Hello everyone! I’ve been on here a little while just never posted. But the time is coming up quick but I’m stuck a little worried! My 67 cougar is hurting for a new paint job. Just don’t know who I should trust to do it. While there are shops around, how do I tell from the guy who says he can from the guy who actually can? Any help from you guys out there is much appreciated! So who did you have paint your car? Anyone around KY?
First off welcome to the site. I wouldn’t trust anyone. To many horror stories out there. Your best bet is to check out the local cruise in nights and car shows and ask the guys with nice paint jobs who did the work and gauge their overall happiness and cost.
Don’t count out the back yard body/painters. I’ve got my buddy painting my 70 right now and he has a back yard shop which he has built a couple Sema cars over the years. We work on it together a couple nights a week which is a great learning experience and definitely cuts my labor bill in half.
First off, WELCOME ABOARD!
To answer your question, I trusted me, myself, and I. Actually, I “trusted” a shop in town after seeing their work, but I could not swallow the 10k starting price for what I wanted, so, learned all I could on various forums, and tried it solo.
That won’t work for everybody, but, think about it!
Again, welcome!
I tried a bit last year for another car. I found one person that knew where is paint job came from but he flew the painter across the country and let the painter spend the night at his house. Got a painters number from a guy that had duct tape as the trim on his car… he said the guy was good but expensive. But eh yea. I will keep looking.
It’s actually two questions: can he do it and will he do it. When I had my 68 painted, I hired a local guy who I knew from seeing his work had talent. The problem was getting him to actually finish the job. My car sat untouched for weeks until he finally did a rush job just to get rid of me. Within a year I started having issues with the paint.
I heard of painters like that before…
Buy nice or buy twice.
There was this candy red Cougar that went through WCCC recently. Paint looked great (if a bit flashy) in the photos. However, the entire rear quarter had been patched…and hung crooked. Entire job would need to be re-done.
I was told this by both people who referred me to body/paint guys: Expect it to take a while.
These guys must generally gain income by doing small side insurance jobs, so yours will languish from time to time.
This is how I found my guy. There was a spectacular looking '70 Boss Mustang at the local cruise-in, so I found who did it. He was familiar with the body style already, even had used many of the repair patches before.
Another thing I learned was, identify ALL rusted out areas ahead of time. Surprises like needing a cowl repair/replacement or new trunk sections can up the ‘estimate’ by quite a bit. Don of WCCC mentions, and I have found that a good quality job with some repair work (in my case A LOT) will run in the 10K range.
The real question here is “what kind of paint job do you want?” Are you wanting a complete trim, window tear down, masking and repaint? Are you wanting some kind of custom paint, or are you just wanting a simple masking and one standard color repaint? These are the questions that separate the “who do you have paint” answers. Honestly if you’re just wanting a simple masking, and standard color repaint; why spend several thousand dollars on a custom painter? In all honesty, I’ve had 2 cars myself (my old Camaro, and my ex-brother-in-law’s Mustang) both of which were beautiful paintjobs done for less than $1500 at my local Maaco! I’ve seen plenty of cars come out of One Day, or Maaco that we’re very well done. Now in both cases my Camaro and the Mustang we took them into Maaco minus the trim and windows, premium paint and simple masking, they even did the door jambs. If all you’re looking for is a re-color then why spend $3000-$4000 or better for a custom paint shop to do it, just because you have a classic? Now since I’m doing a custom job with unusual color and such, I’m going to do it myself, I don’t want to spend $3000-$4000 or more either. However, if I were just going for a simple one color standard color, Maaco would get my business again.
Let the criticism begin.
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I could have almost went along with you until you said how beautiful your Maaco paint jobs were. Then you lost all credibility.
Yeah, you’re right. This is ugly…
But since every A-hole and their mother on this forum can’t just give an opinion, but they also have to correct someone else to make themselves feel better. Guess I’m out of the forum. I’ll build my cougar without this forum’s members help. I’ll enjoy it like hell. Good luck with your car, and your paint.
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My a little sensitive aren’t we? All I did was give an opinion. My opinion is I wouldn’t let Maaco paint my lawn tractor. Is that so upsetting because it doesn’t agree with yours?
Uh, to be fair Al, you didn’t just share the opinion that Maaco is no good, you said that because he holds the opinion that they’re capable of a good paint job based on his personal experience with them, that essentially he is full of sh*t. A person wouldn’t be out of line for reading it that way if they were told they “lost all credibility”
That being said, thick skin is definitely helpful on the Internet.
In my case, the paint alone was $800. Most of the cost in any body/paint job is labor. The more time you spent, the better the result (usually 
), and the more the cost.
Just because you did it yourself doesn’t mean there is no cost, your time is money, or opportunity cost. The cost you could have gotten doing that same job for someone else.
If you are a professional, and do a professional job, I am sure you would expect a professional rate of return on your time.
The point is, shop around, do plenty of research, and come to an informed decision.
MAACO is no different than any other multi location business. Some will turn great work, some not so good. It’s not the location or the name of the business, it’s the people doing the work that make a difference. The other variable here is good communication between the customer and the workers. Let them know exactly what type of job you are looking for, then the business will be able to give you a closer idea of time and cost.
Randy Goodling
CCOA #95
I had a Cougar painted at MAACO back in the early 80’s. We did all the masking and some prep ourselves. As I recall, they had some process that other paint shops didn’t have involving baking the enamel paint. I thought it looked great when done - but this was when my Cougar was just a used car, daily driver, including winters in Minnesota.
I agree with you to a point Randy, different locations are going to turn out varying quality. But there is a certain amount of corporate governance that is going to dictate the work being done. You aren’t going to get a gourmet meal at any Wendy’s franchise regardless of the owner or the people he hires. In a lot of cases what they do may be perfectly acceptable. But I don’t get the impression that a guy starting a thread asking who do you trust to paint your car is interested in something that’s just OK. You’re spot on about the communication. From all the threads I’ve read about this topic the big mistake people make time and time again is lack of communication. Make sure they know what you expect and when you expect it and get it in writing.
I painted mine, but it was my first and I sprayed it too fast/dry so it came out way too orange peeled. I will re-spray it this spring/summer to meet my expectations of quality. Keep in mind that if you decide to do it yourself, it will be very time and labor intensive. A good body shop earns almost every penny you pay them for a quality paint job. It is hard time consuming work and can be dangerous to your health without the proper safety equipment.
The respirator mask, filters, paint, primer, clear, hardeners, strainers, mixing cups, guns, tape, masking paper, and paint booth materials add up quick! (that’s just a quick off the memory list) Then you also have to add the filler, glazing putty, sealer, surfacer mult-grits of sand paper, and assorted sanding blocks, hammers and dollies and etc.
If you mess up and spray it too fast it doesn’t flow out while drying and you get to do it again.
I’m not trying to discourage anyone, I will do it again, but it was much harder than I expected and it took a lot longer that I ever imagined.
Oh, and I almost forgot… MAACO can do a decent job if you do all the body work/prep work in advance. Just let them base/clear it and it should be good. Make sure they do 3 or 4 coats of clear so you can wet sand and buff out the orange peel and you will likely be very happy with the results.