Advice from the pro painters?, Lead times. Options

[mbseto]

I'm hoping to have a professional paint my car, and now that I am on a more strict schedule, I should probably get some information on going about this...

So my hope is to send it out to be blasted and painted. What kind of lead times should I expect? How far in advance should I be talking to a shop about getting the car in and done? What kind of schedule creep is typical?

Thank for the input... If it matters, I'm building a daily driver, not a show car, and my goals for the paint job are first to have modern rust-proofing, and second to have something nice but able to see normal wear and tear of driving to work, etc.

[naro914]

^^ it's the same with mechanic shops. Most mechanics, painters...trades people are great at their trade, but horrible at running a business. Just like most business professionals are great at business, but horrible at doing hands on labor work. Very rare when you come across both.

My suggestion to the OP: If your not interested in absolute perfection/concours condition, do a lot of the advanced work yourself (taping, any body fill work, remove trim and such), find a media blasting company first to do that work, then take it to one of the big companies for paint (Maaco, Earl Sheib, local big body shop, etc) Tell them you'll give them a bit extra money to 'do it right' and you may get a pretty good job done. They're not horrible, and many times better than we can do in our garages.

We have a great media blasting guy here in the Charlotte area, he does work for all the Nascar teams. Very good scheduling - he's out a few weeks right now. Theres also a small body shop that does decent work right up the street, plus Bill Dunster (wdunster here on World) is a very good friend and used to own a body shop, so he does all our small stuff....I think he even has access to a paint booth if needed to do a whole car (did his son's 944, came out awesome). He works for PPG Paints now...

Basically...don't ask here, ask the shops by you. It can vary from shop to shop, town to town...

[Andyrew]

My suggestion to the OP: If your not interested in absolute perfection/concours condition, do a lot of the advanced work yourself (taping, any body fill work, remove trim and such), find a media blasting company first to do that work, then take it to one of the big companies for paint (Maaco, Earl Sheib, local big body shop, etc) Tell them you'll give them a bit extra money to 'do it right' and you may get a pretty good job done. They're not horrible, and many times better than we can do in our garages.

I 100% agree. I have a buddy that sends Maaco 6 paint jobs a year and has had them do a couple of nice jobs. Sure those nice jobs cost 3k, but they put 4 coats of clear, do metallic colors, and they can cut and buff them. It'll take longer, instead of in and out in 2.5 weeks it might take 2 months as they have to get the quick stuff in and out more often and put their good guys on it, but they know they have a market there for this work.

The biggest thing you need to do is a proper masking job. Ask to come in prior to them spraying it for you to confirm its how you want them to paint. There all car guys and they like to do these "fun" cars every once in a while..

Sure its not a 5-10k hot rod show job, but its good enough for your typical 914 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)