How much to budget for a complete repaint..?, A tough question I know but I got to ask... Options

[Nozzle]

Well after doing the standard Spring clean-up on the old girl last week, it looks like the valiant efforts of the 36 year old Saturn Yellow to protect the body are starting to fail. But before I start putting together a serious savings campaign for a full-bore repaint I need to ask what I should plan for as this is very new territory for me. I would be having a professional shop do the prep and repaint as I've got zero talent in this area. I figure rust repair costs will just have to be one of the unknowns at this stage so I'm really looking for a paint-only figure.

The 914 in question lived almost its entire life in Santa Barbara, CA and was never in an accident so far as I can tell. A hell-hole repair was done by AA two years ago right after I bought the car and now the windshield base on the drivers side where it meets the fender line is starting to bubble. No doubt there is more to be found but that's what I know for sure.

So the main goal is to get the car repaired and preserved before the rust gets any worse. The plan would be for me to disassemble the entire car and then have a good shop do a presentable repaint in the original color and take care of any rust issues found. In other words I'm looking for perfect metal not perfect paint.

So any help on what I should plan dollar-wise for for the prep and repaint would be MUCH appreciated. Of course any help with locating a good restoration shop in the MD, VA or PA area would be very cool too...

Thanks everyone,

John

[Andyrew]

Not trying to steer you away from Scotty or any of the other professionals on here, but the people who do REALLY good work (Like Scotty), are going to be busy no matter what the economy or season.. However if you found some shop local to you that you could pitch in and be buddy buddy with you could probably get a paint job with rust repair pretty cheap because they NEED the work.
The trick is to find the guys that work on old hot rods. They know rust repair and they spend most of the time on that. There is one shop next to my work who does good work (Not the BEST, but good work) and he charged a guy 3k for a full paint job on an old 50 chevy (It was a black paint job to), It was a pretty good paint job all things considered and would have probably cost 6k or more at another shop that wasnt hurting for the work. This was a down to metal job with a little bit of rust repair. Granted this is california where there is less rust, but you might want to spend some time checking out some local shops. The good thing about this is you can constantly check up on the car and can lend a hand or beer..

My uncle ran his own body shop as well and did good work and charged a decent rate as well.


BUT know that if your looking for a spectacular job then you are going to pay the spectacular price.


Just my opinion of it as a cheep ass (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif).