The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Maaco paint jobs

I have a 53 1/2 ton and am doing a rebuild for a safe driver around town. Anyone have any Maaco experience?

I got a Maaco paint job on my first car, a 17 year old Honda Accord.

Outside of that any body/paint work has been done by the same local shop.

Some of the stories I hear about Maaco are in regards to the honoring warranty they offer. It is typically just a manufacturer's warranty so if you have a problem they will send you to the paint manufacturer. Manufacturer will claim it was a prep problem... and you can see where this is going.

If you get someone that does quality work and knows what they are doing it could be fine, you typically get what you pay for though.

Laying paint on a car isn't magic, guys that do it all day long
can lay a decent layer of paint on with no problems. That's 5%
of the complete paint job.
If you do all the prep work and bring them a body ready for
paint you can get a good looking paint job cheaper than you can
buy the paint to do it your self. The fault lies in them not
putting a lot of time in on the prep work. Earl Schibe was the
same deal. We preped a '52 once and had them shoot it for
$29.95. Looked real good.
DG

The only good attributes of Earl Scheib and his company's paint jobs was that they were fast and he/they were cheap. It is hard to believe that the company still had shops in 2010.

$29.95 in the $1960s

There was one in Richmond, VA, and, as you posted, Denny, if you prepped the vehicle well, the paint job was not bad.

Yep, bout 1959 when I was a Sr. in high school was the time of
that paint job. I saw other jobs that they had done and for
$29.95 they wiped the car down with wax and grease remover and
layed the paint on it, no sanding at all. You needed to mask
the trim your self because they did a real quick making job
that basicly just kept it off the glass. And that was were the
bad wrap came from with Earl Scheib (spelled it right this time.)

Didn't know there were still shops around, the local one here
closed twenty or thirty years ago.
DG

It's important to do good prep work yourself because based on a bad roof job they did on my Jeep I wouldn't recommend them. Told me they removed rust,acid washed and neutralized it before priming and painting. Terrible job. Peeled and showed rust in less than a year AND would not stand by warrenty without me paying additional cost. Skip them unless cheaper is all you want.

There's a Maaco only a couple blocks from my work so I investigated bringing my well prepped truck. Problem was they would ONLY spray thier own house brand paint without exception.

In the 70's I had a pickup with a white bed and red cab. I had Maaco paint the whole thing. It was just an off road 4x4.
Knowing what paint materials cost, I don't see how they can do it for the price. Mine stayed on for years and looked good.
As others have said, they don't do much body work, but for the money, the paint spraying ain't bad.
Of course your not going to get a "show" job, but pretty decent.

At Maaco, it is what it is. You will get what you pay for.

I had a buddy that worked at Maaco as a painter for several years. He always said the key to a good paint job is the prep. They would have guys that would simply come in and want their car scuffed and painted, and others that wanted lots of body word and paint. If you want a cheap paint job, they'll give it to you, if you want a good paint job, they'll give it to you. It all depends on what you want to pay.

I had two painted a yrs ago, one was the 70 international
some 25 yrs ago, the paint is still good on the truck, I sold it to my neighbor last yr, just the other day we were talking about
how white the paint still is... they do a good job for the 300 or $400 bucks.. they wanted to charge extra for door jams and such, I did that myself, and they make a lot extra by doing body work.. I told th em just to paint it.. I was happy with it

So what brand of paint do they use? Is it only base clear?

They now use an integrated clear, that is clear mixed into the base.
I had a quote a few weeks ago to paint my wife's 14 year old Toyota, was $950 without any body work.
It seemed they have lots of added charges now.