Color Change

[kevingst]

My car is red and I'm sick of it. I want to get it repainted a dark grey. Has anyone changed their color and just straight up (with no hookups) had to pay a shop to do it. Ball park: how much extra is it to have it done instead of just getting it repainted the same color? I know it's pretty much impossible to do RIGHT. Hell I'd have to pull my motor out and everything. But as long as you look at it from the outside and can't tell that it was ever anything except grey.

 

[VOTBLINDUB]

id say like 5 thou to paint it all in a shop nicely

 

[miteclgst]

I recently did sort of a color change on my car and my friend did one on his neon. Like you said the hardest part is the engine bay. What you need to realize though is that you only see certain parts of the engine bay, namely shock towers, flat area in front of wheel wells, radiator support and fire wall, many of the things that ate located in these areas are simply bolted on so removal dosn't take all that much work, such as in pulling the engine, I did the work on my car and first started off with the engine bay and door jambs before I had my friend help me with the rest of the car, masking these areas took around 8 hours or so. Changing the color of the engine bay IMHO is the best way to show that your car is quality. I remember opening up a issue of super street with a gold Integra in it with a white engine bay, I mean that just screams incomplete. Might I suggest a pearl or something of that sort over the stock red, say a orange pearl or something. Here is a pick of my car, it has a 3 stage pearl, first stage is the base, second is the pearl suspended in clear coat and the last is just regular clear, try to guess the base color:

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

Ok enuff games, the base is the stock majenta grey pearl A87! the paint in no way resembles the stock color except at night when the light hits is just right and you can see through the purple pear to the stock base. This color allows for 3 different colors as you can kind of see from the picture, a purple, a gray and a blue. PPG (paint company) sells the pearl in a powder form, all you have to do is have a local shop make up a couple of test panels with different mixes of the pearl over your stock paint, the number of coats and the velocity of the gun along with the application have a lot to do with how the color comes out. You can also do diamond ice which kind of sparkles in the sunlight. The pearl allows you to paint right over your old base in your door jams and under your hood, all you have to do is scuff the paint up with 600 grit scuff pads and your in business. Since the pearl changes in color depending on the light you can get away with those deep down parts of the engine compartment that you can't reach.

 

[kevingst]

Well, the red is going away. I've become sick of red. My car is by no means a show car, or ever will be. So the engine bay being red is no prob with me. I just don't like the car looking like a pos like it is now. But like I said...as long as you can't look anywhere from the outside of the car and be able to tell that it was ever red. I was actually gonna go with magenta gray pearl, or maybe some other shade of a purer dark gray. That's the shade it's gonna be. One reason it really needs to be repainted is because there are key marks down both sides...so no way am I gonna go out and spend alot of money on a pearl/ changing painting job. I just can't trust anyone. Hell, it's bad enough I have to ride around with the mismatched rims...if I can deal with that I'm sure I can deal with an "incomplete" paintjob.