tom25

The title says it all. I was wondering if anyone has used Maaco? Are you happy with the results or not! Any feedback is good!

SIXSLUG

Our local Maaco is turning out some surprisingly decent paint jobs, not a lot of orange peel, and good work.

There's a 67 Chevelle in town that got shot that seamist green metallic color and I was impressed. Not thinking it was the cheap job, the guy said it was around a grand but he did all the stripping and body work.

I remember the president's special was $399 back in the 80's.

I would try to see some examples of the current employees work though before I had anything done.

Silver R/T

you're better off finding someone who does side work and have them do it.

joem

yup, I plan to pay someone side work and use some of the new silver gray metallic found on the 4th gen's

vssman

I've seen local Maaco paint jobs. Not bad but you get what you pay for in regards to the paint. Their $300.00 paint job is enamel and will not be as durable as a urethane paint. Spraying a base coat/clear coat on our trucks use a LOT of paint and that gets expensive very quickly (if you use a high quality name brand product like PPG DBC or DBU or similar Dupont). I got my truck ready for paint by doing all of the body metal work and then had the local technical high school sand and spray the body. Again, most of the cost was paint and clear but it came out really good. A few years ago, I restored an older 60s car and found a painter that shot the color in my 2 car garage. I called him about painting the truck and he suggested the trade school because the truck is so much bigger than the car that the air flow from the gun is closer to the doors, walls, and ceiling which would result in more particles in the paint even after cleaning the garage prior to 'making' it into a booth. If you're not picky about the color, there are cheaper premixed paints that are available in standard colors which would significantly lower the cost. However, you'd have to find someone that is willing to spray that material. Most paint shops won't use anything other than what they normally use as their name is on the line as to the quality/durability of the job after it leaves the shop. Even the high school wouldn't use the PPG Omni line on my truck for the same reason - it was only the high end stuff or take it elsewhere.

sootnsmoke

Our 91 is at maaco right now. Should be done next week. I will let you know how it turns out. Some maaco shops turn out good work but the better quality paint options will cost you some extra cash. I am opting for a pricey DuPont chroma paint which is a much more durable paint than their entry level option.

Silver R/T

For $300 you're not going to get a nice paint job. You might as well get a few rattle cans and paint it yourself for that much.
A decent paint job is going to cost you well over $1000, more like $1500+

Lil Dog

I used a local MAACO to paint my 97 after the paint started to flake off. I realized I wasn't getting a show finish for the price but for $3500 they fixed some rust spots, filled the dents, sanded it down to the primer and added a gel primer to the pealing sections and paint. We took a short cut and had them tape off the stainless rocker covers and paint around them to save $1000 in stainless.

All in all a pretty good job for the bucks.. Any other shop wanted up to $7000 to do it and I wasn't into that. We'll see how it lasts. Some hidden rust is coming back through but I knew that was a risk for the repairs they made.

Good Luck!

joem

$3500 for a ok paint job and $7k for high end I only paid $2,000 for the entire frigging truck! Now I understand why I see so many flakeing paint jobs that have not been fixed. man, *** is up with those prices.

Mike L

joem! welcome to the "Canadian Culture" of humping the consumer for every last effen nickle that can be extracted without the consumer simply refusing to cough up the $$$$ to get the job done or purchasing the commodity. We spend our winters in Osoyoos, BC and it is only 5 miles from the USA border town of Oroville. Stuff that costs xxxx$$$ at a Canadian retailer can be bought in Oroville for about 1/2 of what the Canadian retailer is asking for the EXACT SAME PRODUCT! Soooooooooo, if you can get a paint job in your part of the world for $2,000.00 you can be sure that the exact same work in Canada, from the exact same company, using the exact same parts etc. etc. will cost at least $4,000.00 or more.

Welcome to Canada, eh,! (at least we have Tim Horton's coffee!)

Cheers!

Mike

patdaly

Not really, if you consider 1 K in product is not at all out of the question ( haven't even priced a gallon of red lately ), then the physical time it takes to do a proper job, 7K for a good job isn't out there. Heck, I did 3500 dollar jobs back in the mid 70's, and I had way more customers than hours in the day.

A high end job today would be 15-20K.........

Diesel Dave2

When I painted my truck a custom red, base clear....RM base red was $175 a quart($700 a gallon)...And that was the price 5 years ago

vssman

The primer, paint and clear for my truck was just over $1000.00 and that's PPG Omni primer, PPG DBC color and an off-brand clear. To use PPG 4000 series clear would have been another several hundred more. That's just materials... The high school charged $10.00/hr and I think they wound up totaling just under 40 hours to strip the bed (I did the cab), prime, sand, paint. I walked out with a bill of just under $1400.00 for a two tone (96 forest green, 00 mercedes brilliant silver) paint job. Red probably would have been more. When I repainted my older project car, one gallon of PPG DBU red metallic was just shy of $400.00 and that was a few years ago.

Lil Dog

The paint and clear cost for the truck was $1900, red is the most expensive. They had the truck for 3 weeks to work on it in their off time and for the labour they put into it I got a deal really.

That was a deal here I guarantee. I went to at least 6 different shops. One didn't want to do it, one wanted $8K and a month plus parts if needed (fenders and stainless), one was $5K but needed 6 weeks, hot rod shop was in the $10K mark but I didn't want a frame off restore type job.

The manager at MAACO here even asked why I wanted to paint it at the age it is..BUT, the shop foreman came out to look and said, "Hell ya you should paint it, its a 12 valve!". I knew I had the right shop..

sootnsmoke

Not to mention, this is brutally hard work for those of us that done them ourselves. Having the right environment for painting, booths, climate controls, etc is expensive. Having painted 2 other vehicles myself I see why painting a car with quality prep and materials is expensive. If you are getting quality work back this is and should be one of the most expensive things you will ever do to a car or truck.