I am getting sick and tired of waiting on my car. As many of you know, I took my car to the body shop for a complete re-paint. They said they would be done in 1 month. Well it has been 22 days and they have not even started!!

My car is in overall great shape, just the paint is starting to get "checkered" and of course the dent that was just put in the front by the guy who backed into me!!

Anyhow, any personal experiences with Maaco?

They claim they can get it done in a week, they will fix any dings, etc., and they are quoting me less than half of the other body shop.

 

The car I bought has a Maaco paint job on it. The previous owner was building a Spec 7 racer and didn't want a brown race car. He had it shot Maroon. He didn't have any ding repairs done or anything like that, but he did have the door jambs painted.

They covered it pretty well, and they do have a very efficient system for painting a car. There are some areas that are flaking off, and it chips fairly easily. (It hasn't been driven since paint 8-9 years ago.) There are a couple of runs and orange peal is the norm.

IMO, if you want a quicky job and you don't really care about the car, go for it. From what I've read of your other posts, I think you do care, and I would recommend either waiting patiently, or finding another reputable shop and paying the extra to get the job done properly.

 

You are 100% right in that I do care and want it done right. The guys around work were saying that they had seen some decent paint work come out of Maaco... I just have not personally seen anything that came from them.

 

you get what you pay for... My father had our old van painted long time ago and it looked good for couple years and then I started to see some dullness in the paint, shortly after it started to turn into oxidation. If you plan on waxing your car every 3 weeks you'll be good. BTW this was that cheap $400 paint job they offer.

 

Cheap jobs are just that from maaco. Cheap. When you start getting into their higher paying jobs, they use quality paint and shoot with more care.

 

I had maaco do my re-shoot 5 years ago. Car's been garaged most of the time since, so I can't really speak to durability.

I got the one-step-down-from-top-of-line "Supreme" job, with the 'encorporated clear coat.' Didin't have the budget for the top-of-line "Signature" job, nor did I have them do any ding repair (don't have many anyway). I'd stripped the body & interior so they could do the jambs & hatchlip properly, but did not sand myself.

Overall, I'd give them between a 7.5 and 8.5. Few small inclusions & pinholes, they kept the paint off the tires & out of the engine space. Kind of ticked me off that they painted the chrome tips on my RB muffler, but they turpentined it off for me; no harm, no foul. Minimal orange-peel, especially considering it was a one-coat job. I've seen new econo-cars with worse-looking paint from the factory.

I have a few rock chips in the front since then (unavoidable on SoCal freeways - - the windshield on my Z looks sandblasted!), but the paint has stayed on quite well. I do have one chip on the psg side door, where a door handle broke & whacked the paint, but it's hard to blame them for that.

Only real criticism I have is that the color, which was supposed to be an exact match for the factory K8, seems a few shades lighter to me; factory touch-up paint confirms this. But the difference is slight.

For what I paid at the time, I'd say I got my money's worth. Car looks tremendously better than it did before painting (of course, it had spent most of it's life uncovered & outdoors). And they had it done in just a few days after dropoff.

If I had it to do again, I'd probably have saved the money and gone for the top-flight job, though. I think the two-coat process would have made a difference in final smoothness.

 

I can speak from experience, I worked at 2 MAACO's in MD. First off, their single stage paint ($400) if the equivalent of nail polish. When you take your car in for the $400 job they don't sand it at all, just lightly scuff the car with a scotchbrite. However, if they are running behind this often doesn't happen. On the higher paying jobs, they actually use decent paint, however, the kind of people that normally work at maaco don't give 2 ***** about your car even if you are paying $3,500 for a paintjob. I've seen cars get put outside 30 minutes after coming of of the booth allowing dirt and leaves to imprint themselves into your paint, countless cars get cut up by whoever is taping them and the cuts are visible through the paint, I've also seen 3 different people put on rear wipers in the wrong position, and have them go grinding across your trunk when you turn it on.

Maybe all maaco's aren't like this, but I would certaintly not let them even look at any car I owned.

 

Its a cheap paint job, but if the correct prep work is done by yourself, it will last longer. Like previous have stated, they skip prep work usually, but one's paint is only as good as their prep work. So that being said, you can save some money by getting the prep work done well then go for the cheap paint job.

My previous car was painted by maaco and there was some heavy flaking in channels and corners where proper prep work had not been performed.

But all in all, it looked great from 10 feet away

Close up:


10 feet:

 

When dealing with any high volume, low cost auto spray outfit, there's a few things to keep in mind.
1. If you don't want paint on it, remove it.
2. If you want it sanded/prepped properly, do it yourself.
3. If you want to look good up close, go elsewhere.

 

Words to live by.

 

I am going to be patient... I feel this guy will do a good job. I can't help that I miss driving and working on the ole' RX. I will learn patience. I think it will turn out best in the long run!

 

Wow, I was just asking myself this same question. I have some fairly significant body work to do on the car, replacing some body panels, I'm removing all the trim wipers and anything they might f up, and I was looking at priming the parts I replace and virtually everything else. . . . . . I was thinking of driving my primed car to the place and having them just do a spot filling on places I didn't do well, a top prime and the top and clear coats.

I stopped into a local body shop that specializes in insurance work here in NOVA and he just wanted me to bring my bare metal car in and he'd take care of everything. Its really not a matter of money, I could pay someone to do the whole thing. I feel like this is MY project and I want to do it. I'm just not set up to do my own painting. I'm also not expecting a showroom finish, just to look nice. I want a nice shine on it.

Anyone have any ideas how this might work?

 

+ 1, I had them do some work on my mom's car a few years ago (my sister backed into a trailer hitch the day she got her license) and it turned out great as well as some minor work on my old sentra. The biggest problem is that they do everything from the $400 cheapo paint job to the $6000 show car job (IMHO if you use either of the two more expensive jobs you'll be ok). Also keep in mind that they are a franchise so one location may be better than another (for example the one I've used is owned by a bodyman who does the body/prep work himself). My best advice is to talk to their customers.