ANOTHER POLL! How much have you paid for your repaint?

[Joe in FL]

I want to know!

I'm getting ready to put up ALOT (to me) for a repaint in original lachssilber, and am curious what y'all have paid and what that got you.

Joe

[shifty]

I've never had my car repainted, but the previous owner had mine done. After some hail damage for which he got about $3,000 from the insurance company, he paid $800 to have the dents on the body fixed and to have the top half of the car repainted.

It looks like it's MAYBE a shade (or less, if that's possible lol) off, and you have to really look at it and know it's off to see that it is. The main qualms I have with the job are that the clearcoat is peeling on the trunk and the painter messed up the pinstripe. I need to have that damn stripe removed, but I'm thinking I may just wait until I have the car repainted another time.

Here's a pic of the main spot the clearcoat is messed up on my car. Everywhere else looks pretty good.

[Al Canuck]

Besides the clearcoat failing, he also painted all over the window seals! THAT would piss me off. I never understand why people leave the glass in when they paint.

Anyway, a GOOD repaint will cost a minimum of $2500-3000, if you strip it yourself, and don't need rust repair. We've got a Rabbit GTI in at the shop right now, and paint materials alone were over $1100. It's being shot with a base/clear DuPont Chroma, in bright white. Total cost for the car is about $4500, including hand blocking the body before colour is sprayed, and he will also polish it at the end. My 323i is going in next, and it will be on the high side of $6000. 2800cs is going to end up between $7000-9000, and the 73 2002 is coming in about $6500. All of those cars needed some rust rust repair, but only the 02, and the CS needed any panels cut and welded.

Al

[shifty]

Al,

How far down are they sanding on the GTI? Down to the metal or just down to the primer?

I figure if you sand down to the metal on an E28, you have a lot of body work to do, too. Specifically, the pillars that crack and need to be re-welded. But, if you're welding, you might as well weld some stiffening bars in there somewhere, too, to stiffen up the body!

[RetiredDoc]

$2,200 at the local BMW dealer's body shop in 1998. Original color. Other than a few door nicks, no body work was needed. Still looks almost like glass 7 years later, but the car is garaged (and covered) at night , and was always parked indoors at work.

[Duke]

3000 DM in 2000. I had to do the diassembly and reassembly of the body parts. Complete paint job, base/clear coat with minor body work. It was a hell of a deal and I got a big break because they liked the car.

[Al Canuck]

Hey Shifty,

I think the GTI had to go all the way down to metal in most spots. I know they media blasted the engine bay, and a bunch of other places, but I wasn't there when they really got into it. The GTI belongs to a friend of mine, so he has been more in charge than I have. I just hooked him up with the body guy.

The 02 is currently in bare metal, and the CS will also be bare. My 323i has nice original paint, so it will not go to bare metal.

Al

[Damon in STL]

I've been "Painting" my car for about three years. There is a considerable amount of prep work that needs to be done for a good end product. I now understand why a high quality paint job costs in the $4k range.

I also used the DuPont Chroma system. I had to take the hood, trunk, drivers front fender, part of drivers front door down to primer/metal and spray with primer. Then use a black base coat on the car to even out the color of the primer with the rest of the car. Next came the color and clear coats. All of the materials were only $600-$700 retail.

Question for Al Canuck. Was that what the shop told you the materials were? I was thinking I paid a premium for my materials. The paint jober I use is more expensive on most things they sell, but, there is one guy there who really knows his stuff and is always willing to go overboard helping you with questions etc....

Damon in STL

[Shawn D.]

Unless absolutely necessary due to body damage, rust, or extremely bad paint, you don't want to sand down to metal, as you'll be losing the factory electrocoat/dip primer.

[5gr3g5i]

$300 USD
DuPont Imron Polyurethane Enamel

What is it?
Top-of-the-line finish for trucks, commercial vehicles and specialy vehicles that demand unsurpassed gloss, durabilty and chemial resistance.

Alpine white no clear, did all of the prep work myself, there are several spots that I'm gonna do differently next time I paint a car.

cheers
Greg

[Damon in STL]

Originaly by Shawn D.

Unless absolutely necessary due to body damage, rust, or extremely bad paint, you don't want to sand down to metal, as you'll be losing the factory electrocoat/dip primer.

Shawn is correct. If your base primer is in good shape, you should leave it in place and not go to bare metal. BMW's primer should be left intact if at all possible. In my case I had issues with the primer down to the metal. Here is a pic of my trunk deck prior to preping it.



When preping the trunk, I took it down to the primer. I couldn't find any pics of the hood, but, it was in worse condition. The clear coat, paint coat, and primer were gone in spots down to bare metal and I had some minor rust issues.

The previous owner owned a couple of shoe factories in St. Louis and somewhere in Iowa. He would commute back and forth by plane and the e28 was his Iowa car and was always parked at the airport. He told me a story on the paint. It was something about where he parked next to his hanger and aviation fuel misting the car and causing some of the problems. I'm not sure if this is really why the paint system failed like it did, but, the story seamed plausible. The clear coat probably had already failed and then the aviation fuel may have accelerated the deterioration of the rest of the system.

Damon in STL

[Justin_FL]

I'm not sure if this is really why the paint system failed like it did, but, the story seamed plausible. The clear coat probably had already failed and then the aviation fuel may have accelerated the deterioration of the rest of the system.

I'm not sure about the story, but down here in Florida you don't need anything else but the sun to make the paint look like that !

When my Dad bought the 535i in 1992 the clear coat was failing on the roof. Original owner garaged the car at home and waxed regularily. In 1995 my car was repainted and then again in 1998 because of bad paint system formulation led to clearcoat failure in less than a year (first batch of "green" paints). I'd like to repaint the car again because the 1995 paint left such a mess that the '98 repaint had trouble with reactions in a few spots. But for a daily driver no one can tell the difference unless they are picky like me!

As for materials costs, about $1000 sounds right for a multi-stage system at retail when you factor in primer, hardeners, thinners, basecoat and clearcoat with high quality paint and your sanding papers plus polishing compounds and buffing pads. Labor can be an easy $1000-3000 or more, depends entirely what you want. $2000-3000 seems about right to pay someone for a complete, nearly perfect job with minimal bodywork if you do the major disassembly yourself. And again, you have got to find the right people for the work. The guys that like painting because it is an art are always the best.

Or you could be like my brother who color changed his GMC Sonoma from pewter gray to light blue. He did all the bodywork himself and paid a car resto friend to lay the paint on the body. The paint layed so perfectly with no dirt/bug trails there was no need to color sand and polish the finish. Not including my brother's labor it was about $1000 when all said and done for a show car finish, but took about 4 months to get all the work done little by little. He visits low rider shows and people think the truck has the factory paint, except there is no orange peel. The only hint of the color change is the firewall which was not practical to paint.

[Al Canuck]

[QUOTE="Damon in STL"]Question for Al Canuck. Was that what the shop told you the materials were? I was thinking I paid a premium for my materials. The paint jober I use is more expensive on most things they sell, but, there is one guy there who really knows his stuff and is always willing to go overboard helping you with questions etc....

Damon in STL[/QUOTE]

The shop owner is a good friend, and I can take a fair amount of credit for helping him get his shop off the ground last year, having sent him $40k worth of body and paint since then!

Anyway, I was there when the cheque was handed over to the DuPont rep. That $1100 was for metal etcher, primer, colour, clear, and a can of something else as well. It was jobber cost, not full retail. Remember, I am in Canada, where we get taxed to hell on everything, and hit with enviro fees on top of that. The figure is also Canadian dollars.

Al