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View Full Version : A piece of advice about Maaco folks!!



accordlx
05-26-2002, 03:07 AM
I have seen a bunch of folks bitch about overspray on Maaco paint jobs here on the board and would like to give everyone a small piece of advice.

First of all, I don't care how much you spend at Maaco, they don't do premium paint jobs. I have many friends who own paint shops and they wont touch a complete car repaint for less than a couple of grand even for me. (I've known a couple of people I'm referring to for over a decade.) This isnt necessarily because of the price of materials (paint) but because of the emmense amount of prep work that goes into painting a car. I know, I used to paint cars to pay my way thru college. 15 years ago, a total repaint was over $1000. Prep work varies from just a little resurfacing and smoothing to the extreme like my Vette where I had too many layers of paint on my car and had to strip it down to the gelcoat.(raw fiberglass)

I know everyone here wants their car to look the best it can when you get it repainted so here are a couple of proactive steps you can take when you get your car repainted.

1) If you don't want it painted, remove it.

This includes mudflaps, trim pieces, license plates, mirrors, antenna caps or anything else that is easily removed with a screwdriver or 10 mm socket. I also suggest driving the car to Maaco and taking out every bulb housing on the car. This includes the front sidemarkers, the bumper turn signals AND the taillights. Believe me, when they see you doing this, they won't be mad. They will be glad for the help and they will see that you care how your car turns out and will be more careful when painting the rest.

2) If you don't want your moldings painted, mask them off yourself.

Believe me, no one else is going to take the time it takes to do this time intensive job like you will. Get some quality wide masking tape and a razor knife and do it the right way.

3) Expect overspray. Overspray is a fact of life when painting a car inexpensively.

Some paint techs can't properly feather and fade paint correctly, they have to paint an entire panel. Some guys are just better than others, The better guys don't shoot paint at Maaco.

Don't get mad when they paint your wheel wells. It is impossible to paint fenders on a car properly without overspraying into the fender wells. Most inexpensive shops put a cover over the tire but don't mask the fender wells. Fender well masking is time intensive and you wont get this service from many good shops. Wait for a couple of months for your paint to dry properly then mask the painted part of the fender that WAS supposed to be painted and then paint the inside wheel well black yourself. This is an easy task and does WONDERS for the look of your car. (I'm gonna do this today myself.) Most detailing shops do this when they clean your car. They do this after a good pressure washing of the fender wells themselves, not the rest of the car. (A bit more about pressure washing later.

Also, they do not rub out your car at Maaco after they paint it. Rubbing out paint or wet sanding your car is an extra expense that makes your car look even more shiny. They quoted me $400 to rub out my paint. I will eventually do this myself. (This involves using 1200+ grit sandpaper or a suitable rubbing compound to do proper clearcoat evening/leveling and can lead to damage if not done correctly.)

Finally, WAIT FOR THE PAINT ON YOUR CAR TO PROPERLY DRY BEFORE POWER WASHING OR WAXING YOUR CAR. A newly painted car will scratch when you wax it.

This takes at least 30 days for a paint job to cure, even if they bake the car. Sixty days is a better measure. I NEVER, NEVER, EVER power wash unless it is an EMERGENCY. An emergency to me is if I hit an animal and have to get the blood off of the car before it dries.

The absolute worst thing you can do to any paint job new or old is to take it to a $1.75 car wash and blast your paint with a power washer. Most of those places have at least 2000 psi of water pressure coming out of those hoses which will rip the paint off your car. The chemicals that they call soap contain extremely corrosive chemicals that will take the bugs, wax, and clearcoat right off your car starting right at the smallest rock chip or imperfection in your paint. One $1.75 pressure wash does HUNDREDS of dollars in immediate damage to your car. The only good time TO power wash your car is if you are trying to remove all of the old wax from your car before rewaxing or getting a repaint.

Ive used a 3500 psi pressure washer to actually strip the paint off of a car I was painting. If you don't believe me that a pressure washer is bad for your car, aim that sucker at your hand at the car wash for 5 seconds. (really DO NOT do this.) The water pressure will not only clean your hand, it will rip all of the skin and a few layers of flesh off of it and you will be on the way to the emergency room for surgery. A pressure washer on raw flesh is one of the more painful experiences Ive had in my life. I accidentally pressure washed my foot while wearing sandals while I was power washing a boat. My foot hurt for a couple of hours after just a second of close contact with the pressure washer nozzle.

Anyways, that about covers it. If you have any more questions about Maaco, please ask. I'd be more than happy to answer them. This is a recent pic of my car that is a 9 month old Maaco paint job. I didn't wax my car for 3 months and it really still looks good other than a couple of questionable areas where someone keyed my car and it wasn't repaired correctly. (my fault really, I should have known better.) Notice that my mouldings including the area between my front and back windows is painted. That is because I told them to paint everyting on the car except for the windows and the tires. That gave them more time to spend on other more important things like correctly painting the fenders and the hood.

http://home.insight.rr.com/mccorvey1/pic_995.jpg

Jims 86LXI HB
05-26-2002, 09:04 AM
Interesting read, and repainting my car won't even make my "to do" list anytime soon. I think I'll copy this into my computer should I ever decide to repaint my car.

njpeter
05-26-2002, 10:44 AM
paint is labor intensive, and you get what you pay for. Decent shop help isn't cheap ( figure the shops with a $100 labor rate are paying 20-35 per "flat hour" for the help.

Best advice on surviving a repaint I've seen. I would add that it doesn't hurt to do some prep yourself outside of the masking.

Rubber cement around the glass molding works well and is easy to peel off.

I want to paint one of my gray 88's mark kay pink for my wife, but I think I'll do the white 87 instead...I can't see a macco pink job working right on a dark colored base paint.

I thought I liked the gray paint, but It really looks like crap after the clear coat is gone. Low quality trim on the 88..let's not even talk about bumpers...

AccordLX-i87
05-27-2002, 06:57 AM
Does Maaco do a decent job w/ repairing dents, scratches, etc..?

gruvmstr206
05-27-2002, 03:26 PM
good read, this should go in the how to section under "how to deal with Maaco"

Vanilla Sky
05-27-2002, 04:35 PM
would it be alright to spray my own car (if i can find a bay i can rent)?

i know about all the prepping involved... but it's not really gonna matter too horribly much how good the paintjob comes out, and i'd like to try my hand at it

Derick

BTW, i'm goin from a mulit-colored car to a lime greenish color

accordlx
05-27-2002, 07:34 PM
Iv'e seen different qualities of body work at different Maaco's. I had my BMW painted at a Maaco in Cincinnati. They did wonderful body work and did an outstanding job painting too. That paint job cost less than $300 about 6 years ago and still looks good today. I see the car around town every once in a while. The body work on my Honda was only average and the paint is above average. (But not as good as the BMW.) I think that this has a lot to do with the type of paint they used.

To answer Itch's question, you can paint your own car but I cannot stress enough taking special care in mixing the paint when you do paint it. Too much or too little supercharger in the mix will determine how good or bad the car comes out. Temperature and humidity come into play also.

I once painted a 28 foot camper in a building because there was not a big enough paint booth around. It was so friggin hot and humid outside that I had to put a TON of supercharger in the paint just to make it stick to the fiberglass. The paint was so "hot" coming out of the gun that it almost dried to the touch immediately.

Likewise, painting cars in temperatures less than 60 degrees also creates problems. This leads to the dreaded "fish eye" effect.

Try to get a nice relatively dry garage to paint in and BUY A GOOD QUALITY RESPIRATOR. I painted a car with acrylic imron in a garage without a proper respirator. This paint dries so hard that any material that I breathed will never come out of my lungs naturally. I think Ive literally coughed up most of it after 12 years of colds and hacking but Im sure that I still have some of it in my body. $30 or $40 extra dollars is money well spent when it comes to paint. I still wear mine even when I do brake work. (Brake dust is really bad for you.)

Also, practice with a paint can. Learn to paint even thin coats. This is the real trick to painting. You should start and end your paint stroke at the same distance from the painting surface. Also, be patient for the paint to dry somewhat before applying the next coat of paint. This avoids runs.

Practice a little to see what you can do before you try to paint your car. You'd be surprised at how much your painting improves with just a little practice.

kilgorq
04-06-2005, 09:47 PM
Very well put accordlx

Before I start on any paint job I use a sheet of plywood to make sure the mix is correct and get my rhythm down.

I would say that while spraying, the hardest part besides a clean, dust and bug free enviroment is not to arc you stroke. It is natural to arc when you move your hand from one side of your body to the other and once you can get passed that and get consistant with your spacing and speed you can lay down a very nice paint job for a fraction of the cost.

When I first tried my hand at it. I actually went to the scrap metal yard and picked up some body panels that were going to be crushed anyway and practiced on them. You should have it down pretty good after a few tries. Also use inexpensive paint to practice with but make sure you use the same style of gun. Cans just do not touch the volume or viscosity of the paint coming from a gun.

Good luck and have fun with it. It is quite fascinating to watch it all come together while your doing it. And you walk away saying
I PAINTED IT...
What could be better than that???

v8vega
07-25-2008, 08:14 AM
There are no Maco in my area but over the years I've had several cars painted at Earl Schieb and looked at numourous cars that they have just painted. It seems to be luck that your car gets painted buy a guy who is experienced and good or not good.

A18A
07-25-2008, 08:48 AM
good stuff for bumping this thread. i got learned some stuff :)

2ndGenGuy
07-25-2008, 09:19 AM
I think that car looks pretty damn nice the with moldings painted. It's a nice touch with that color. I probably still would have taking the moldings off and sprayed the separately, since I think it's a good idea to paint the doors behind the moldings as well.

On the topic of Maaco though, it's not like the place is run by robots. It's going to be hit or miss depending on the shop and the guy you take it to. I would never ever count on a $300 paint job coming out any good. I had a car I bought with a Maaco / Scheib paint job on it, and there was overspray on everything and the paint was pretty dull looking. Looked okay from 20 feet away though.

lostforawhile
07-25-2008, 09:57 AM
another good idea,sign up for an autobody night class,learn to do it yourself, then you know it's right and you don't have to depend on flunkies at maaco to do it for you. also fisheyes are caused by contamination on the surface, mostly silicone left from car care products,the paint won't stick to it and will pull away causing the fisheye. basically wash the car right before you paint,then clean the shit out of it with final wash ,now do t again...repeat, now do it again, you get the idea,can't be too clean. also when you start cleaning the car for prep, from that point on,wear latex gloves,and don't touch the car again with bare hands until the paint is on. they have one of these cheap shops here for painting and i see them cleaning the cars then putting their bare hands all over them right before paint.

2ndGenGuy
07-25-2008, 01:18 PM
another good idea,sign up for an autobody night class,learn to do it yourself, then you know it's right and you don't have to depend on flunkies at maaco to do it for you. also fisheyes are caused by contamination on the surface, mostly silicone left from car care products,the paint won't stick to it and will pull away causing the fisheye. basically wash the car right before you paint,then clean the shit out of it with final wash ,now do t again...repeat, now do it again, you get the idea,can't be too clean. also when you start cleaning the car for prep, from that point on,wear latex gloves,and don't touch the car again with bare hands until the paint is on. they have one of these cheap shops here for painting and i see them cleaning the cars then putting their bare hands all over them right before paint.

+1 a good final wipe down with wax and grease remover right before you tack the surface is a good idea.

lostforawhile
07-25-2008, 02:25 PM
+1 a good final wipe down with wax and grease remover right before you tack the surface is a good idea.
thats what the final wash is for thats the name of the product

2oodoor
07-25-2008, 02:55 PM
I can say this, I have several examples of Maaco paint jobs at my work. Some hold up, some don't. Some soak up everything you put on them, some are very close to oem finishes.
What a lot of people do not realize is the cost of the materials to do a good all over paint, especially a color change. The paint, thinner, activators, and clear coat products alone for a car the size of a 3rd Gen Accord would be around 250-300 dollars minimum. Go for a red or hi pearl content and that goes higher. Quality tape, sandpaper, cleaning solvents, masking materials, disposal of Haz mat.. all that figures in the material cost as well, add 100-150 for that stuff too.
Ok we have not even go to time and labor, plus detail work, surface prep .. and believe me it is the steps well before the paint job that really produce and determine the result of the job.
Ok all of that said, you can get to a point where you OVER prepare a car for painting. Some areas do not need to be opened up with coarse paper or areas that make extra work trying to featheredge it back in. A skilled painter can make the paint work to their advantage in covering up flaws and making the job look better than OEM. And, depending on the condtion of the paint on the car to begin with, sometimes that is the best primier or surface you can have for a start. There are alot of amazing products out now that are huge time savers and hold up way better than the old school stuff.
Maaco makes up most of their money on the added charges for stripping of panels that have bad paint on them , repairing dings, rust scale , etc. So the 400 dollar paint special is just to get you in the door. Most people do not understand refinish work and will get offended when they start adding the charges for stripping and such. Often they opt out of the work then they wonder why their 400 dollar paint job looks like sh*t. Some ticket writers at Maaco will not even press the extra work too and just sell the paint. All of the stores are not the same, just like Lost said. also, the first post in this thread is great info

2ndGenGuy
07-25-2008, 03:12 PM
thats what the final wash is for thats the name of the product

Oh. Well there ya go. :stick:

dba-one
10-16-2008, 05:45 PM
My Uncle used to work there. He said "If you care about your car, don't get it painted at Maaco" That was clear enough.

cubert
10-16-2008, 07:02 PM
http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o61/d16z6broncoII/DSCF4444.jpg


thats a maaco job....it held up decent. My main complaint is rust coming through...but that was due to poor prep work by a shop that owed me a favor