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how much should a paint job cost

41K views 22 replies 16 participants last post by  DeathmobileSS 
#1 ·
What should a paint job cost in SoCal on a 96 B-body.

hi end and low end

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HI END
10 out of 10 equal or slightly beter than factory but not so nice I'm goint to cry the first time I plow a cone
96 DGGM - bone stock looking car has almost no damage

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Low END
8 our of 10 paint job clean simple looks ok from 6 feet away
96 retired 9C1 - nice black or silver paint job, car has some minor dings and dents all police acc. are filled already
 
#2 ·
your covering a HUGE range of prices with that question.
Its all in the prep work. Most of the bill covers all the prep, it all depends on how much you want the shop to be involved in quality prep.
Not sure about down in Cali but I have a bodyman that paints a **** load of classics and hot rods, he will completely strip the old paint, do any metal work needed, block it out until its as straight as possible and shoot a nice base clear or candy if desired for around $3000, and thats his "deal price"! usually its around $5000. he wont paint a car if he doesnt get to do it all himself from stripped to wet.
then again, there is a shop around the corner that advertises Base/clear any car for $999. I went in to check it out, and that is for NO body work, NO stripping. Basically prep will play 90% of the final look.
Maybe do all the prep yourself and then take it in to one of the hole in the wall $999 type places. personaly I cant afford $3-5000 for paint so Ive been taking months to prep my 68 and gonna take it in and spend $999 when its ready :D
 
#6 · (Edited)
your covering a HUGE range of prices with that question.
Its all in the prep work. Most of the bill covers all the prep, it all depends on how much you want the shop to be involved in quality prep.
Not sure about down in Cali but I have a bodyman that paints a **** load of classics and hot rods, he will completely strip the old paint, do any metal work needed, block it out until its as straight as possible and shoot a nice base clear or candy if desired for around $3000, and thats his "deal price"! usually its around $5000. he wont paint a car if he doesnt get to do it all himself from stripped to wet.
then again, there is a shop around the corner that advertises Base/clear any car for $999. I went in to check it out, and that is for NO body work, NO stripping. Basically prep will play 90% of the final look.
Maybe do all the prep yourself and then take it in to one of the hole in the wall $999 type places. personaly I cant afford $3-5000 for paint so Ive been taking months to prep my 68 and gonna take it in and spend $999 when its ready :D
in texas you looking at no less than 2500 and they say for that price you wont get a "good paint job" do its all in who you know.. im sure cali paint jobs are NOT cheap..
thats sounds pretty accurate what Seok amd Rider says, alot of the resto jobs go for around 5 grand, its alot of work, i know that first hand, 2500 hundred is for quality job, it all depends on the shop also

high end- $2500 and up
dents/ body damage taken care of
metal work if needed
sand entire car
spray the whole car with primer
block sand entire car
jams
prep car for paint, i.e. paper, masking, cleaning
painting then clearing, baking
color sand
polishing

finish will look like glass!!

some people dont understand ( i know i didnt at first)in all this, the price covers material (primer, paint, clear) tons of Labor (sanding, metal fab, car prep, polishing paint prep)


low end-$800 and lower
subtract color sand and polish, very good prep, tiny dent repair


ive seen the difference between quality and crap, my buddy took his thunder bird to one a day( i told him to go somewhere else and spend lil more) he spent 600 and it looked like sh1t, they painted the dirt on the bottom molding of his car..nuff said. if its for a daily your not too worried about go low end, if its for your pride and joy go high end
 
#4 ·
in texas you looking at no less than 2500 and they say for that price you wont get a "good paint job" do its all in who you know.. im sure cali paint jobs are NOT cheap..
 
#5 ·
I just got quoted at $4,500, and that is if I remove all the molding and door handles myself.

I was looking for very nice paint, with a good clear coat and cut and buff.

I am also planning on changing the color of the car, so that included body work and jams.
 
#8 ·


If you spend $2500 to paint your daily driver, the painter better look like this!

BTW, you gotta love Google....they have pictures for all kinds of ish!!!
 
#16 ·
Hey, that girl's not wearing a respirator. I bet she didn't even paint that herself.

As stated, quality paint is all about good prep. If you do ALL the prep work yourself, then the Maaco type jobs can someoimes work out well. My '55 still looks decent and is a 13 year old $199 Maaco job, but my buddy and I did everything but wrap it and paint it. On the cars we paint at work, we generally have around $1000 in just materials.
 
#9 ·
Mopar chick huh
bet she has bad wiring!
 
#10 ·
I'm guessing it is around 2500-3000 everywhere, however I did take mine to a guy who said he would replace the hood and fender with quality parts, and fix a plate size dent in the door. 2700 bucks. I smiled and left as quickly as possible.

Seems like most body shops around here only want to do insurance work, and a lot of them will quote you high, just to get rid of you. Unless you are Allstate or somebody.
My friends brother owns a pretty busy body shop (He does 95 percent insurance work), he just got divorced and had to give his wife 6 rental houses and 750,000 bucks. What's that tell you?

There was a guy here on the forum that painted another members car for him for around 2500, had a nice long thread with the progress and pics, but I can't find it now. I think they were in Texas?
 
#11 · (Edited)
Just watch who you go to! We do a lot of resto mod cars at my shop, take them all down, media blast the body...basically have them done from the ground up...we have two well known body shops that we use, but you wont believe the crap these guys pull...

Seriously, out of the fifteen or twenty body shops I have had experience with (working on cars they have repaired/painted) I think I have only seen one that didn't do some seriously corner cutting stuff.

Well, we say they cut corners but it's almost as if these shops don't know HOW to do it the right way. 6 pounds of bondo on BIG MONEY show cars because making metal nice the old fashioned way is obsolete. Not straightening out pinch moldings on big money show cars. Putting cars on lifts and seeing spots that weren't painted. These show cars that guys are paying LOTS of money for get thrown together with bondo and crap parts. In the end the paint looks great aside from all the small details missed, but it's not the right way to do things.

That's not even getting started on every day repaired cars I have seen

-wetsanded chrome trim because they were too lazy to remove it
-bubbling paint/peeling stickers just days after leaving the shop
-grille in a rear valance that was melted to the bumper instead of using any kind of legit way of fastening it. It fell off.
-lets not even get into the amazing mig work I have seen from body shops around here. I had better welds the first time I picked up a torch.

Alls im sayin is get to know whoever is doing the work before you bring your car there. I know your not building a show car but still, you don't want somebody cutting corners on you for the money you'd be paying...you should get what you pay for.
Sadly it seems like most body shops I have encountered were hack jobs. I don't know if they just aren't capable of doing things the right way, or just choose to cut corners (probably being spoiled by insurance company jobs) but the work is not good. We're talking about shops that paint Lambos, Ferraris and are known for high end restos too...

Scary but true thing I have learned....'most' body guys don't seem to care about 'right' and 'wrong' way of doing things around here. They care about end results. I wont lie, the work these guys put out comes out good to the average joe looking at it at a cruise night, but when you know something about it and realize how much money was spent...it's not so good anymore.
 
#13 · (Edited)
because making metal nice the old fashioned way is obsolete.
I did all the Rosie metal work myslef.
Welded the antena window holes, trim holes, dings, dents, and shotgun holes
the little mig dent puller deall is pretty legit too!
 

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#12 · (Edited)
I'm taking mine in next Wed. The body guy (a friend of a friend who owns a shop) looked at it, rubbed the bad spots, and asked all of the right questions.

You want back to factory or a show car job?
You want me to fix the hood and fender, or just get new stuff?
You want the good GM or certified parts, or the cheaper stuff?
Called his parts guy right then and told me his price was cheaper than the parts I was getting, and they were certified.
Etc.

Then he said she's going to have a little bondo, but not much, mostly because noone makes a good rear quarter.

"Get new SS script emblems, cause they look like **** if I paint over 'em."
(Bless you, Hamilton Chevy)

I've seen a GTO Judge and a 67 Mustang this guy did, and they were awesome. BUT, his main work comes from car lots.

Total estimate for Labor and Materials: Base DCM and two clear coats-$2,500

Said he's got one car to finish, then it should take him and his two guys about a week....I almost crapped my pants. I'm used to two-three months if they hurry. If I hadn't seen this guys work on some hot ass cars, I'd be worried.
 
#14 ·
Around here a good paint job in the same color is gonna be about $2-2500. That's a standard job.

A 10 out of 10 would be considered top notch, one you wouldn't want to DD, and would probably start at $10k.

An 8 out of 10 would probably be $4-6000.

I've got 2 friends who each own their own shops. 1 of them won't touch a car for less than $5000, and that's his standard paint job. He tends to get a lot of cars shipped from all over the country to him for paint.

The other guy does all jobs, and a cheapy job is gonna be around $1000 for a weekend job, up to the skies the limit for restos.

But really, asking online for paint quotes is pretty hard. A lot depends on the materials, and a large part depends on the painter himself. Those with good reps for producing quality work are going to demand a premium over the average shop. You get what you pay for, and everyone is different on what they find acceptable.
 
#19 ·
I think the question has been answered, now I'll point out a few things about that picture that drive me nuts, they forgot to mask the license plate and exhaust tip and even the little emblem on the bed cover. Also notice there's no paint sprayed on the masking paper. Jeeeze
 
#20 · (Edited)
Around here paint is around $2-3,000 for one of these cars... One place quoted me less if I sanded down the car myself (Which I DID) Anyway.. Months went by and nothing happened so I just painted it myself. If I can Can paint it decent.. I wonder what I could do with a real paint gun! Practice makes perfect...When the time comes around I will probably be painting it myself because NO ONE does anything good these days. If they do, they are a dying breed. If you want Great, do it yourself. I personally would always want my vehicle stripped down before paint.. Not PAINT over the old stuff.. When ever I paint it for real if when I ever have materials, I will use airplane stripper.

I would advise everyone to buy some minor body work stuff and try it. You can sand one of these cars down to factory primer easy with some gloves, Soapy water and a whole lot of wet dry paper. From there, Do what you want. It can only go one way. It will look better, Never worse.
 
#21 ·
Around here paint is around $2-3,000 for one of these cars... One place quoted me less if I sanded down the car myself (Which I DID) Anyway.. Months went by and nothing happened so I just painted it myself. If I can Can paint it decent.. I wonder what I could do with a real paint gun! Practice makes perfect...When the time comes around I will probably be painting it myself because NO ONE does anything good these days. If they do, they are a dying breed. If you want Great, do it yourself. I personally would always want my vehicle stripped down before paint.. Not PAINT over the old stuff.. When ever I paint it for real if when I ever have materials, I will use airplane stripper.

I would advise everyone to buy some minor body work stuff and try it. You can sand one of these cars down to factory primer easy with some gloves, Soapy water and a whole lot of wet dry paper. From there, Do what you want. It can only go one way. It will look better, Never worse.
If you've got a good base you're better off painting over the old paint than the hassle of stripping it down. If you've got craced or checked paint then you have to sand it down.
I think it's a common misconception that the best paint jobs are ones that strip a car to bare metal and start over. But it will allow you to talk about how much time and money it cost to paint!:D
 
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