Maaco

[JasonL]

Saw this post, I had a local Macco paint my old 80 malibu. The key is to have your body work done and everything off the car, all trim moulding, lights etc. They have this thick yellow epoxy primer that they spray on and sand down smooth. They told me that it is nessasary on older cars to seal up the old paint and body work so there is no chipping etc. So i took to them all reads and disassembled, they primed it, then shot it in the booth and baked it. I got a single stage middle of the road job. It cost me $750 to do the car with the door, hood, and trunk Jambs. I picked a color right out of the book (limited selection) but I think it turned out great !!! It was a weekend car that was kept inside, so paint keep looking good for a long time.

As Bought

First sanding done by them

primer

booth

out the booth

finished

 

[Evan11]

Looks great

 

[elcaminodan]

love it how much did it cost though

Looks great

 

[elcaminodan]

i had decent luck ive had2 elcaminos done by macco 1 was a car i just scuffed and didnt prime on rattle canned my body work i paid 400 and had it shot white it was ok some of the old blue showed through on the mirrors and such but wasnt bad.. the other elcamino was 600 bucks i replaced all the quarters on both sides primed it i had some body work on the door but i painted it black and it looked really nice . of course both cars i sold soon after but iwas happy for what i had got .. another time i paid a real body shop 2000 and they did shitty body work and paint was ok but the bed jams and stuff peeled after a while and i had probs with theclear coat being milky ...

 

[rgile]

Jason love the color. What is it ? Very very nice

 

[JasonL]

Jason love the color. What is it ? Very very nice

I have no clue, they had a book with like 10 colors in it and i just said that one !!!! Ha HA it did look awesome done

 

[CWPottenger]

Around me if you remove everything and prep the car good the paint job is pretty good, give it to them not prepped and it's dog poo... Like everyone else says it varies shop to shop and that is the bad part.

 

[andrewmp6]

I use to work for them i have seen a lot of corners cut.We taped off everything never pulling a single part that we should have.What we used for sanding with a red 3m scuff pad once over everything.The paint was napa's cheapest car paint was 8 bucks a gallon in 99.It came in 8 colors we mixed it if needed other colors.I have seen over spray just about any place you can think of from glass to wheels.The best one was a fly landed in the wet clear coat and they left it there.

 

[jlcustomz]

I'll agree with the most common thinking about each shop being totally different, remove everything you can, prep what you can, & pay accordingly for better quality .One near my work has a great rep for anything other than custom candies,etc. Theit normal stuff is Dupont Nason Single or base/high build clear, they can use dupont chroma clear or what not by request.They used to have a super cool manager who loved my truck & gave me & traded advice with me, which was also a customer of my company & us to them .
Maaco managers can also sell you paint cheaper than you may be able to buy it.

 

[Longroof79]

I had my car done about 15+ yrs ago at Maaco. I removed the grille, lights, fillers, etc. I could have prepped it a little better, but the actual paint job came out pretty decent. I had overspray on the glass, tires, etc. which I had to clean up myself.
I did cut corners in the body work, and of course it showed afterward.. :?
They used a cheap Dupont acrylic enamel. I gave them the fillers to do, but they didn't do them. They handed them back with a quart of paint. I ended up painting them myself along with the rear air deflector.
This time I'm painting it myself with single stage urethane. I'm hoping for the best. :wink:

Maaco shops are a franchise, so the level of work varies from shop to shop. If you do most of the prep work yourself, and pay for better paint, you might have good results like the '80 Malibu pictured above...which looks really nice.
They certainly didn't use sealer on mine. They did a quick scuff and off it went to the spray booth.