I have a 78 F-150 which needs painting. I know a lot of you take great pride in your paint jobs and would not go within a mile of production paint shops like Maaco or Earl Schibe. However, I just want a decent looking paint job to improve the trucks appearance and don't want to pay $1000 plus for it. Do any of you have any experiences and tales good or bad, with production paint shops?

 

A very good friend of mine used Maaco and was very pleased with the results. She did notice a couple of bad spots, took it to them and they got right on it and fixed it while she waited. Don't know how long the paint job would have lasted cause about a year & 1/2 later someone rear-ended her and completely demolished the car.

 

A friend of mine took his 77 ford to maaco and it looks really well, he did all the body work and they sprayed it fror him. It has lasted I know for 3-4 years now and still looks new..

 

You get what you pay for!! Paint work is not really about the Painting itself, it is all in the prep work. To save money, you could prep the truck youself, and then have Maaco or someone spray it. If the prep work is good, and the person doing the painting has half a brain, it should come out OK! Just don't put your hopes into any BEST PAINT awards. For a daily driver, you could probably do pretty good this way. I have people come into my shop wanting "cheap" paint jobs all the time. We tell them to drive through the shop real slow and turn the wipers on!, just do not take it to a power wash anytime soon. Good luck FOMOGO

 

I did the bodywork on mine, primed it, and took it to Maaco with no bumpers, mirrors, door handles, etc. I bought one of the higher end packages, which was still only around $800.00. I was very pleased with their work. One sag on the lower quarter panel, and a missed area where the top of the tailgate fits under the top (on a Bronco), but minor flaws considering the price of the job. The rest of the truck looks great, and for a daily driver, I absolutely love not having to stress over a $2500+ paint job when I occasionally go off-road or leave it in the WalMart parking lot. The paint is high-gloss, waxes out to look like new, and is holding up great after two years.

 

Just to echo what the others have said, prep is the key. The painters are usually the most experianced guys in the shop, maybe painting up to 15 cars a day. The prep guys make minimum wage, see the differance. Do like restorit did and you should come out ok.

 

I had my '84 E150 painted by Maaco in '93. The top was rusting through the paint (I think the early 80's metallic paint was not the best).

Anyway, I paid them a bit extra to prep the rust, $800 for the entire van, and it's holding up well. It's not an excellent job (some overspray, some painting over stuff that should have been removed during prep), but it's pretty darn good. My only regret was not coughing up the extra $100 they wanted to re-goop the rain gutters (or whatever they are) that run along the roof-to-body seam on top; the epoxy or whatever ford puts in there is all cracked, and was before '93...

As an aside, at the time I had a different shop quote me on the job, they do lots of high end work (restores, etc) and they quoted me $2000. That was about what the van was worth! I always wondered if that quote was meant to get me off the property, or if it was for real...


Joe