hey eveyone
I’ve got a 1991 Mercedes 300E with 175K on it. I can’t kill it. It runs great but looks like s**t. Clearcoat has severe scratches and it really needs a paint job.
I don’t want to spend 3K for a paint job on a car worth 2K.
Anyone have any experience with MAACO?
I hear good and bad
The old saying…“You get what you paid for” They are by any means GREAT. I’ve seen real shoddy work from them…but also seen decent work.
If you’re a real DIY person, you could try what this guy did:
Click on the ‘$50 paint job’ link next to the Corvair photos.
A MAACO paint job may be perfectly fine, as long as you do the prep work. That’s one area where they skimp- proper preparation is very labor-intensive, so you can’t expect much of it as part of a $399 paint job.
Remove the side trim. Depending on the trim level you either have rubber trim running along the sides of the car or you have larger plastic panels that cover the bottom third of the sides of the car. In either case, remove these. Also remove the rubber window trim that is beneath the windows. When the windows are down this removes very easily by jiggling and pulling up–if you don’t you may be surprised to later have rust bubbling out from under these areas because it didn’t get repainted with everything else. Also remove the “300 E” and the Mercedes star emblem from the trunk. Have someone help you remove the trim properly if there’s any question. Then do the other prep work on the exising paint. I would also remove the taillights before painting–on this car it’s fairly easy. With the proper prep work the Maaco job can turn out pretty good.
Actually, it all has to come off for a good paint job. grille, all lamps, all chrome trim, door handles, belt & side mouldings, all badges, mirrors, etc.etc.etc.
I heard all Maaco paint jobs are the same, the only difference is the warranty.
Clear coat is the easiest thing to spray from a can. Sand with 180 grit, clean the dust off and spray to a glossy finish. You might want to use 200 or 220.
I agree with MikeInNH; there’s good and bad both in regards to MAACO.
They have half a dozen different levels of paint jobs and it helps if you do some of the prep work, badge and trim removal, etc.
My feeling is that the paint job would be perfectly acceptable if you do not choose the lowest priced option.
They painted my youngest son’s school car when he was in college and did a decent job.
The opposite of that is my oldest son dropping off a new front air dam (orignal broken off by a raccoon at night) and MAACO offered to ship it to him to save a trip back there. He took them up on it but the problem was that these idiots FOLDED the plastic air dam after painting it and crammed a car width wide part into a box only 3.5 feet long. Not to mention the paint had not cured yet and parts of the new paint was stuck to the inside of the box. (They did refund on this).