Painting a vehicle is very labor intensive and the materials are not cheap. Prep work is extremely important as any imperfections will show thru the new paint. Also, rust will pop thru or paint will fall off if the surface isn't prepped just right.
After I brought my truck home and did a few things to it to make it run, I was embarrassed to drive it all beatered up. I thought I'd do all the body work, then take it to be painted. The regular auto body shops didn't want to be bothered. They just want to do collision work for insurance money. A couple of shops said they'd do it, but they'd want to do all the body work, take off the fenders and doors and really do it right. They couldn't give me a firm price without seeing the truck and offered a rough estimate of between $5,000 to $10,000 and they said they'd want to keep it for a few months. They refused to paint it after I did the body and prep work because they couldn't be sure that I wouldn't come back and sue them when the paint bubbled or fell off due to my inferior prep work. Told them I'd sign a waiver but they weren't interested.
Then there's the Maaco and 1-Day chains of paint shops. They were happy to do whatever I wanted with either poly or two-stage and had different price points depending on how much quality I wanted. They are production shops and do quantity, not quality. They don't buy paint from the local auto paint supplier like the body shops do. They cut a deal with the manufacturers to use a generic product which they buy by the train-load(1-Day uses Nason paint manufactured by Dupont)and do all the color mixing on the premises. Auto paint colors are achieved by placing the gallon of base paint on a scale and adding pigments by weight according to a formula. This cuts their material costs dramatically. Then they proceed to paint your vehicle by fogging it over twice. Not two coats with a 20 minute wait between coats but rather two quick passes done all at once, then placed in an oven for quick drying. They use as little material as possible, again trying to cut costs and they do it FAST!!! (el tiempo est dinero)
I decided to paint my truck myself even though I hadn't painted a car for some 30 years. The primers and paints have changed. They are now very expensive. I don't even know what I spent for primers, color and clear coat but I bet it was over $800 by the time I was done. After color sanding and buffing it came out pretty okay. Took doors and hood off but not fenders and did a decent job on the body work. Many hours went into it and it was very hard work. This is why good paint jobs are very expensive.
Almost had 1-Day do it. One cool thing is that they had all the formulas for the period colors in their data base. Even the high end auto paint stores didn't have that. Good luck and let us know how you come out.
