Complete Paint Job, What to Ask For?

[PhoenixRPR]

I have a 1G. It's currently white. I want to have it painted metallic black. I want that glitter glimmering look to the black. Does such a paint exist and if so, what is it called (paint code #)? What are the things I should make sure to get for a good paint job? (i.e. "pearl"..."flake"...x # of clear coats..."UV curing"...etc...?) I've heard those terms by the way, but if you reuse them, please explain what they mean exactly.

 

[Mitsu_Racing]

the glittering is called metalic or metal flakes. Ask for a warrenty on the paint job most reputable shops should give you at least a year.

 

[jepherz]

Most new paints are called "Py-____" when they add the aluminum flakes. Make sure you get clear coat paint (not enamel) as that is a 2 part urethane paint which will hold up much better and the metallic flakes will turn out much better in that type of paint. Most good shops will have a warranty since you are getting the entire paintjob done. Other than that, there is no one paint code. You could try to find a supply store in which most body shops get their paint from and ask to look through their books. They probably have a few books listed by ranges of color as well as the factory paint code books.

Good luck!

 

[miteclgst]

Most of the time spent on doing your paint job will be jamming out and painting the engine compartment. I did a full color change on my 2g and let me tell you it is a hell of a lot of work (8 hours masking the car off to do the jams and the engine). At the Restoration shop I work at you can walk in and we have two displays that have literally thousands of color chips in them so you can decide on a color. Something that you will definately have to look out for is that since you are doing such a radical color change (white to black) you will have to make sure that they do a real good job in the engine compartment. You will have to remove everything from the firewall and strut towers and everything else will need to be masked and taped off. Unless the existing paint is really really bad (pealing) you won't need them to strip the car down to metal or anything. What they will probably do is sand the panels down with a dual action sander with someting like 320 paper and then primer the panels. Make sure they primer the car in a dark color, preferably black or dark gray. This will allow the paint to cover more (meaning that if you primer in white you have to put a lot of black base down to cover the panel and not be able to see through it.) thus you use less paint. Have them mix up a bit extra, my car took about 2 quarts of base, this will ensure that you have extra around in case something bad happens, invariably every shop that mixes their own paint has their own paint line and there might be slight variations in color between lines. Make sure you document the paint code or even get the formula and keep it in a safe place if you ever need to mix up another batch. if you are having any body work done it will be necessary to spray a sealer and a high build over it and wet sand that down before the final paint. This will eliminate any pin holes in the bondo. For the paint itself make sure that the car is sealed, based (about 3 coats, depends on the painter and the gun), and cleared (if you plan on having the car wetsanded you will want at least 3 good coats of clear at about 45psi and 2.5 turns out on the velocity knob on a syphon gun. The more clear you have the better your chances are in being able to buff out small scratches that might occur down the road. As for warranties, most of the large dealerships will have them, you really shouldn't need one unless the shop is really shady and does crappy work, they won't warranty chips or scratches because they are not caused by unsatisfactory work. As for a color I know that BMW had a metallic black color on the 91 M3, that is something to look into, also if you want you can have a shop custom mix a color, start off with a regular formula, say that M3 black and then add more metallic or a substiute a coarser metallic, this is where the documentation will be very important if you ever want to match your paint again. Neways this is some stuff to look for, any other questions just PM me. later.

 

[PhoenixRPR]

Hey thanks a lot for the information. That was very informative. I also heard that I could start off with a black base color and have a "pearl" added to it to get the metallic flake look. How does this look differ from what you guys have described above? Also, your thoughts on UV curing (necessary?) Regarding the engine bay, will most shops do the work necessary, (i.e. removing everything off the firewall and strut towers) or is that something I need to do prior? One last thing, what kind of price range do you think I can get away with for a decent job?

 

[miteclgst]

my car is a tri-coat pearl which is what you are talking about, don't do it unless you like having to do 10x the work to fix any problems. What I mean is that with any base/clear system you can easily blend (using a special clear) new paint into an existing panel that has been damaged without having to paint the whole thing. As long as the paint matches no one will ever know the difference, the paint that I have is almost like a candy color, you can't blend this paint because the darkness/color of the car depends totally on the amount of pearl that is applied over the base coat. meaning if you do 3 coats of pearl on one panel and 2 on another it will stick out like a sore thumb, to fix my paint I have to actually paint the entire panel which becomes quite tiring. The UV curing, if I am thinking of the same thing u are thinking of, involves cooking the paint at something around 140*F to cure it quicker, all that does is allow big dealerships to paint cars quicker. You could have a car painted and "bake" it for 45 minutes and the customer could drive it away, when you paint a car w/o baking it it normally needs to sit at least 14 hours before you want to handle anything or touch the surface. When it comes to the engine bay any shop will do anything, they will even gut your interior and paint the inside to match the outside, but it's gonna cost you, anything that you can do yourself I would suggest doing, because your hour is free when thiers costs quite a pretty penny. my paint job took upwards of 100 hours from start to finish (I did go way overboard tho) you could probably get a job done for around 3 grand and it will be good quality, anything less and you are cutting corners.

 

[chriw21_2000]

Lets make this simple. Ask for Base coat/clear coat poly-urethane. You need to find a car that has the kind of paint you want and tell them the car so they can get the paint code from it. Make sure they are gonna block and buff it out. You wanna put clear on everything, door jambs and all. and get a written warranty. Word is not good enough.

Laterz

 

[PhoenixRPR]

Thanks for the info. I want to spend $400 - $600.00 for the paint job though. 3 grand is waaaay out of my ballpark. Looks like I'll just go to Mexico and get it done at the source.

 

[miteclgst]

mexico or states you will never get a full color change for $600. The paint for my car alone was $350 and that was dealer price for 2 quarts base at $70/quart 3 quarts clear at $70/quart and that isn't even taking any primer into account. A cheap body shop will require at least $35-$50 an hour. Forget about block sanding, because for $600 you would be lucky to even get the car jammed out. if your budget is that low you will have to go to Macco, I am not familiar with their prices but mostly their $400 price tag will only include masking scuffing and spraying the outside, everything else is mostly masking hours, it dosn't take more than 45minutes to actually spray the paint in the jams. Neways if you only have that much to work with I will have to say you either have to go with the stock color and just do the outside and have a place like macco do it or maybe you could get it done for the cost of materials if there is a Tech college around your area that teaches auto body. I wish I would have known what your budget was before I wrote that first post, I figured you had a bit of money to work with being that you were planning a full color change. if I had known your budget my answer would have been totally different.

 

[PhoenixRPR]

Well, sorry if I wasted your time. I'm not nearly as well off as some dsm'ers I guess. I got quoted $400.00 in Mexico to do the metallic paint job, so for my sake, I hope I can post pics of a great job after it's done. I don't need a paint job that's gonna last more than 5 years and look incredible in some car show. I just want a metallic black look thats shiny for a few years. Oh well...thanks again.

 

[PhoenixRPR]

Ok I am an idiot. I'm not getting crap done for $400.00. I'm not taking it to Mexico, especially since I don't want to leave it there overnight or more. I found a local paint shop that usually charges around $3k-$6k for paint jobs like white to black. I am friends with one of the workers and he's going to work with my price range of $500 - $1000.00 "behind the scenes" kinda deal. Thoughts?

 

[mckooter]

remember the behind the scenes probably dosent come with a warranty.

 

[Slipstream]

Ok I am an idiot. I'm not getting crap done for $400.00. I'm not taking it to Mexico, especially since I don't want to leave it there overnight or more. I found a local paint shop that usually charges around $3k-$6k for paint jobs like white to black. I am friends with one of the workers and he's going to work with my price range of $500 - $1000.00 "behind the scenes" kinda deal. Thoughts?

Most shop OWNERS I've worked with really don't have a problem with this kind of thing...so long as they know about it up front...however if they were to come in after hours and see your friend spraying your car the owner might take issue with it...but that's your call.

 

[PhoenixRPR]

The warranty was something I was concerned about losing. If there was a problem, I could bring it to my friend to have him take care of it, so I think thats not going to be an issue.

 

[miteclgst]

The technological advancements in paint over the past few years have made it so that paint will last for a very long time so I wouldn't be worried about it looking like crap in a year. A body shop, if you screw up your brand new paint job then they won't do anything for you, but if the paint starts oxidizing a year down the road then that is something they will cover under warranty. When it comes to rust cars normally rust from the inside out, usually due to the design of the structure directly behind the panel, example, a badly designed door that allows water to sit in the bottom rather than drain. The Stay away from junk paints primers and clears and you won't have that problem. There is a reason that some primer costs $15 per quart and another costs $30. That goes for clear also, you pay for the research/technology and the materials, I don't expect you to go out and buy top of the line PPG that costs $XXX.XX per quart, but use your judgement, if it sounds cheap, then it probably is.

I can see where some people are saying "warranty" as meaning the shop standing behind their work for a certain period of time. If your paint starts pealing and flaking off in a year, your buddy probably won't care, if you actually went through a company that has a name to uphold then they will probably fix your problem free of charge. Be careful, make sure you have seen some of this guy's work and that he won't take any shortcuts with your car.