Painting your car?

[TurboChris]

So I will need to respray the hood on my M5, and of course I started thinking about how nice it would be to have a totally new paint job. It's NOT likely that I'll paint the whole thing..it's for the most part too nice to need it.

But it got me thinking.

What did you guys pay to have your whole car painted?

Were you happy with the results?

How long did they have the car?

Did they pull the glass etc, or did you go with a "lower end" paint job...

[MLastovo]

So I will need to respray the hood on my M5, and of course I started thinking about how nice it would be to have a totally new paint job. It's NOT likely that I'll paint the whole thing..it's for the most part too nice to need it.

But it got me thinking.

What did you guys pay to have your whole car painted?

Were you happy with the results?

How long did they have the car?

Did they pull the glass etc, or did you go with a "lower end" paint job...

Go to the SoCal Vintage show in Van Nuys at the end of this month and talk to Regan from World Class Restoration and see some of his work.

r/
D.

[TurboChris]

Not really so interested in super high end stuff.....been there done that. Took MONTHS to get the perfect paintjob on a Shelby GT350 clone I had a few years back....never again. That one cost me about $5k and I wouldn't spend anywhere near that on a $10,000 M5.

I'm more interested in what a "Normal" quality good job runs and how long it took.
Prior to the Mustang the last "full" paintjob I had done was on a 89 Bronco (fullsize) about 12 years ago and that was $1200 or $1400.....sure it'd be more now.......

[stuartinmn]

Took MONTHS to get the perfect paintjob on a Shelby GT350 clone I had a few years back....never again. That one cost me about $5k and I wouldn't spend anywhere near that on a $10,000 M5.

If you were able to get a perfect paint job for $5k I'm impressed. It's not hard these days to spend several thousand on just the paint and materials, not counting the labor which can go $50 to $100/hour depending on your location. I went through this with my M535i last summer, and it cost me a lot lot more than that.

[TurboChris]

Well, of course perfection is subjective. It was perfect to ME. Probably wouldn't fly on a councours Ferrari but it was flawless to MY eye. Here you go...

From this

http://s914.photobucket.com/albums/ac34 ... nt=i-1.jpg









To this










Yeah....I miss that car.

[wkohler]

Either do it right or don't do it at all.

[Mike W.]

Hell, a lower end paint job they don't even pull the trim, they just mask everything. On the other hand I've both painted myself and had low end jobs done where I pulled all the trim and I can't imagine painting a full car again. I can do medicore bodywork, good prep, but I don't spray well, nor do I have a spray booth. Plus it's a lot of damn work even after you spend the better part of a day pulling every piece of trim, lights, mirrors etc. But I had the E28 painted about 4 years into my ownership and while a low end job, I was very happy with it. I did a bit of bodywork myself, but even cheap paint was better than the original and the car was no virgin, so while it wasn't a beater, it did look a lot better. I had it done at Maaco and felt I got more than I paid for, but saw plenty of flaws. That happens when you work on it yourself.

But a glass out paint job? Wow, that's gonna be expensive. And then you've got to hope they don't screw anything up R and R'ing the glass itself. I can't imagine it being under 5K here in California, and that's if it's in pretty damn good shape now.

[Nanajoth]

It's relatively easy to spot a panel paint job, you would at least need to get a blend job on the front end.

[1st 5er]

Maybe Dave will chime in with an opinion.

[Jeff B.]

Chris

There's good news and bad news about your M5.

The good news is that the factory is single stage, and a good detailer can perform miracles making black shine like new.

The bad news is that the factory paint is single stage, and it's hard to find any local painters willing to take on anything other than base coat/clear coat. Spraying just a hood could be tricky to match the existing paint.

How bad is the hood? If the rest of the paint/body is OK (it looked really good to me when I saw the car a few weeks back), find a good painter and respray the hood. No $1500 full paint job is going to look anywhere near as good as your factory paint.

Regan at World Class Restorations is a class act. A rarity in this day and age because he really takes pride in every paint job. He just painted my car - stripped to bare metal, minor body work, and single stage black paint for a very reasonable price. The paint job exceeded all of my expectations, and I'm pretty picky.
As Darin suggested, I'd talk to him at the S Cal Vintage BMW show and ask for his opinion.

[wkohler]

I would much rather have an original paint car with flaws (your car does not look like it has the miles it does - at all) than one with a cheap respray because "it's just a $10,000 M5."

[TurboChris]

OK, let me set the record straight. As I said in my original post.... I'm not really looking to paint the whole car as for the most part it looks really decent.

Now...the hood is unfixable as close as I can tell...RonP agreed. It has about 30 rock chips...but what's worse...is it has hard water spotting. I would say...200 small hard water spots. Hard to see in the shade...very noticeable under inspection in direct sunlight.

Now I've had hard water spotting on one previous car. On the passenger side door glass.

I was never able to get it off. Couldn't even affect it with a razor blade. Soaked with every caustic chemical I could find. Never made a dent in it.

RonP took a try on my hood with some fancy stuff he had on a small spot and failed. He agreed that I'd likely have to respray. Now I suppose I could try wet sanding it and I just may....but that still leaves me with 30 + rock chips. So no matter what, I'll end up with a HEAVILY touched up hood that will likely be far from perfect.

Or

I already have an excellent paint guy. Known and used him for 15 years. He's done fenders and hoods for me too many times to count. And they've never turned out anything but perfect (to my eye and in the end that's all that really counts)

Now, being that my mind works this way....here I'm thinking ..."Ok, so I spend $300-$350 to respray the hood....or...hmmm....I wonder how much to get a decent overall paint job."

Now I already know I can spend $10,000 if I wanted to but that would be stupid. The car isn't (imo) worth a $5000 paint job as

A) The paints not bad enough to begin with to spend that much for that little improvement - bad ROI.

B) I'd put it into the motor before I'd spend it on the paint. AND I STILL have to address the interior...jeezzz

Since you're all assuming I somehow want to do a "cheap respray"... IF I was to consider repainting the car...I'd say the most I could justify for a car like this would be more in the $2500 -$3000 range.

Really, all I wanted to know was who had painted their car....what did they pay...and how did it turn out and how long was the car down for?

[wkohler]

Your price range generally equals cheap respray. Nothing wrong with doing the hood. It's a black car. That said, if it were mine, I'd leave it.

[TurboChris]

And how much is the price range on a "Quality" respray?

[Spen]

Chris, I just took my 87 535is E28 into the shop for body work, pull all trim, pull everything in fact, fix all body damage, cover antenna hole, pull some frame rail damage in front (bought car after being hit when parked), it's being sanded, primed, sanded, 2x coats base color and 2x coats clear, and a buff. That's minimum work! All trim will be either polished (grayish oxidized looking plastic goes pretty much back to black with that Mother's Powerball Headlight Polish + a drill) OR sanded, adhesion promoter, and matte trim paint - not sure which route I am going yet - and I am paying the dude $2200 and it's being done over course of 3 weeks and half up front. His single stage work looks beautiful and it still needs sanding. BMW is Salmon Silver, just a factory color repaint, but body has significant minor damage - dents, dings, etc and some major damage (repl fenders and pull frame rails a bit) up front. So it isn't a purist car, but I don't give a rip about the purist set anyway, it's my $1000 car and if I wanna tidy it up and not have it kill my pocket, that's what I am doing. P.S. it's a booth job.

I'd go for a full hood repaint and maybe get the rest of the car buffed or just go for the full repaint dude, I bet if you pulled trim you could get it sprayed for $1500 MAXIMUM in a booth, pay cash, etc. be cool and good to the bodyman, these guys risk their health for their profession in my opinion.

[stuartinmn]

Your price range generally equals cheap respray. Nothing wrong with doing the hood. It's a black car. That said, if it were mine, I'd leave it.

I agree. Materials alone (primer, sealer, paint, any filler, sandpaper, etc.) for a full body repaint with modern paints can easily cost a grand or two, or even more. Then you have consider the amount of labor - taking off all the trim, sanding the existing paint down (or stripping it completely), fixing anything that needs to be fixed, putting on the paint, wet sanding and buffing, and reassembly.

Does the car have any rust? (And I mean any - if you see a little bubble here or there, once the paint is removed that bubble will become a hole.) Check the door seams in particular, and look down along the front edge of the door where it's normally hidden by the front fender.

Does the car need any dent repair, anything bigger than a door ding? Are there any other blemishes in the paint? If there are freckles in the hood, there's probably more on the leading edge of the roof, and look at the little strip of sheetmetal under the grille and above the bumper.

All this stuff can easily take a hundred hours, or even multiples of that. Multiply it times the hourly labor rates in your area (here anything less than $50/hour is cheap.)

I haven't touched on replacing any bits and pieces "while you're at it"...trim, weatherstrip, glass, etc.

And how much is the price range on a "Quality" respray?

I'd say anywhere from $7500 to $25,000, depending on how much repair work is required and what level of finish you want.

Now, this is for a turnkey project - you drop the car off and the body shop does all the work. If you have the time, energy and mechanical aptitude you can do a lot of the grunt work yourself and reduce the cost greatly.

Here's the picture thread on my car from when it was restored last summer. My car had a lot more rust than I anticipated, and I decided to have the car finished to a higher level than stock, but it will give you an idea of what's involved. http://www.mye28.com/viewtopic.php?t=77409

I'm not saying how much it cost, other than it was a LOT more than the car is worth on the open market. I know it's not for everyone, but I decided it was something I wanted to do. Of course, I'll have to drive the thing until the day I die to make it worth it.

In your case, assuming the rest of the car is in great shape I think I'd get the hood refinished and leave it at that for now.

[Mike W.]

Really, all I wanted to know was who had painted their car....what did they pay...and how did it turn out and how long was the car down for?

You really want to know? Around $400 back in '04. It turned out ok, it had flaws in the paint, let alone the only bodywork I had them do was sand out the chips on the leading edge of the hood. Down for less than a week, I took off all the trim down to taillights, raingutters, sunroof seal etc. The paint itself was actually pretty good, held up well, held a shine a whole lot better than the original, although after a while I did have some chipping in corners and hard to sand spots. 6 years later when I sold it, it still looked good.

Now I've had hard water spotting on one previous car. On the passenger side door glass.

I was never able to get it off. Couldn't even affect it with a razor blade. Soaked with every caustic chemical I could find. Never made a dent in it.

RonP took a try on my hood with some fancy stuff he had on a small spot and failed. He agreed that I'd likely have to respray. Now I suppose I could try wet sanding it and I just may....but that still leaves me with 30 + rock chips. So no matter what, I'll end up with a HEAVILY touched up hood that will likely be far from perfect.

Or

I already have an excellent paint guy. Known and used him for 15 years. He's done fenders and hoods for me too many times to count. And they've never turned out anything but perfect (to my eye and in the end that's all that really counts)

Now, being that my mind works this way....here I'm thinking ..."Ok, so I spend $300-$350 to respray the hood....or...hmmm....I wonder how much to get a decent overall paint job."

How long have the water spots been on there? Are you sure it's water spots? Where I lived for 20 years I had very hard well water and cars would get spotted from time to time, but eventually it would just wear off if I didn't buff it out first.

Basic black will match well if you just do the hood, I had an E21 in Schwarz with very poor paint. I touched up spots here and there and they blended in perfect. New paint will have a different look to it for a while, say 6 months or so, but they should be able to match the color perfectly. As far as the whole car goes, beware mission creep. BTDT.

[1st 5er]

$500.00.

[TurboChris]

It's relatively easy to spot a panel paint job, you would at least need to get a blend job on the front end.

Well, I couldn't disagree more. I dropped off my M5 at my long time paint guy. Picked it up yesterday. I had him repaint the hood and the mirrors. Two stage, base coat / clear coat. He charged me $300 for the hood and $100 for both mirrors. I gotta say...it came out just about perfect.









It's a PERFECT match in almost every way. I've gone out and looked at it a bunch of times. Only once was I able to discern any difference from the hood to the fender and it was VERY slight and I think only cause the light was "Just right"

I'm a very happy camper.

[Mab1957]

Looks great. Excellent choice, Chris.

[TurboChris]

Thanks I'm pretty happy and after seeing Kohlers interior today I HAVE to have Jims in San Diego redo mine...Jeezzz his looked good...like factory new.