Repainting a Car
August 16, 2015 1:20 PM Subscribe
I have 2000 Toyota Camry LE, 6 cyl, 5 speed. I want to keep it and repaint it. A body shop told me that to remove the 20 or so dime-sized dents that pepper it, the half dozen eraser sized chipped paint spots and a hand sized dent under the door handle, as well as paint would cost between six and seven thousand dollars. He said he has to take the car apart to do the body work. He also told me European made paint, along with $50/hr labor is a big part of the cost. He said if I was a member of his family, he would tell me it's not worth repainting and I should just drive it until it falls apart. He said repainting would be a bad financial decision.
Is this what I can expect to hear from every body shop or would it pay to shop around. Or, do you think I find can a place that will do a good job that isn't so expensive? A new body shop looking for customers, a hobbyist that does good work, a school auto body program? Helpful suggestions would be appreciated.
Is this what I can expect to hear from every body shop or would it pay to shop around. Or, do you think I find can a place that will do a good job that isn't so expensive? A new body shop looking for customers, a hobbyist that does good work, a school auto body program? Helpful suggestions would be appreciated.
You just really can't do a good job without taking the car apart, and all the costs that come with it.
What you run the risk of is a body shop giving you a cheap quote, starting the work and then "finding out" it's going to be 6-7K to finish, minimum $1500 just to put it back together so you can drive it away.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:33 PM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
What you run the risk of is a body shop giving you a cheap quote, starting the work and then "finding out" it's going to be 6-7K to finish, minimum $1500 just to put it back together so you can drive it away.
posted by Lyn Never at 1:33 PM on August 16, 2015 [3 favorites]
You could investigate getting a vinyl wrap for the car, wont be nearly as durable as paint, but should be cheaper and let you choose colors or patterns not available in paint.
posted by TheAdamist at 1:47 PM on August 16, 2015
posted by TheAdamist at 1:47 PM on August 16, 2015
It will also hurt you on resale in a weird way. When you trade a car in the appraiser will look for repainting as a sign of significant accidents and damage. It is exceptional for someone to paint a car unless there has been an accident.
It is not worth repainting. A nice wax and detail might be worth the effort/cost.
posted by 26.2 at 1:47 PM on August 16, 2015
It is not worth repainting. A nice wax and detail might be worth the effort/cost.
posted by 26.2 at 1:47 PM on August 16, 2015
Repainting will only become worthwhile if you keep the car long enough for it become a 'classic' car. That's the point where some people would consider fixing every dent and having a costly new paint job, because the intention then is to keep the car running basically forever as a piece of automotive history that they're willing to pay to preserve. However, people in that situation usually keep the mileage pretty low, and have a different car for daily use.
There's plenty of good reasons why new cars are painted before assembly, and by robots.
posted by pipeski at 1:52 PM on August 16, 2015
There's plenty of good reasons why new cars are painted before assembly, and by robots.
posted by pipeski at 1:52 PM on August 16, 2015
He said repainting would be a bad financial decision.
He is absolutely correct. The car is worth a fraction of what a paint job (even a crap one) would be. I'm sorry, but this is a terrible idea - there is absolutely no logical reason or justification to paint this car. It will hurt your resale (if the car is even worth anything at all) because people will assume it was repainted to cover some other drama up and you're just committing to spending a ton of money on a car that you may as well have burnt. That sounds drastic, but it is true. It won't make the car last longer or be worth more money so it is a total waste.
Also: there are no cheap paint jobs, there are only shit paint jobs that didn't cost as much as a proper one. If anyone quotes less than $3,500-$4,000 for a full respray they are either missing stuff out to 'discover' and surprise you with during the process or are cutting corners in a way that will be 'not good'. I strongly advise you to reassess your decision to paint this car and continue reassessing it until you come to the (correct) conclusion that a 15 year old Toyota is a beater car. It is only worth spending money on it to keep it reliable and safe and, with a Toyota, you're getting fabulous value for money with that kind of car and age already, even if it looks a bit rough. Run it until something breaks that costs more than $500 and the scrap it.
Put the money you would spend on the repaint into your replacement car savings fund.
Repainting will only become worthwhile if you keep the car long enough for it become a 'classic' car.
To add to this - classic cars are mostly a thing of the past. No mass produced car like a Toyota will ever be a classic in the way we are used to referring to them.
posted by Brockles at 1:57 PM on August 16, 2015 [11 favorites]
He is absolutely correct. The car is worth a fraction of what a paint job (even a crap one) would be. I'm sorry, but this is a terrible idea - there is absolutely no logical reason or justification to paint this car. It will hurt your resale (if the car is even worth anything at all) because people will assume it was repainted to cover some other drama up and you're just committing to spending a ton of money on a car that you may as well have burnt. That sounds drastic, but it is true. It won't make the car last longer or be worth more money so it is a total waste.
Also: there are no cheap paint jobs, there are only shit paint jobs that didn't cost as much as a proper one. If anyone quotes less than $3,500-$4,000 for a full respray they are either missing stuff out to 'discover' and surprise you with during the process or are cutting corners in a way that will be 'not good'. I strongly advise you to reassess your decision to paint this car and continue reassessing it until you come to the (correct) conclusion that a 15 year old Toyota is a beater car. It is only worth spending money on it to keep it reliable and safe and, with a Toyota, you're getting fabulous value for money with that kind of car and age already, even if it looks a bit rough. Run it until something breaks that costs more than $500 and the scrap it.
Put the money you would spend on the repaint into your replacement car savings fund.
Repainting will only become worthwhile if you keep the car long enough for it become a 'classic' car.
To add to this - classic cars are mostly a thing of the past. No mass produced car like a Toyota will ever be a classic in the way we are used to referring to them.
posted by Brockles at 1:57 PM on August 16, 2015 [11 favorites]
I'm assuming you just want to do this because the car looks like crap? Like the clear coat is peeling, there's parts that are super faded or flaking off, etc?
My friend had an otherwise hardy much older toyota van, and his dad decided to get it repainted as a present. He's had a lot of older not worth all that much cars repainted.
He always just goes to maaco(yes, seriously) and gets the package just above the shitty $400 or whatever one they offer, and swears by it for cars like this. That one includes more prep, and a few other things. He also says to always argue for paint matching without an upcharge, and that they always fold.
It doesn't look like a several thousand dollar paint job at all, but it looks INFINITELY better than the peeling, faded, junker-looking paint job it had before. And it's held up for 5 or 6 years now without flaking off and only some minor bubbling where the back hatch was starting to rust around the wiper anyways.
Note that i wrote this assuming the car looks terrible. My old roommate had a 99 or 2000 camry where most of the paint had flaked off the hood and it was starting to rust, the roof was horribly peeling, trunk lid, etc. It looked REALLY bad. The car is probably only worth a couple grand at most anyways, who gives a shit about the value? If it runs good, has some real life left in it, and you just want it to not look embarrassing, i think that's $450 or so well spent.
If it's just dented up and chipped/scratched but looks fine? Drive it into the ground. Don't even bother with this.
posted by emptythought at 2:01 PM on August 16, 2015 [8 favorites]
My friend had an otherwise hardy much older toyota van, and his dad decided to get it repainted as a present. He's had a lot of older not worth all that much cars repainted.
He always just goes to maaco(yes, seriously) and gets the package just above the shitty $400 or whatever one they offer, and swears by it for cars like this. That one includes more prep, and a few other things. He also says to always argue for paint matching without an upcharge, and that they always fold.
It doesn't look like a several thousand dollar paint job at all, but it looks INFINITELY better than the peeling, faded, junker-looking paint job it had before. And it's held up for 5 or 6 years now without flaking off and only some minor bubbling where the back hatch was starting to rust around the wiper anyways.
Note that i wrote this assuming the car looks terrible. My old roommate had a 99 or 2000 camry where most of the paint had flaked off the hood and it was starting to rust, the roof was horribly peeling, trunk lid, etc. It looked REALLY bad. The car is probably only worth a couple grand at most anyways, who gives a shit about the value? If it runs good, has some real life left in it, and you just want it to not look embarrassing, i think that's $450 or so well spent.
If it's just dented up and chipped/scratched but looks fine? Drive it into the ground. Don't even bother with this.
posted by emptythought at 2:01 PM on August 16, 2015 [8 favorites]
emptythought beat me to this.
If you have had some sort of catastrophic paint failure, such as peeling or extreme fading, you can get a completely mediocre paint job for not a whole lot of money. If your car looks horrible, you can upgrade it to looking blah for $500 - $1500. The dents will be there, the paint will not look perfectly matched, it may be excessively dull or excessively shiny or just plain cheap looking after a few months on the road, but it won't be as bad as white splotches or clear-coat.
I had this done when the hood and roof of my Volvo started to look like it was diseased, with a combination of splotches and uneven, crusty clear-coat, resulting in a bizarre combination of shiny areas and matte areas and various ovular colors in random areas, and I was embarrassed to be seen in it. I got several very high quotes from shops that didn't quite get that I didn't want the full restoration job, and finally got a $500 quote from a small auto paint shop. The result looked like it had been merely repainted. Not bad, not good. It was totally worth $500 but no more.
If you want to upgrade your car to blah, keep getting quotes. If you want your car to look nice, you should not have it repainted, you should sell it and get a newer car.
posted by eschatfische at 2:26 PM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
If you have had some sort of catastrophic paint failure, such as peeling or extreme fading, you can get a completely mediocre paint job for not a whole lot of money. If your car looks horrible, you can upgrade it to looking blah for $500 - $1500. The dents will be there, the paint will not look perfectly matched, it may be excessively dull or excessively shiny or just plain cheap looking after a few months on the road, but it won't be as bad as white splotches or clear-coat.
I had this done when the hood and roof of my Volvo started to look like it was diseased, with a combination of splotches and uneven, crusty clear-coat, resulting in a bizarre combination of shiny areas and matte areas and various ovular colors in random areas, and I was embarrassed to be seen in it. I got several very high quotes from shops that didn't quite get that I didn't want the full restoration job, and finally got a $500 quote from a small auto paint shop. The result looked like it had been merely repainted. Not bad, not good. It was totally worth $500 but no more.
If you want to upgrade your car to blah, keep getting quotes. If you want your car to look nice, you should not have it repainted, you should sell it and get a newer car.
posted by eschatfische at 2:26 PM on August 16, 2015 [2 favorites]
By coincidence, I happen to own the exact same car as you do, except mine is an automatic. It is in decent shape with 190k on it and I think I will be very happy to get 1500 for it. (It so happens I am about to sell it). I am pretty sure if I put a 7k paint job on it it would not up the value of it in any meaningful way. Echoing above, I HIGHLY encourage you to drive it as is until it incurs an expensive repair and bank the paint money for your next purchase. At least from the point of view of economics, painting it is about the worst use of 7k you could possible incur.
posted by jcworth at 2:32 PM on August 16, 2015
posted by jcworth at 2:32 PM on August 16, 2015
I guess what's not clear from your question is WHY you want to repaint the car. If it's for rust-avoidance purposes, you can get a car paint touch-up pen here and DIY. It's not hard unless you want a 100% perfect "this was never touched" look.
If it's for aesthetics.. I doubt there's a good solution (financially speaking) other than replacing the car, unfortunately.
posted by zug at 2:42 PM on August 16, 2015
If it's for aesthetics.. I doubt there's a good solution (financially speaking) other than replacing the car, unfortunately.
posted by zug at 2:42 PM on August 16, 2015
If your headlights are milky or yellowed, you can get them polished for something in the neighborhood of $100 (?). It makes a pretty dramatic difference to the look of the car.
This just might satisfy your itch to make your car look nicer and it's pretty cheap.
posted by ryanrs at 2:45 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
This just might satisfy your itch to make your car look nicer and it's pretty cheap.
posted by ryanrs at 2:45 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
You need a MAACO paint job. Two hundred bucks, or check into a high school auto shop.
posted by Oyéah at 4:13 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Oyéah at 4:13 PM on August 16, 2015 [1 favorite]
I had a Toyota RAV 4 that was dinged, dented, and the hood had been replaced and poolry painted. Asked around and took it to a guy who banged out the big dent pretty well, got dome of the dings out, painted the hood and the front quarter panel, and it was under, maybe, 500, about 10-12 years ago. He did an adequate job. Some shops won't do adequate; they insist on super-duper. 2000 Camry? Look for a shop willing to do wo rk that is only adequate.
posted by theora55 at 4:17 PM on August 16, 2015
posted by theora55 at 4:17 PM on August 16, 2015
Wrap will show up imperfections like dents, so prep is still needed (some designs may do a better job of hiding these than others).
I am guessing you have some attachment to this car, hence your desire to do it up? I am in that place right now, a 300,000km car that has served me well for 15 years or so, and in which I have had a lot of (automotive) fun, but as a result of an accident is beyond economical repair. I had to face the question of how much was my emotional attachment worth, beyond the cost of simply replacing it, how much more was I prepared to pay just to have the old car survive. In my case, the ask was too much, and it has been replaced.
posted by GeeEmm at 4:38 PM on August 16, 2015
I am guessing you have some attachment to this car, hence your desire to do it up? I am in that place right now, a 300,000km car that has served me well for 15 years or so, and in which I have had a lot of (automotive) fun, but as a result of an accident is beyond economical repair. I had to face the question of how much was my emotional attachment worth, beyond the cost of simply replacing it, how much more was I prepared to pay just to have the old car survive. In my case, the ask was too much, and it has been replaced.
posted by GeeEmm at 4:38 PM on August 16, 2015
I think it's worth checking around. I just got my car painted, and the first place I checked wanted, "I don't know, probably at least $5-6,000, plus the paint" for the body work. But they were a shop that mostly did insurance-covered collision work on newer cars, and wanted to straight-up replace doors and panels that had rust and small dents.
Maaco's second-cheapest paint (which is the value sweet-spot, yes) plus the body work was about $1,800.
I eventually settled on a sole proprietor recommended by my mechanic who took his sweet time doing it, but did a great job on de-rusting and painting for $2,500, including installing a new windshield and sandblasting and painting the rims.
I repainted my car because the engine and transmission are sound, and past experience (sample size: 2) tells me I can get another 100K out of it if I keep the body intact. Still not a sound financial decision since the car still isn't worth $2,500, but I like it.
And given how much interest my newly-painted but otherwise original 1990 Civic hatchback has been getting, I give it another ten years before the kids who were modding them in their teens and twenties start to get nostalgic.
posted by mgar at 4:46 PM on August 16, 2015
Maaco's second-cheapest paint (which is the value sweet-spot, yes) plus the body work was about $1,800.
I eventually settled on a sole proprietor recommended by my mechanic who took his sweet time doing it, but did a great job on de-rusting and painting for $2,500, including installing a new windshield and sandblasting and painting the rims.
I repainted my car because the engine and transmission are sound, and past experience (sample size: 2) tells me I can get another 100K out of it if I keep the body intact. Still not a sound financial decision since the car still isn't worth $2,500, but I like it.
And given how much interest my newly-painted but otherwise original 1990 Civic hatchback has been getting, I give it another ten years before the kids who were modding them in their teens and twenties start to get nostalgic.
posted by mgar at 4:46 PM on August 16, 2015
Oh, are you changing the color? Because repainting the inside the engine bay and all up in the trunk is a lot more involved and will add to the cost.
posted by mgar at 4:49 PM on August 16, 2015
posted by mgar at 4:49 PM on August 16, 2015
Fifteen-year-old car? Not worth repainting. Focus on maintaining things under the hood.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:44 PM on August 16, 2015
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:44 PM on August 16, 2015
If you have time and some space you can do a decent paint job yourself with regular metal paint and a roller.
posted by Mitheral at 8:57 PM on August 16, 2015
posted by Mitheral at 8:57 PM on August 16, 2015
To add to this - classic cars are mostly a thing of the past. No mass produced car like a Toyota will ever be a classic in the way we are used to referring to them.
posted by Brockles at 4:57 PM on August 16 [10 favorites +] [!]
Some. Datsun (Nissan) Z series cars are hot collectibles.
posted by Gungho at 9:49 AM on August 17, 2015
posted by Brockles at 4:57 PM on August 16 [10 favorites +] [!]
Some. Datsun (Nissan) Z series cars are hot collectibles.
posted by Gungho at 9:49 AM on August 17, 2015
Response by poster: Thanks for all of your GREAT comments.
posted by CollectiveMind at 10:29 AM on August 17, 2015
posted by CollectiveMind at 10:29 AM on August 17, 2015
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posted by ryanrs at 1:25 PM on August 16, 2015 [5 favorites]