Last summer I paid a guy to paint my car and it didn't go very well. Crappy paint job, runs here, thin there, over taping, flaking in others and that was after he had it 2 months. That was last year. Tomorrow I get to run my car through the MAACO in Swansea, IL where I am also the sales guy. Sherwin Williams just spawned a new set of colors, "Planet Color Barrett Jackson Series" that are pretty special for a basecoat/clearcoat process. With the extra prep I have been doing, which ends tonight with a complete wet sand and glazing of smaller defects, I hope to start the paint tomorrow.

The color scheme will go from the factory red to a "Spicy Merlot Pearl" over most of the body and a fat stripe in the center section of the hood that continues to the back of the trunk and the wing in "Black Cherry Pearl". The top tone will begin on the top of the bumper with rounded corners about where the topside body lines start and end just above the trunk lip with similar rounded corners. I have taken photos of a 49 Ford kit mounted on an 84 T-Bird that I upsold the same combination. (Pictures of the bird to be loaded later this afternoon after work)

The "Black Cherry Pearl" has a red flake and pearl in it that compliments the Spicy Merlot Pearl, which should really make this car elegantly sporty looking.

Then the t-top car in the signature going to get a little paint love, but probably a single stage, extra prep work of course.

My shop is doing pretty decent work since I hold the shop manager to the MAACO certification standards when possible. There are times when people bring a POS and say "paint it". So we paint it.

Are the body molding clips readily available?

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FieroDriver--Multimedia by J "Wudman" Wood--Explore Southern Illinois

[This message has been edited by Wudman (edited 06-23-2009).]

Yes the Fiero store has those clips. Be careful, even the new ones crack easily, about $1.00 each.

I'm confused, you work for Maaco, and someone did a poor paint job on your car?

[This message has been edited by sparx22 (edited 06-23-2009).]

You ARE stripping ALL of that lousy paintjob off, right??? If not, well, plan on painting it again when it starts peeling off in a year or so.
I tey to tell folks this (will have to be re-done & stripped) about cheap paintjobs, but most don't listen.
~ Paul
aka "Tha Driver"

If you haven't seen the future, you're not going fast enough! - Christian Von Coenigsegg

MAACO has painted 2 of my fiero"s so far. they look good. i have no problem with maaco.

quote Originally posted by Tha Driver: You ARE stripping ALL of that lousy paintjob off, right??? ..

The crappy paint job was quality paint, just typical lousy coverage that can happen with red so "shadows" showed up. The only flaking was up in the reflectors on the rear bumper and in certain body lines where the solvent popped. All th e runs were in clear coat, which in some places was thick and other places very thin.
I did not work for MAACO when I had the car painted last year. I actually started stripping it last summer when I began what appeared to be a simple buffing of what appeared to be a decent paint job.

In most places I am down to the original base coat or deeper.

Here are a few shots of the colors going on the car. This customers "custom" T-Bird clone was going to be done with a few standard color choices in a mid-line Sherwin Williams basecoat/clearcoat automotive finish. As soon as the color cards came in for the new stuff (see above) I was glad I hadn't done my car yet. It just so happened that the customer on the T-Bird had similar colors and I upsold him into the colors I was going to use to see how they were going to both cover and show. This T-Bird is the first car using these Planet World "Barrett Jackson" edition colors in the St. Louis area.

In the picture where you see the "black cherry pearl", you are seeing what it does when the sun is hitting it from above. The sides look black until you run the light down the side and then the red pearl and flake come out. From a distance it looks black.





I have a walk around of this car on my camera as well and once it is up on YouTube, I will link it in. This T-Bird is in the buffing stage. It is an ill fitting kit that we have about 20 hours of labor in trying to fine tune and repair where it was originally bonded. Some things you just can't fit, but when it is done, this guy is going to be jazzed for what he paid.


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FieroDriver--Multimedia by J "Wudman" Wood--Explore Southern Illinois

[This message has been edited by Wudman (edited 06-23-2009).]

There ARE some Maacos that do good work for the price. You just have to check their reputation & work & talk to the manager to find them.
~ Paul
aka "Tha Driver"

Readin' don't not never done nuttin' for not nobody.
"I think you mean not nonebody."
Excuse me: not nonebody. Never not no one. Didn't about no reason not never. And, by God, they never not ain't gonna' will!

Some follow-up pictures of the car as it is traveling through the process. Learning a lot about painting a car and why it cost so damn much. Clearly painting a Fiero is not the job to be done at a production shop. It has totally jack up our paint line and at some point I will have to come back and fine tune some minor issues. Otherwise it is coming along fine and well, the colors are sweet...These are two colors from Sherwin-Williams "Barrett Jackson Collector Series" which is a fancy way to say cool colors that come in a factory pack. The red shade is "Spicy Merlot Pearl" and the black shade is "Black Cherry Pearl".

Still in the booth

Pushed out and surrounded by it's parts

Just out of the booth, side shot

That would be a 41 Cadillac that we just finished, another production plugging project we hope to avoid in the future.

Note the red glow in the end of the spoiler. The spolier is all black as it "stands" in a stripe of the same color. Actually calling it black is a joke because when the sun hits it, the dark red pearl and flake just jump out.

Finally a shot of the "testbed" of the colors. We were originally going to use some of our "normal" colors, but the client was willing to upgrade his paint to the colors as a test bed to see how these paints would lay on.
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FieroDriver--Multimedia by J "Wudman" Wood--Explore Southern Illinois

[This message has been edited by Wudman (edited 07-15-2009).]

how much would maaco charge for a paint job like that?

quote Originally posted by drebinpk: how much would maaco charge for a paint job like that?

MAACOs are franchise operations with a few exceptions. The one standard answer to your question that I can guarantee is "bring in your car, get a free estimate" I tell people that all day. The other issue with pricing any MAACO is that being independently owned franchises, even standard pricing in the same city can vary wildly. At my MAACO, our two stage paint is $899. Adding a stripe is $150. A color change is $100 and jams run $80 per on a car that we are not putting time into removing the doors etc. On the St. Louis side of the river some of the shops charge $1199 for a two stage paint. We dropped ours a few weeks ago from $999.

The bug about my job is the color change. As you see my doors, hood, and trunk are off the car. It was in the line with all that on but getting paint on the fenders and jams properly was only going to happen with the car apart. That will add labor. In the future, I will really reconsider any color change and limit my creativity to stripes, split colors etc. Another price issue with this job is that we are packaging this paint as a $200-400 premium over our standard selection of colors because of an additional step in the process.

Finally, it is all about prep and even though I did a lot of prep, I have a lot to learn. The last time I successfully had a Fiero painted in 2001, I paid $2500 to the lowest bidder and then paid a guy $200 to buff it out. It was very pretty and worth every cent. I could do the same level of paint, with a finish buff on a good car for about $1800 at my shop, if we were not changing the color.

To try to answer you question, if I was to retail my paint job, as it was done, it would look something like this:
"Signature" Two Stage with Barrett Jackson Collector Color Paint $1199
Stripe + $150
Color Change +$100
Jams x3 +$240
labor to remove door, hood and trunk, take apart headlamp covers +$150

Total figuring on no special body work and standard prep $1839

[This message has been edited by Wudman (edited 07-15-2009).]

As Dexter's sister Dee Dee would say; oooohhh pretty!
I can't believe they taped off the front markers - there are only TWO screws to remove them!
~ Paul
aka "Tha Driver"

Somehow I got spinal meninginus, injectin' all that hair spray in my spine.
It's a suuuper-cheeeaap waaaay to party, if you aim to kill some brain cells & some time.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tha Driver:

As Dexter's sister Dee Dee would say; oooohhh pretty!
I can't believe they taped off the front markers - there are only TWO screws to remove them!
~ Paul
aka "Tha Driver"

Yeah, they taped off the markers, but took off the doors, hood and trunk. FYI in almost all cases, MAACO tapes off, so I am not going to give them any grief.
That was probably my fault as I should have taken those off myself. Crap happens. I took off the mirrors that the guy who painted the car last year sprayed around. That shop also piled up paint on the front of the door jams since he couldn't get even coverage under the doors. There is a slight overtaping by the sunroof and a few other minor issues that will be address after we get the car assembled. It is still plugging up the shop and we have a lot of production needing the assets this car is piled up on.
MAACO is a production shop and as the estimator/sales guy, I'd not want this job because it just jacks up the flow. It pretty much killed the afternoon in the shop and we had four people tearing into it which is atypical of any MAACO.

What time is MAACO open?
I'll stop by tonight or tomorrow after work.