1997 Accord SE. 4 banger automatic 4 door. Tan with pine tree air freshener. :P

It's a great car, about 180,000 miles and it's just purring along fine. I keep on top of the reccomended maintenance. My questions however is about the paint. The paint on the hood, roof and behind the sunroof on the roof is getting close to bare metal. No rust...YET. Now I've gone and gotten some estimates to fix this, same color and what not. Nothing fancy and I'm getting estimates of $2000 give or take a few hundred dollars. I can't even come close to affording that and won't be able to for a long long time. I wasn't wanting to go to macco but I can get it done there for $500.00

I have never had to deal with painting a car before, so as far as I know they roll the paint on the car! lol

I plan on driving this thing until it dies, and from the looks of it it's gonna be awhile.

So what would you experts/techs suggest I do? I figure a macco paint job will be better than letting it rust thru right?

Oh and if your reply is "you can either get it done for $2000 or let it rust thru!" save it please. I cannot afford it, PERIOD.

 

I am no expert but if your budget is $500 and all the other qoutes is $2000 then I go $500. I agree macco is not going to be factory but it sounds like it would be an improvement over the bare metal look.


Hope that helps your decision....I vote macco.

 

Thanks! I've never used macco before so I don't know if it is even worth that. The paint code I need is on my drivers door correct? Thanks for the reply!

 

yea go with macco or earl shibes cause paint is better than no paint. what really looks crappy is when they paint stuff like you exhaust so tape stuff like that before you give it to them and it will look much better.

 

My daughter put a Maaco job on my 94EX which I'm preparing to repaint (DIY). My first paint job, so I'm going real slow,and learning a lot. One lesson I learned this weekend when I painted the spoiler. Don't apply clear coat in direct sun. It causes paint to set too quickly to flow and give the desired glossy finish. I'll have to buff clear smooth and recoat again, but I learned a valuable lesson.

Maaco did not put a clear coat over the paint they applied, so it lost any luster w/i a few months. It never looked good, but got to looking real bad, hence I inherited the car. Bad paint job doesn't bother me, but I've always wanted to learn to paint, so I decided here was my chance. I'm applying polyurethane paint which will cost about $300 for paint and supplies. You can buy acrylic urethane for <$150, which will do a very nice job also. I now wish I had bought the acrylic urethane, which is a little more forgiving to paint.

If the paint on the hood and roof are the only problem, you might have those pieces painted to match rest of car. A good shop should do this w/ OEM paint (acrylic urethane) for $500-1000. You could buy your own paint, do all the prep work (sanding, smoothing) and then get a shop to mask/spray and save some additional $. I would think masking and spraying would take perhaps 1 full day for a good paint shop worker.

good luck