earlier to smarten up your daily ride MAACO is good enough as a well running machine no matter how it looks is preferable to a $4000 paint job that is not running.Just my thoughts!!!!!

As an after thought, before you commit to MAACO if you have any doubts visit with them and look at the jobs they have just finished and siting on the front lot ready for collection. Also the MAACO you go to is only as good as the man holding the spray gun.as is any paint shop.

Yup.The Maaco I took my old Legend to did an amazing job for small bucks.They took pride in their work.That single stage paint job lasted me almost ten years with regular cleaning and waxing.

1998 Riv wrote:

Ruben, is your Riv white now?  

If mine didn't need so much prep work, I'd consider a cheap paint job to make it a bit more attractive to my daughter, who's taking it over this spring.  There are sooooo many places that the paint is flaking off, that it would be simplest to strip it down completely.  

Actually my riv is now a 2 stage pearl. Its not as nice as when I first got it.  Our OEM pearl is 3 stage. Base, pearl, and clear.  On my car I just did the prep work and I had a pro paint it as a side job.  He used a two stage pearl, I believe he said it was paint used on the Chrysler 300. It looks like a creamy pearl. Its Ok I guess, I would have preferred the original but the paint alone is close to $600. The prep work isn't too bad if you have a DA (dual action ) sander and a few sanding discs.  I purchased a few tools at harbor freight and a few garage sales.  If you don't have a compressor available you can use electric sander as well.  You don't need to take the whole car to bare metal.  If there is no rust and no filler is used you just need to scuff it down so the new primer can stick.  I actually considered MAACO or Earl Scheib before I found my painter.  My dad has used them before and they weren't bad.  As long as you repair any rust or dents before taking it in the outcome is OK.  I would say try fixing whatever flaking you have and try MAACO.

As far as "flaking" paint... it's much worse than that makes it sound. It's chipping off in thick pieces all over the place. I would not feel comfortable having new paint sprayed on top of any of it anywhere. Due to the poor quality of the original GM work with the bright white diamond paint option, any area of the car's paint could separate from the primer, at any time, after this many years. This particular Riv, to me, is not worth the kind of investment needed for an acceptable paint job that will hold up for a while. And the underbody isn't all that great either. It spent several winters in MN before I bought 7 years ago, and it's a year-round driver here too.

Yeah, I know what you mean in regards to the rust. The salt has been putting a beating on my Riv as well. Sometimes I just want to get rid of it but what would I get for it? $2K if I'm lucky. I'd rather drive it till it falls apart to the point of no return. I've got a rusty subframe I'm getting ready to replace. I've seen other GM's with the flaking paint. Must have been some bad primer or paint used at the factory IMO. You would probably need to remove the paint done pretty well then in that case

1998 Riv wrote:

As far as "flaking" paint...  it's much worse than that makes it sound.  It's chipping off in thick pieces all over the place.  I would not feel comfortable having new paint sprayed on top of any of it anywhere.  Due to the poor quality of the original GM work with the bright white diamond paint option, any area of the car's paint could separate from the primer, at any time, after this many years.  This particular Riv, to me, is not worth the kind of investment needed for an acceptable paint job that will hold up for a while.  And the underbody isn't all that great either.  It spent several winters in MN before I bought 7 years ago, and it's a year-round driver here too.  

Exactly why I started taking auto body classes at my local voc-tech and doing the work myself. I learned a lot and was able to move from minor rust repair and basic paint work on my '98 to rebuilding the 1/4 panels by hand for my '73 LeSabre. (can't buy them anywhere) I can't wait to find the time to finish it.