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Posted by: Alfieg23 Jun 18 2017, 11:29 AM

Who has used a Maaco Body Shop to paint their 914 and how pleased were you with the result?

Posted by: bandjoey Jun 18 2017, 11:45 AM

Only if you want a quick cheap paint job that's sure to peel before the years out. Not to mention having their painters try to horse around the car when you are not there.

You can do thr masking and trim removal at home, spend a week in prep and spray it with duplicolor. 3 under coats, 3 colors, 2 clears. Great quality for a daily driver.
Mines now into 3 years. No peal, no cracks, no bubbles.




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Posted by: mepstein Jun 18 2017, 11:55 AM

We have a Macco in our industrial park and have sent a couple cars to them for paint. We do the bodywork and prep - remove everything, mask for overspray. We then usually buff the paint afterword. For $1200, we get an almost half decent paint job. This is good for track cars, low cost resale cars and daily driver cars. The shop is pretty professional. One of our body guys used to work there. He just worked to the quality that was expected. Not bad but certainaly not great. I don't think the paint will fall off the car. It's real paint, just pretty cheap.
I know one of the painters there and I had him do my motorcycle frame, tanks and side panels. He is a top notch painter and makes good money at maaco because he's fast and doesn't make mistakes. He will probably paint my 914 in his hand made spray booth (can't do side jobs at work), When he did my bike, he purchased top quality paint, about $500 -wholesale, for single stage black paint on the frame and 2 stage on the tanks and side panels. Maybe a quart of paint and a pint of clear. Way more expensive than what he uses at work.
So it really depends what you have for a budget and what are your expectations. Our 911 paint jobs cost us about $6k (from a painter that we send a lot of business) and that's after we do all the bodywork and paint the underside, interior, trunks and engine bay in single stage.

Posted by: Tom_T Jun 18 2017, 12:52 PM

2 words - do NOT!

I used one in 2006 for my 85 BMW 325e, who supposedly had classic car resto experience referred by some 50's hot rod buddies here in town. MAACO did a crappy job which started peeling in 20015, it was not the color + clear coat paint which I paid for, & they had overspray all over the place - not to mention the 1st try they had filter crud all over the paint embedded, & too 4-5 months to do a 2 week job, & it still had the crud in the paint the 2nd time & told me to sue them if I didn't like it! The went BK a couple of weeks after "finishing" my car, & MAACO corporate was NO help!

MAACO also uses lesser quality Sherwin Williams paints - rather that top tier PPG, Dupont, Glasurit, Sikkends, etc. paints - so the durability isn't there.

I would be suspect of any resto shop that uses MAACO for paint jobs for that reason too.

Look elsewhere for a good resto or body shop that uses top qualitiy materials, does proper bdy work & prep, & you'll save mony & hassles in the long run!

Good Luck!
Tom
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Posted by: wes Jun 18 2017, 01:46 PM

My two cents says buy a spray can it'll be even cheaper!

Posted by: 76-914 Jun 18 2017, 01:58 PM

Ethan aka 73-914kid had his painted there about 2-3 yr's ago. PM him. Like others here, he did the prep work and knew someone there.

Posted by: Alfieg23 Jun 18 2017, 02:26 PM

Thanks, everyone! I haven't done bodywork in years but I will probably try to do it myself during my days off.

Posted by: rjames Jun 18 2017, 06:47 PM

I've heard that you can bring your own paint.
I'm sure it's a crap shoot. Probably some talented painters and a lot who are not.

Do all the prep-work, bring your own paint and see if you can talk to who would be doing the paint to see how old they are and if they were able to dress themselves correctly.

My mom got her '85 prelude painted by them 10 years ago and it still looks good, as long as you don't mind all the overspray. The exhaust pipe is a nice shade of red.

Posted by: Unobtanium-inc Jun 18 2017, 08:10 PM

I've had some very bad experience's with Maaco over the years, one time they took the complete stereo system out of my brother's BMW, put it in their car for a week and tried to get it back in. It was all custom work so they couldn't get it back in right and they had blown his subwoofers. Proceed with caution.

Posted by: Coondog Jun 18 2017, 08:33 PM

Great April fools joke, but your two months late........

Posted by: BENBRO02 Jun 18 2017, 09:06 PM

If you leave the windows down don't they paint the interior for free?

Posted by: Chris914n6 Jun 18 2017, 09:59 PM

You could do a better job with roll on rustoleum.

I'd hit up a car show - cars n coffee. Ask around, there is likely a guy that does it solo that won't charge as much and will use almost any paint you want. I say almost because some spray different than others so each painter has a preference.

Like anything, get it in writing and add a daily fine for missed due date.

Posted by: Cairo94507 Jun 19 2017, 12:53 AM

I painted my first 914 myself. The car is pretty easy to disassemble and strip for paint. The biggest thing is to tape it tight and really have a clean booth to spray in. I used a friend's garage that we washed down completely the day before and then wet the floor before spraying to keep duet down. Car came out great. I cut and buffed it and it looked like new when I was done. These cars are small and the only "difficult" spot t spray (back in the 70's) was the inside of the roll bar. Only had one gun back then and you could not invert it.

Posted by: Andyrew Jun 19 2017, 07:53 AM

Depends on the shop 100%.

Local shop gets LOTS of hot rods and classic cars. Obviously the bodywork is Meh and the prep-work is utter shit. So the people in the know do all their own bodywork and prep and then have Maaco provide the paint and spray it.


The bodywork is 100% the hardest to get right. Dont do it right and it'll crack and rust after a couple years. This is where half your money should go into.

I painted my car for ~$700 in materials and used cheap (but quality) paint, and I painted 3 others with roughly the same costs. My car was about 2-300 hours to paint, the rest were between 100 and 150hrs. Check my links in my sig if you want more info.

If your looking to just get a solid color on the car a $1200 paint job from Maaco is impossible to beat.

Posted by: Amphicar770 Jun 19 2017, 10:01 AM

The biggest issue with MAACO is that their model is to turn stuff out fast and cheap. Thus, they will take lots of short cuts in terms of prep, taping, etc.

That said, if you do ALL of the prep work yourself, their guys do spray paint all day long and are pretty good at doing so properly, evenly, etc.

Depends on what you want and how much of the prep work you are willing to do yourself. For a "quickie", "sell me red" paint job I guess they are OK. If you want something that will still look good a few years down the road, you get what you pay for.

Posted by: struckn Jun 19 2017, 02:01 PM

I do my own prep and have had them paint 3 of my vehicles with great success. The last one a 2003 Dodge Dakota that the factory paint peeled off of. It also had a fiberglass Bed Cap of a different color. I got two estimates, one for $1400 for them to prep in, the other if I sanded it down to the factory primer they would paint it for $600. Took a few days to sand it down to the white primer on the Roof and Engine Hood then they painted it with two stage. Looks great after two years now. They also painted my 69 C10 Chevy after I did the prep and body work. I think the quality with MAACO depends on the local Shop and people doing the work. I've been using the same guys for years now.

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