What's the average idle speed for an 86 2m4 4 cyl auto w/72K miles? Right now it's at 500 RPMs while I'm sitting at a light both right after start and after driving around all day. Just asking because I've rebuilt the engine (valve job, head gasket, and recently had a major tune up. Engine diagnostics checked out perfect and it drives like a dream.

Also, roughly how much would it cost to repaint the car jet black professionally?

Thanks everyone!

You better be sitting down....

To have the car stripped, sanded, any panel problems fixed, primed, block sanded, primed, block sanded, primed, block sanded, (you get the idea), painted, clearcoated (two stage), and color sanded, figure $2-3K.

The paint on my Ciera GT was $3k and most have said I got off cheap. Of course you can read a book off the reflection.

A "professional" paint job that will look good and stay on the car is $2000 minimum.

A decent paint job might go for under $1500. Anything under $1000 is likely not worth it.

My figures are based on you doing no labor. Everything is done by the shop.

For jet black, it will only look "great" wet or in the shade. But boy does it looooook goooood.

Let the flames begin.

Terry

As for paint jobs, Twin Lakes Fiero paints cars for $2500.00 If you use a regular paint. (by regular I mean regular for a fiero with a normal color) If you want to have an exotic color like Mirror Black, A high metallic, or a pearlized color he charges $3500. All your body panels are removed from the car for painting. I've seen 4 or 5 cars he's painted and the paint holds very well and shines very good. I've seen cars he's painted 6 years before and not problems.

uh oh better get maaco..
lookin for a cheaper way to go.. maaco will do a decent job for 250. you get what you pay for though. the guy that i bought my car from had sanded it down and primered it. when he figured out what it was going to cost to paint it, he sanded the primer back off. result... a fiero that looks like hell. if youre in the same boat as i am then anything is an improvement. one of my favorite passtimes now is running over carts in the wal mart parking lot. so there is an upside to having a bad paint job. the dents??? well the car is plastic...just pop em out. hahaha. just kidding.

Maaco will do a great job of painting the car. Dirt and all.

We "talked" about this on a previous thread, but I'm jumping in again. Our club president had his Formula painted at Maaco, metallic green, and it looks great. I seem to recall the point was that if you get lucky, and find a good shop, even Maaco, you could get a good job.

So I think its possible to get a good job at a chain, although you'd probably want to shop around and get references.

And what was the cost? I agree, if you pay them, they will do a great job. But it will be over $1000 easily if you want it to look good and stay on the car after 2 years.

I don't know how much he paid, but I threw my two cents worth in just to say it was possible to get a good job at a chain.

I'll certainly agree you usually get what you pay for, and the $299 special the're running now probably won't get most of us what we're looking for.

Hi Ed,

You're right. Maaco can produce a good paint job if you pay them what it takes. I've seen their premium work and the work is excellent at the shop near here.

On the other hand, after a guy backed into the Ciera, I took it to an expensive "custom" shop. Minor damage really. They were clearly brain-dead. I had to get another shop to do it right. The guy's insurance wasn't happy ("we don't pay for color sanding". Well you do on my car.) They did and the shop cleaned it up.

I had my '84 SE painted by MACCO about 2 years ago. It was at a slow time of year for car painting so I paid $300.00 for the paint job. I did all body repair myself and had the car clean when I took it in. MACCO did an OK job that most people couldn't tell thay did it. No runs, snags or bad places.
Had it painted the same color it was so that didn't cause a problem covering. The paint on the hood(front) was worn and faded to natural plastic . Looks good now after MACCO paint.

Maaco painted red my 88 Formula once. Out of the shop it looked good for the $$ but there was overspray on several black areas. It was the Supreme service. After 1.5 years paint started to fade again on the top and some small chips came out in the front facia. A lot may depend on the shop but if you want a really good job you have to pay for it (>$1200). No cheap lunch here.

Where I live, there are many, many paint and body shops so the price for a good paint job is not that bad. I would feel guilty if I charged more than $1000 for a paint job on a Fiero! Maybe I need to move somewhere else so I can make some extra money.

I just called today to check on getting Grape Ape repainted. I have a pearlized paint (changes colors depending on where you're standing). I was quoted $1200 if I did the sanding.