dankekong

iTrader: (2)

Getting my 85 gs painted in the spring and was considering MAACO as the place to do it. They seem to be flexible with services/paint jobs they offer, and actually advertise as a place that does any kind of paint job, small or big. Wanted to see what some of the forum guys here think about paint jobs, specifically the place getting it done at (I live in ny...so I will be picking somewhere in upstate/central new york).

any feedback is helpful, I'm thinking either a factory mazda color such as their blue for the rx7 or something along the lines of charcoal or gunmetal.

thanks guys

Brigdh

iTrader: (9)

MAACO uses some funny paint, which normal paint will not stick to. If you ever want to repaint the car, you'll have to strip it down to bare metal. Also, they typically won't remove trim unless you pay extra. Basically a step above a fly-by-night business

If you are gonna put in the money, go to a real body shop and get it done right.

dankekong

iTrader: (2)

I was hoping for more advice regarding where to go. What do you classify as a real body shop?

Brigdh

iTrader: (9)

I'm not in New York, so I can't recommend a specific shop, but you could try asking around at work and with friends. Also look at your insurance company's website. Many times they have a list of area shops they recommend.

Go to the shops and get an estimate for the work you want done. Make sure you tell them you are paying cash, typically shops charge less if its not through insurance. I typically pick a shop where they treat me well. Take their time looking at the car, explain things to me.

mazdaverx713b

iTrader: (91)

if you are going with maaco, do all of the prep work yourself..i mean ALL of it.. they wil lpaint right over anything to include dirt.

i'd keep it the original color unless you plan on pulling the engine and gutting the engine bay. nothing looks worse that a contrasting colored engine bay.

rwatson5651

iTrader: (5)

I agree with Mazdaverx, I have seen good results when the customer prepped the car properly, basicly Maaco (and the other "discount" paint shops) do no or very little prep work and merely spray the car, which is not bad if you have properly prepped the car before you drop it off. I have not heard of the problems with the funny paint, If I was determined to use them I would investigate that thouroughly to make sure there would be no problems. A high end paint job with proper prep can be very expensive and many paint and body shop are relunctant to give a price estimate because it is difficult to be certain of how many hours prep work will be required. Most want to stick to "production" work (read Insurance/accident) work where the book pays for a certain number of hours (usually more than it actually takes).

dankekong

iTrader: (2)

Thanks a lot guys. I was definitely going to go to a place that worked with me...hopefully I can find one.

mazdaverx713b

iTrader: (91)

i'm sure you can. go to car shows or an old timer's type auto part store (local non brand name thats been around forever) and ask some old timers that have been around awhile. they always seem to know the best places to go. i remember when i was a kid in the 80's going to car shows with my grandfather and him and his buddies always talking body shops..

alanbl

My opinion is that it all depends upon your objective. I just had my '83 painted by Maaco including some body work and replacing a fender. Couldn't be happier with the result. I bought this car new in '82 and through neglect of my own, the paint was completely oxidized and the car looked like a disaster. I do not want a concours or show car. Just something that looks good again as an almost daily driver. Maaco did it all for about $1200. The highest quote that I had from an independant was $7500 that almost caused me to call 911!

Result: Good paint and nice looking car painted the original color. I agree about the prep, they painted over some dirt but generally did a damn good job for the price. The body work consisted of pulling out dents and as I said, replacing a fender. Their price for the fender was less than catalog OEM and was original Mazda.

I'm not sure about that "special paint" story. I made the mistake several years ago of having Maaco paint a '69 GTO convertible and the result was not what I wanted. Took it to a specialty shop and they did not have to strip it to bare metal.

dankekong

iTrader: (2)

My thing is that the car needs to be stripped at least to primer then completely painted, plus some body work as far as dents go. I wouldn't mind sanding it down to primer myself, but I don't want a b.s. job that will peel in 3 years.

rwatson5651

iTrader: (5)

Why does the car need to be stripped down to the primer?

If the paint is not flaking or peeling and is adhering well then you should be able to sand it and spray it with primer/sealer and then with the topcoat with good results.

dankekong

iTrader: (2)

To answer your question it is because there is some half a**-ed paint job on it now, looks like spray can....not the type of paint to be coated over you know?

84stock

iTrader: (5)

Maaco does cheap work and has inexpensive help doing bodywork on a piece work basis. When their allotted time for the prep is up, that's it, no more time! You get what you pay for indeed. If you are prepared to sand the hell out of it yourself, remove the window moldings (buy new clips!) and side moldings (buy 3m double sided adhesive) then go ahead. They certainly won't have some minimum wage lackey spraying the car, and the paint they use is fine I am sure.

If you don't want to do the work, you gotta be prepared to pay.

I would shop around to all the little family run body shops, you may find one that is having a slow period and is willing to make a great deal. That's how I got mine done. Sure i have a few flaws, and I know every one. To do it over i would have done a lot more prep myself. Bottom line for me though, the bodyshop collected the insurance company damage appraisal of $2600.00 to replace and repaint my rf fender and bumper cover. I bought used parts ($300), installed them myself and the shop prepped and painted the "whole car" in 2 stage seikens paint for nothing out of my pocket.

BEFORE (THIS IS THE $2600 DAMAGE)



AFTER (NEW PAINT MOTIVATED ME TO BUY NEW RIMS TOO)



Oh, for god's sake stay close to the factory color. Mine is not the factory color, but it is close enough that you can open the doors and hardly notice the difference. It costs a lot more to get all the door jams, etc painted too.

In my case a range rover caught my eye and we went with rangerover rimini red and added some gold pearl.

In picking a color, I followed the bodyshops advice. It is too hard to judge how your car might look buy holding a paint swatch against your car. Go shopping the new/used car lots until a color catches your eye. Pick more than one as some paint maybe 3 stage and much more costly. Going this route also means that your car does not have some mysterious custom formula that nobody can match in the future, all any shop has to do is use the paint code from the car you chose.

Also get extra clear applied. The difference in the finish is the handy work that comes later on. having additional clear will permit you to wet sand and polish the car in the future.

BEFORE WET SANDING 15 YEAR OLD ORIGINAL PAINT ON THIS 300,000 KM ACQUISITION



AFTER WET SANDING (scared the **** out of me when it dried!)



AFTER FIRST ROUND OF COMPOUND AND HIGH SPEED BUFFING (my fears were erased)



PAINTED THE AGED PORTION OF THE FACTORY RIMS



ENGINE DETAILING



FINAL RESULTS







In the end this effort produced a $2000.00 profit on the sale for all my work.

Since the economy still sucks in this field it shouldn't be too hard to negotiate with a good bodyshop. Like I said, find a long established family owned shop that preserves it's name.

AIRKOLORS

please dont go to Maako. I'm a custom painter and send people to maako when they dont have $$$$$$ and want to get rid of a car. call me and i would love to give you great advice. 305-609-8182

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

my car was painted at miracle, which is basically the same thing.

they did NO prep work at all, no sanding. when the miracle paint comes off the original paint underneath is still shiny. its also rusting UNDER the paint = bad prep work

i'm sure the paint they used is the cheapest possible. it might not even be enamel
it oxidizes fast, but it does shine up very well, if you wax it regularly

under ordinary use the paint will peel/fade pretty quick, i'm just lucky my car is black, and it sat in the rafters for most of the paint jobs life

Ken7102

dont go to maaco.... your car will be ruined.... the guy who had my 7 went to maaco and the paint looks good from far away but thats it, there was over spray on my windows and on the trim, and the paint is chipping, it has to be sanded all the way down.... luckily my pops is a car painter and he is gonna paint it for me and he absolutely hates maaco, because they do crap work.... spend the extra money and get a good high quality job. Since your in new york it should not be too hard to find a good shop

dankekong

iTrader: (2)

Thanks guys....and nice work with the gsl se!!!! I wont be going there thanks to your guy's advice, hopefully I can find a good local place.

dankekong

iTrader: (2)

your stuff looks pretty good, but I wouldn't want a custom paint job like those anywho! maybe some small work such as rotor related images, but nothing big. I'm all the way up in NY, would be kinda hard to get together anyway

Drahcirr

I had an '80 RX7 back in the mid-80s that I drove year-round in Albany, NY. I had MAACO paint the car when the inevitable rust got bad, and they did a serviceable job. Of course, the rust came back after a year or two of winter driving.

About two years ago I had a pristine '81 RX7 shipped to Albany from California. I wasn't crazy about the color (gold), so I got a quote for painting everything (under hood, etc.) from Nopper's in East Greenbush. (I've had work done by Nopper's several times, and the quality is always excellent.) The quote: $7,000 -- about the same amount I paid for the car. I don't know if that quote is the reason, but I've grown to like that gold color.

84stock

iTrader: (5)

Great quality paint will start from $5,000......gotta shop for the new guys or the starving little shop.

lovemyrotary

i had a macco job done once, paid 800.00 dollars for it and it pealed off about six months later.. I took it back to them to ask about getting that fixed and they told me they were not responsible for that and i "should have cleaned the car better before bringing it to them".. Never again.. I would stay clear!

dankekong

iTrader: (2)

I hear ya man...I wish my car was gold then I wouldn't have to have it painted....its dented up, needs a fender, and is a flat/primer black, very uneven too. I can see the original paint coming through....it was gold originally lol I guess. I would definitely get a guarantee anyway with the paint....some kind of lifetime scratch or 10 year or 5 year no rust plan.....people should do good work and stand by it.

mar3

iTrader: (8)

Goodness. The MAACO shop up on Pioneer Pkwy in Arlington, TX, would just cry at some of the stuff being written here. He's on a campaign to turn around the rep of the MAACO name in these parts. Prep is still so-so but here's some pics to chew on.

The 1980 car, painted in 2003 - $700 - note the shaved door lock hole...completely invisible and never came up as a problem.









The current daily driver, because it has better fuel mileage than my other '83, which has dead paint for the moment...it's the yellow car to the right - "Tweety" - and was painted in 2006. In fact, the closer pics taken right after it was painted are on my old Win98 PC SCSI hard drive which I never got around to transferring to this PC. I'll have to do that sometime soon. Here's a shot from 2007, car in the middle is my Parent's white '84 GSL owned from Day One.





The people who have seen the car in person at the meets always say two things. Why didn't you pay to get the color change done completely (as they shake their heads) and also that they can't believe that there is no orange peel anywhere on the car. It's smooth as glass and better than a paint job on just about any new car to be found today made in mass production...and it cost $600.

Here's a shot I just found from our August 2010 rotary meet. "Tweety" is to the right and BDC can be seen to the far left in this pic, in case you're curious as to what he looks like.

84stock

iTrader: (5)

Maaco is capable, I had a friend with a good job, my moms fairmont was a wonderful job as well. "HOWEVER", it is a roll of the dice. When I worked at a tireshop that did alignments for Maaco we had cars come over with wet paint and horrid frame repairs. So while you will see some success, you'll see the other end of the scale too. If I was to use maaco, I would do 80% of the prep myself.

82transam

iTrader: (18)

I do my own body/paint work so I can't really comment on Maaco since I've never used them.

In response to someone above who said that Maaco uses crappy paint that you can't paint over, its not a Maaco specific problem. You can run into issues when trying to shoot paint over any newer type paints (I'm talking non factory finishes, like the car was repainted already etc), especially Acrylic Enamel, that is not mixed with a hardner you can get that problem. The reducer in the paint your applying over it will eat away at the old paint and it will lift/bubble.

The only solution is to strip that paint off and get back to either the factory finish or bare metal. I've had my share of issues with this repainting cars that had already been repainted once before, espeically in the 90's and even into the 2000's. Luckily the acrylic garbage isn't used much anymore...

Going to bare metal is not typically advised since you can let moisture in and rust will start, plus its a lot of work really for nothing. The factory paint is usually an excellent base to work off of assuming you sand it down properly and use a good primer on top of it.