So, what does it cost to get cars painted?
 

Hey,
I live in Michi
gan, where there are mighty dump trucks blasting down the freeway at 70mph, and chunks of rubble get kicked up by the car in front of you as it slams through potholes. Rock chips are a way of life here.

So, my Mazda has a few little chips, which I've touched up using genuine Mazda touch-up paint. The car is slowly but surely beginning to lookl like it is developing acne...

The plan is thus to have the hood and front bumper repainted next summer, in the stock OEM Mazda silver. The paint on the bumper (of course) needs to be the highly elastic type used for urethane parts. The whole hood and whole bumper will be done, so that there are no color matching/ splotchiness issues whatsoever.

Anybody have any idea what it is going to run (approximately) to have a shop tackle these two items?

if you are planning on getting a top drawer job done....where neither you or anyone else will ever be able to tell you ever had it done....with a finish so slick it might as well be a mirror.....plan on spending at least 50-600 dollars.....

and do yourself a favor. IF you get a real quality job done on the hood and the front end....have the rest of the car buffed out so the entire thing will shine like a new nickel.

Recently had the entire front bumper and new MP3 lip sprayed silver on my P5. Cost was $180 including lip install by my Mazda dealer. But then, the service manager's a good bud... :D

and get the new clear bra for your car. those things are awesome.

It cost me $300 to do the hood and roof of my car...but at least the car has some clear coat on it now, THANKS MAZDA :mad:

where in MI are you man? i have a good friend that works at a body shop close to lansing (morrice to be more exact) and i refer people there all the time, they have great prices, and do AMAZING work, so if you want to, and your close to lansing, let me know and i'll get you all the info...

but at just any body shop, for a hood and front bumper, i'd say your lookin at around a 300-400 dollar job, for a few layers of paint and then a few layers of clear...

Hook me up with the info, bud. I'm Oakland County, not too far from Lansing! I appreciate it!

no problem, heres all the info:

Spalding Auto Body
10914 Bennett Drive
Morrice, MI 48857
Tel: (517) 625-4757

you can tell them James Hewson sent you, but its been a little while since i've gone in there, so the owner might not remember me, last thing i had fixed there was the door hinge on my Dakota around a year ago... and morrice is like 20 min. east of lansing, so its closer to oakland than lansing even... probly a 45 min drive, if your drive "spririted" most of the way :p...

How about like changing the entire color of the car from like gold/champaign look to like a dark blue or black? Would good paint jobs for the entire car cost like 2 grand?

Remember that if you change the exterior color, the OEM color will still appear on the undercarraige, in the engine bay, etc. Even if it may look nice, it might make people suspicious as to why the car was repainted if you try to sell it. When I see a repainted car, I always assume it was in a wreck (unless it is a classic). Therefore, if you are going to do it, I think it is best to not be so obvious about it.

Yes I would figure the vaule of the car would go down.

so juddz, let me know what they quote you at, i'm always curious to see how well they threat the people i send there, i used to personally bring people there all the time and their quotes were consistantly 100's less than the cheapest quote they had gotten thus-far, and i haven't heard anyone complain about a quote they got their since i stopped going in...

- James

hypothetically the value should go up, if the paint job is good, but if you can show that the body panels all match up perfect, and that all the framework is in its original state, proving the car has never been in a wreck shouldn't be terribly hard... my biggest concern with color changing is the engine bay/door stops/under interior panels, things like that, i just think it looks really tacky personally...

It only looks tacky if you get a crappy job done.... Its not too hard to get the door panels/stops, etc painted, but yet again, a different color engine bay isn't too bad either... if its done right.

simply put, a good paint job will never come cheap. how nice are you looking to spend?