body work?

[accord upset]

ok ive recently added some z3 fenders and shaved my molding im pretty much done with the exterior for now. but thats cause i was planning to finish the prepwork and just bring it to a bodyshop get them to shoot on a coat of high quality high build primer "to cover some of the inperfections and sanding scratches" then possably get them to do the rest of the painting. first i took it to insane designs owned by mike farmer. i got some buddies that do busness with him and he does great work i mean like perfection kinda guy. he told me that it would be the first of the year befor he could get it in just to shave the moldings "understandable top notch busy guy" and that he would need a 1000 bucks to start and another grand probly befor all said and done.
so im no idiot i have some of the tools and an open shop so i shaved the moldings and primered the car. now comes the problem to get it finished i didnt want to spray the last of it body work is like hell to me im to anxious. so i was going to pay someone to lay down a coat of high build primer-sealer and just paint it. but nooo! i was told nicely to go fuck myself by at least 4 local shops that have small names and big reputations. they didnt price it crazy high they wouldnt even give me a price said that they dont do that sort of work,, bullsh_t! i have quite a few friends that have had there cars repainted or put back together by one or more of these shops. why will they not paint my car?? im going to finish the work i started."only do to the fact that i have to" but if anyone in the dallas,tx area want to make some money and has any skills post some sort of reply

[LiTtLe xOx BitT]

A lot of body shops wont touch a car that someone has started the body work on. If something was to happen with it in the future like the bondo starts to fall off because it wasnt done right or something like that then they could be held responsable and have to fix it. I did most of the body work and then had a friend of mine that works in a body shop do the final sanding, small areas that needed to be re-bondoed, and primer/ paint. Im paying him $100 for the bodywork and $150 to paint it (I get the friend discount, lol). Other then that i paid $350 for the paint/clearcoat/hardener/reducer, all that stuff. So for $600 it will all be done, its not too bad of a price.

[2drSE-i]

thats a damn good price. for paint its not often that you get the friend price, count yourself lucky.

[myaccord7]

take it to macco.





zach

[2drSE-i]

too many times has maaco oversprayed on peoples cars

[LiTtLe xOx BitT]

Macco = ASS. Yea i know im lucky with that price. The paint is nice too, its impulse blue off the 2006 pontiac GTO. I will post pics probably saturday night.

[lostforawhile]

yea if you go to maco and get the special rate,they might even paint your lights and the edge of your glass for you, kind of that frosted look, for no extra charge, they might even throw in a razor blade for you to clean off the overspray. yea thats about the same price that my paint will cost. mine will be about 280 dollars for both colors,reducer,etc. thats with my discount. normally about 500 dollars.

[TheWatcher]

so im no idiot i have some of the tools and an open shop so i shaved the moldings and primered the car. now comes the problem to get it finished i didnt want to spray the last of it body work is like hell to me im to anxious. so i was going to pay someone to lay down a coat of high build primer-sealer and just paint it. but nooo! i was told nicely to go fuck myself by at least 4 local shops that have small names and big reputations. they didnt price it crazy high they wouldnt even give me a price said that they dont do that sort of work,, bullsh_t!

Like you mentioned these shops have a good reputation. Since you did the prep work yourself, they don't want their reputation hurt if something happens to your paint job (because of your prep work). LiTtLe xOx BitT's bondo example is a perfect example. Any good body shop w/ a reputation is going to weld metal, and NOT fill w/ bondo. If the bondo settles and the doors look like sh*t, they (body shop) don't want their name associated w/ it.

A good paint job is 90% prep, so you have to understand their situation - they don't have anything against you, they just can't take the chance on hurting their reputation.

For a small shop, their reputation is their life. If even one of cars they work on has problems, their reputation suffers.

You just have to take it to someone who's willing to do the job/hard up for business.

Hope that helps.

Peace.

[lostforawhile]

well even good shops have to use some filler,if you find a shop that does real metal work anymore,stick with it, my project on my accord is taking so long because we are trying to avoid using filler if at all possible. it still takes a light coat,even over metal work,the key word is light coat,not entire can. i know too many people who have used a half of a can of bondo to fix a dent. the idea of the metal work is not just for cosmetic work,but to relieve stress on the damaged area,if you don't remove the stress on the damaged metal,the filler will just crack as the stressed metal moves. in this pic i'm pulling out the dent to relieve the stress on the surrounding metal,it's not to put it back exactly as it was but close and the filler finishes it off. the biggest mistake people make with filler,is they try to do repairs with it,it's not to repair metal,it's to finish off the repair.even the label on "bondo" is incorrect,the label says to fill the repair with the bondo and sand and paint. they forget to mention you have to repair the panel first. they sell all kinds of crap,even bondo in a spray can, just spray in in and park in the sun, thats the laziest thing i've ever seen.

[TheWatcher]

well even good shops have to use some filler,if you find a shop that does real metal work anymore,stick with it, my project on my accord is taking so long because we are trying to avoid using filler if at all possible. it still takes a light coat,even over metal work,the key word is light coat,not entire can. i know too many people who have used a half of a can of bondo to fix a dent. the idea of the metal work is not just for cosmetic work,but to relieve stress on the damaged area,if you don't remove the stress on the damaged metal,the filler will just crack as the stressed metal moves. in this pic i'm pulling out the dent to relieve the stress on the surrounding metal,it's not to put it back exactly as it was but close and the filler finishes it off. the biggest mistake people make with filler,is they try to do repairs with it,it's not to repair metal,it's to finish off the repair.even the label on "bondo" is incorrect,the label says to fill the repair with the bondo and sand and paint. they forget to mention you have to repair the panel first. they sell all kinds of crap,even bondo in a spray can, just spray in in and park in the sun, thats the laziest thing i've ever seen.

Good post. I was thinking specifically of the shaved doors. A good body shop will weld metal to fill the area where the trim was removed. Yeah, the body shop might use bondo or fiberglass, to smooth out the area after the welding, but the repair itself is welded w/ metal.

Too many people just try to fill it w/ bondo, then later, when it "settles" it will not be even w/ the door anymore and there will be "waves" in any painting done over the repair. Then someone see the waves and ASSUMES the body shop is responsible (even though the owner did the prep) and the body shop's reputation suffers.

I'm NOT trying to say "accord upset" did poor body work. I'm just saying they don't know "accord upset", so they don't feel the need to take any chances. The bondo scenario was just a short example of why a body shop might decline to paint something that was worked on by someone else (in this case, the owner).

lostforawhile, you post is right on! To many people use bondo for repairs that are not meant to be corrected by bondo. It's like trying to repair a huge hole in a wall w/ wood putty.

Peace.

[HondaBoy]

man, its too bad you dont live down here. i've asked a few shops if i did body work and they did the painting business to cut the price. not one shop said no. infact they usually tell me if i want to cut down the price to go ahead and do body work myself. usually is what they recommend. and these are pretty high status shops i've gone to. as for macco, if you want it done for cheap take it there. my friend took his camaro there about 2 weeks ago, looks like they did a nice job with the paint itself, just not the prep work. they actually didnt get overspray anywhere i could find. dont think they left any on the windows either. i still havent decided on how i want to go about getting my body work done on my 3gee because money is an issue. so i quality and longevity of the work. its too much to think of right now for me.

[LiTtLe xOx BitT]

You have to be careful when a body shop tells you to do your own work. Yes it will cost less but that doesn't mean its a good deal. If you do your own body work and anything happens later on (like paint chipping or cracking and things like that) then they will blame it on your bodywork and they wont give a gaurentee with the paint job and you just lost all that money. If money is an issue then you need to have a good amount of free time because you will need to do the work yourself, it might take a little while but dont rush things, thats when you mess up. If you dont want to do it yourself then wait a while and save up money to have it professionally done.

[accord upset]

ok i was just mad that 4 shops turned me down for paint work locally im not entirely done with shaving the moldings im trying to do it right by welding the metel strips in where the molding was but my sanding large areas sux and as for the thewatcher i understand that the shop would be taking a chance with trusting someones prepwork but im not asking for a 3 year warrenty that they would have to fix everything. just spray and u see me no more. i just want the paint sprayed on the top coats. i can do it but that means making my shop a paint booth which is a lot of work, lots of dirt and dust from sanding and sand blasting. as i said im not done shaving the moldings i got all but the passenger doors done and the fender on that side but i think im going to go back and redo the back driver door i found a low spot "thanks to my sanding" this time im going to just block it all down. after im finished i'll talk to some more shops bout getting it painted. the guy that owns the other half of the shop sells cars and when hes getting them ready to sell some of them need paint so macco is constantly making trips to the shop next time macco here doing an estamate i'll ask see if i can sneak mine in and get the group discount. as for overspray ive seen macco leave a lil bit on some cars but not many i've also seen 2 botched paintjobs "orange peel" and "fisheyes" and alot with paint fingers on the interior but id say at least 87% have been perfectly fine and the ones that weren't were just brought back to there shop and refinished and came back with a satasfactory rating.

[lostforawhile]

you should be able to find a good shop to paint it,what about a local tech school? they might spray the paint for you,and you have an instructor there to make sure it's done right.

[2drSE-i]

doesnt matter about a warranty

"Well your body work looks good, but who did that god awful paint?"
ur not gonna hear many people say
"well the paint looks like shit because i didnt do my bodywork right"
your more likely to just tell them who did the paint

[lostforawhile]

Good post. I was thinking specifically of the shaved doors. A good body shop will weld metal to fill the area where the trim was removed. Yeah, the body shop might use bondo or fiberglass, to smooth out the area after the welding, but the repair itself is welded w/ metal.
Too many people just try to fill it w/ bondo, then later, when it "settles" it will not be even w/ the door anymore and there will be "waves" in any painting done over the repair. Then someone see the waves and ASSUMES the body shop is responsible (even though the owner did the prep) and the body shop's reputation suffers.
I'm NOT trying to say "accord upset" did poor body work. I'm just saying they don't know "accord upset", so they don't feel the need to take any chances. The bondo scenario was just a short example of why a body shop might decline to paint something that was worked on by someone else (in this case, the owner).
lostforawhile, you post is right on! To many people use bondo for repairs that are not meant to be corrected by bondo. It's like trying to repair a huge hole in a wall w/ wood putty.
Peace.

ya this is the way i did the hole for the antenna and stuff,welded in then filled. the hole for the rear washer area is fiberglass,thats only because it has to be transparent for the xm antenna,or it would have been metal.by transparent i don't mean not painted over,i mean electrically transparent. have you taken any pics of the work you have done so far? if you did i would like to see them posted. it's always intersting to see body work pics in progress.