Any recent experience with RDU area body shops?

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Fri Feb 01, 2013 1:40 pm

The story so far:

I've been to Northside Auto Body, at Trawick and Capital in Raleigh. That place has been there for decades, every time I go see my mom, I drive by it. He told me he'd want to disassemble the entire car, and it could be upwards of $5K. He didn't seem interested in meeting me somewhere in the middle, so I took a pass. Nice guy though, with good reviews on Yelp.

Next, I went to the Maaco in Cary. The estimator there didn't seem to know very much about the car, which is fair enough, since it may be as old as she is. :lol:

For instance, the lower cladding and the bumpers was shot with kind of a semi gloss finish from the factory. When I asked if they could do that, she was totally stumped by why I wouldn't want it to be shiny. But she brought out one of the painters, and he said they could do something like that in semi gloss. Anyway, two estimates from them. $1600 for their nice paint, and $2400 for their top of the line job. They use DuPont finishing products there, and I'm still considering using them. I just can't get past the notion of "Maaco is Bad."

I've also stopped in at Johnson Auto Body's estimating center, and that didn't go well. I went inside and the guy greeted me. I told him I was there for an estimate on a full body respray, and he immediately and curtly said "not interested." :roll:

He went on to say that they were so busy that he couldn't commit to doing something like that, but that it could be "at least 2500-3000." When he finally told me that he'd get fired if he took my car in, I told him no thanks, and bailed.

So, I'll keep looking.

Jason Mauldin · **Posted:** Fri Feb 01, 2013 2:06 pm

I just got an estimate from Performance auto in Cary, to repair some storm damage to my Jeep. I'm not certain I'm going to use them yet, but the estimate process went easy. Some coworkers recommended them and their paint looks fine to me.

Donnie Barnes · **Posted:** Fri Feb 01, 2013 3:46 pm

Johnson is a run-of-the-mill crank-it-through insurance job company. Forget them. There's so much built into insurance jobs they just don't care to talk about anything else.

--Donnie

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Mon Feb 04, 2013 9:37 am

Karl,

When you say a full respray, do you mean an all windows/rubber trim and all other trim out/off repaint? I've been pondering repainting our old Volvo wagon we've had since new (17 years now), but I'm really not interested in doing a cheapo job yet I'm not enamored with spending more than the car is worth for a "proper" repaint job. I guess what I'm thinking is that the range of what shops (and people) consider a full repaint is probably very wide. I suspect my expectations would run too high in many cases.

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Mon Feb 04, 2013 10:58 am

Chuck Branscomb wrote:

Karl,

When you say a full respray, do you mean an all windows/rubber trim and all other trim out/off repaint? I've been pondering repainting our old Volvo wagon we've had since new (17 years now), but I'm really not interested in doing a cheapo job yet I'm not enamored with spending more than the car is worth for a "proper" repaint job. I guess what I'm thinking is that the range of what shops (and people) consider a full repaint is probably very wide. I suspect my expectations would run too high in many cases.

Chuck, yes, that's exactly what I have in mind, and it sounds like you and I are in the exact same spot. We've got cars that we both like very much, and would like to get repainted properly, but a paint job up to our standards could easily exceed the value of the car.

I was thinking I would remove everything from the car that I possibly can, with the exception of maybe one door handle, so I can get in and out. Grill, wiper, lower cladding, lights, bumpers, badges, and the "water deflectors" on the roof, since they're held on mostly with 20 year old clips that will certainly shatter if I look at them wrong. I can pretty easily get some sacrificial weatherstripping for the doors and sunroof, if I need it. I don't need the jambs or the engine bay sprayed.

I'd convinced myself to give Maaco in Cary a chance. Then a Nissan Murano, painted purple, with more texture in the paint than a topo map drove by me. And I thought, that'd be just my luck to get that. On Thursday, I'm taking it to Rocky's Auto Body in Efland. He does a lot of race car work, and I've seen one of his high end jobs, heck, I prepared that car for a PCA concours a few years ago. The paint looked outstanding, so I know he can do work that's better than "race car paint job."

This weekend, a family acquiantance (Ed Joyner) in Wake Forest quoted me two prices. $900-1000 to repaint both bumpers and fix the rust. $4000+ for a full repaint. At the moment, I think the $900-1000 option is my leader.

Haven't gotten it over to Cary Auto Body yet. They're on my list to call.

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Mon Feb 04, 2013 11:14 am

Sounds good. I'm looking forward to who you select and the job outcome as I may follow that lead.

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Mon Feb 04, 2013 11:52 am

I've wondered about places that advertise on Craigslist. I'm hunting around in there now.

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

When my Miata was totaled, LRR gave the car to Rocky's to pull the rear QP and primer it. They did fantastic work and I've been 100% happy with it.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Mon Feb 04, 2013 1:58 pm

I know that this is not something many would consider but...

Have you considered doing it yourself? I say this having never painted a car, but with full intention of doing the 914 myself when I am ready for paint. I "have" painted a few small things using a cheap HF HVLP gun and it's actually not that hard to get good results. As they say it is 90% prep and 10% everything else. If you are considering doing a lot of the work to pull stuff off, and you have knack of detail, it can be done (so says the internet).

1. Buy a decent, but mid-line/starter paint gun(s)
2. Buy some old hoods, etc. from a junkyard and practice on them.
3. Strip and prep car in your garage.
4. Pick the right day and spray car either in your garage (home built booth) or in your driveway.
5. Don't like the outcome? Debug cause and redo
6. Keep or resell the gun when done
7. Profit!

Richard

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Mon Feb 04, 2013 2:54 pm

Richard Casto wrote:

I know that this is not something many would consider but...

Have you considered doing it yourself? I say this having never painted a car, but with full intention of doing the 914 myself when I am ready for paint. I "have" painted a few small things using a cheap HF HVLP gun and it's actually not that hard to get good results. As they say it is 90% prep and 10% everything else. If you are considering doing a lot of the work to pull stuff off, and you have knack of detail, it can be done (so says the internet).

1. Buy a decent, but mid-line/starter paint gun(s)
2. Buy some old hoods, etc. from a junkyard and practice on them.
3. Strip and prep car in your garage.
4. Pick the right day and spray car either in your garage (home built booth) or in your driveway.
5. Don't like the outcome? Debug cause and redo
6. Keep or resell the gun when done
7. Profit!

Richard

A man has to know his limitations.

Especially with mine needing some body work. The handful of times I've tried to paint something based on instructions on the internet, it looked like my 8 year old niece did it.

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

Did you try to hang it on your refrigerator afterwards?

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Mon Feb 04, 2013 3:25 pm

Karl Shultz wrote:

A man has to know his limitations.

I totally understand that! There are very few mechanical/repair/project tasks I wouldn't try to do myself (At least once just for the experience.) I recently decided I would rebuild the automatic transmission in my Honda Odyssey by myself. It generally went OK, but in the end had an issue that I decided I didn't have the time to debug and had someone else fix. So... I am unlikely to try that again!

But I am always encouraging people to try stuff themselves. I had a co-worker talking to me this morning about the headaches (mostly cost) he was having of having a new dishwasher and sink garbage disposer installed. It was too late for him, but he should have considered a self install and saved himself lots of money.

Richard

Brett_Murphy · **Joined:** Thu Jan 12, 2012 2:02 pm **Posts:** 355

A tree limb just broke the back window and dented the hatch on my Forester.

I'm debating getting the body work done vs. just picking up another same-color hatch from a junkyard. Resale isn't an issue, since I really never intend to sell the car.

This thread has helped out a bit. I'll ask the Maaco down the way what they want for the work and go from there, but I'm betting that a salvage yard hatch is going to be the cheaper option.

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Mon Apr 08, 2013 4:37 pm

Brett_Murphy wrote:

A tree limb just broke the back window and dented the hatch on my Forester.

I'm debating getting the body work done vs. just picking up another same-color hatch from a junkyard. Resale isn't an issue, since I really never intend to sell the car.

This thread has helped out a bit. I'll ask the Maaco down the way what they want for the work and go from there, but I'm betting that a salvage yard hatch is going to be the cheaper option.

Try for the junkyard hatch even if it's more expensive. Factory paint will always be a better match than non-factory, whether it's Maaco, Paragon, or whoever.

The paint on my Mercedes is getting worse. I can see the checking beginning on the lower half - clearly this is the reason the P.O. had the work done that she did, it just took longer to show itself on the sides of the car. At this point I'm worried that to get something worthwhile, the car will have to be taken down to bare metal.

Charlie Guthrie · **Joined:** Thu Aug 28, 2003 8:14 pm **Posts:** 832

Karl wrote:

Quote:

I can see the checking beginning on the lower half ... At this point I'm worried that to get something worthwhile, the car will have to be taken down to bare metal.

It has been my experience that once a paint job starts to check the problem goes right through the primer. The last car I painted was my Datsun 280Z that had been silver, but was checked on most horizontal surfaces. I sanded through all of the color coat and slightly into the primer believing that the factory dipped primer would still be better than aftermarket application. The shiny new red paint looked pretty good, but it was still possible to see areas where the checking persisted. Basically it just wasn't possible to tell in advance that there were still checks in the primer after it was sanded down to almost transparent.
That was a long time ago, but there are still some things in my garage that bear the red paint color. I built a plastic spray booth with a fan pressurizing the room blowing out under the garage door, but a seam came apart and allowed the paint into the garage outside the plastic. I guess I should have sacrificed the fan and let it suck air out of the room, but I worried that the electric fan could pose a fire hazard if it was in the fumes, and it was our white plastic window fan that I didn't want becoming red.
Good luck with your refinishing.
Charlie G

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