Paint Question
 

My truck is currently primered white, and I am thinking about taking it to a maaco. I've been told that with maaco if you do your own prep work you can get a decent job. With my car primered, would it require any other prep work in order to receive a decent maaco paint job? or is it good to go? Also the primer has a lot of brown mud stains, which are kind of hard to rub off, almost as if it has dyed or stained the primer. Should I try to clean it all off before getting it painted? or is it nothing to worry about?

Decent and maaco dont go together. Neither do Quality and Maaco.

Many things go into a quality paint job, however I do not know the exact steps and procedures. However, i know that things like primer, and paint prep have to be used and CLEAN and SPOTLESS or your paint will just flake off down the road.

Remember, its 2008 so the word "Cheap" now is very literal

I need a paint job I wont have to about worry when I take my truck offroading. So I figured that maaco would be the way to go.

Maaco uses paint that is quite high quality. The main reason they have a bad rap is their lack of prep or dis-assembly of panels/parts.

Get your paint surface 100% perfect, all sanded, bondo, repairs, prime it. Remove your bumpers, lights, mirrors, trim everything that will get in the way. Maaco will just tape over these things.

I have seriously contemplated going that route, im sure you could get a deal if you get all your prep work done too.

A member on here ( sorry I can't for the life of me remember your username) But he drives a lowered bright orange 3rd gen 2wd pickup. He had a massive write up on his build on toyotanation.com He did all his own prep and had maaco shoot the paint, I was surprized at the results!

If you are gonna wheel it, just rhino line the thing. Or use a rattle can. That way, when you scrape it off, you wont have paid $500, you will only be out about $100 or so!

yeah I've also been thinking of doing a rattlecan job.

rattlecan, or roll on rustoleum. Do a search (here, and google) there are some pretty impressive results with the roll on stuff. Its all about prepwork!

HEAVY! and when it comes off it leaves chunks

If its a trail rig I would look into rattle canning... I have less than 50 bucks in mine...Krylon ultra flat paint from wal mart. .....sure is easy to touch up after a hard trail run

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...y/IMG_1047.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...y/IMG_0881.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...y/IMG_0864.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1...y/IMG_0880.jpg

I've heard this stuff is better than the Rustoleum or Krylon

http://carpainting.wetpaint.com/page...e+Paint?t=anon

I plan on going this route in the spring.

If you wanna roll it on or you can even sprayit if you thin it. Brightside boat paint for boat hulls. Not only is it tough but its not to expensive either. Several people here have painted thier stuff with it with good results.

dirtoyboy, that paintjob looks good. if someone were to go that route with the krylon paint, do you have to sand all the old paint first? or do just go over it with primer or just the paint?

i experimented with the briteside paint on my car and i had no luck with the roll method. couldnt get it to dry with no bubbles and the roller lines in it wouldnt come out either without major sanding. i then tried to spary it with a cheap harbor freight airless spray gun and had results 1000x better then the roller. the only trick was to keep the gun moving all the time or you get major run real quick. im sure if i had used a better spray gun it would probably of worked even better.

I'm very interested in the answer to this question...

if you already primed your truck yourself try this http://www.paintforcars.com/acrylic_...aint_kits.html
used this and shoot it yourself cant beat it it can be wet sanded and buffed for an awsome look plus the price is prefect!

The key to good paint is the prep work and finish work. Any flaws will be magnified 100x when you paint it. Really, the actual shooting the paint is the easy part, and there are significant advantages to taking it somewhere that has all the right equipment (good guns, good air source, good bake booth). Wetsanding and other finish work is what really separates a show-winning paint job from a "good" paint job.

x3....

Ok, I have to chime in on this one. I've had 5 cars painted by maaco and they all turned out awesome! (Including the 85 you guys were complementing on). If you wanted to do it yourself the (good quality) materials will run you around $700 thats assuming you have a compressor, the space, gun, skill, etc. and you're doing the work yourself, spending a few wknds. So for $400 bucks and to have your car back in 3 days, how can anyone argue its a bad deal? That is cheap! And you didn't lift a finger! ya, prep is key like everyone said...so do your own as well as you like the paint to be or pay them extra to do it. It all depands on the particular maaco, the owner and the guy shooting it. David owns the one by the Ducati dealer downtown seattle and thats the place that did all 5 of my rigs including a bmw and every time I was amazed! Paint held up for good 5yrs too till I sold the car and its never been garaged! One tip, don't do color changes b/c dings will show up and you'll have to pay extra to get the jambs done, etc. Deathcougar, don't knock it till you try it.

ps, i rattle canned a 56 chevy once, took me all day, cost $100 and looked like a$$.