paint job
 

Quick question how much would it cost for a decent solid color paint job on an intire car? any body have some educated numbers they could throw me. Thanks

paint jobs are very very expensive in general.. for a paint job that will last you and will look "close" to factory quality (nothing will ever be as good as factory (well unless you chose one of the colors that will fade over time haha.. but who cares about the car like 5+ years down the road usually, anyway..) you're looking at $2,000-5,000 for a whole car (depending on if somebodys hooking you up or if it's a commercial shop).. paint jobs that are amazing can run well over $8,000

$2000 would usually be a high quality basic factory non-mica color paint job but basic strip and spray and might or might not include the doorjams, under hood, under trunk, engine bay.. expensive $4000+ paint job might include painting inside engine bay areas, complete repaint of every spot on car which was previously painted, many basecoats, pearl colors, lots of clearcoat layers, etc..

the cheapest I know of around here is some guy I know from a former co-worker of mine, who works at a body shop but does custom stuff and minor collision damage on the side at his home a hookup price of a VERY high quality respray of a factory color is $1,500 (very very good results but not under hood, not door jambs, not under trunk), or $3,500 for a fancy (not engine bay not door jambs) pearl paint job in any custom color except chameleon, using dupont paints..

there is no average price, you have to go shopping around your area to get a real idea :D

more so than anything else with cars, you get what you pay for

good luck

good versus bad
 

Yup, there is lots of variability in paint job quality, and that is reflected in the price.

I took my '93 Pro to a body shop for a quote because it had a lot of chips and scratches, and the guy said it'd cost way more to paint it than the car is worth -- over $2000. He said it's because they take off everything they can (door handles, trim, etc) and mask off the rest, then paint everything.

He said it would be far cheaper just to paint the panels that were the worst -- in my case all four doors and one front fender. He said they can do a good job of matching paint, even if it has faded. But it'd still be a grand.

The big national chains advertise prices under $200, but I think they just tape up everything and spray the sucker.

This is apparently what Mazda did to the Mazda 6 demo they brought to the Cleveland auto show! It was blue, but it had clearly been previously yellow, judging from what was showing through around the gas tank door and other spots.