I moved to Texas the clear coat on the roof of this car has experienced some serious damage. It only took about a year and a half after the move. This car was garage kept for most of it’s life.
The front of this car looks brand new in the front because the hood, front bumper, and grill were recently replaced after someone lightly backed up into my car in a drive thru.
This car holds sentimental value to me. I would like to restore the paint if it’s not extremely expensive.
A friend recommended going to Maaco. What do you think?
Cheap paint, fast work, low price. Depends on the car. But, if the clear is damaged, you have to also repaint the base coat then the clear. You can’t just replace the clear unless you want it to look spotty.
I’ve heard that body shops do this kind of work every day.
We had to have some repair work (including repainting) on my daughter car earlier this year. What they did was incredible, in terms of matching the new/old paint, etc.
Yeah, ask around for body shop recommendations, do a search on Yelp and Google maps, see which shops come to the head of the list, get 2 or 3 estimates.
Until you actually get it repainted, you can protect what is left with a good coat of wax.
The white spot around where the clear coat is missing is clear coat that has or is in the process of separating from the base. I had this on an old car once. I got some rubbing compound and rubbed these spots out, which was like sanding the clear coat off up to where it still had good adhesion to the base. That got rid of the white rings. Then I waxed it. There was a difference between where the clear coat was worn off and where it was still there but without the white rings, it wasn’t that noticeable.
And the best advice i can give you is, if you have no experience with body finish when it comes to paint, you can end up making the vehicle look much worse than what you started with.
I have had cars painted at MAACO. I did the prep work. The sanding and repair and removing as much trim as practical. The job was OK, not show quality, not even manufacturer quality. Let’s just say it was a 15/15 job. Looked good from 15 feet away driving past at 15 mph.
If MAACO does the prep work, 50/50 is about the best you can hope.
Like Tester says, $1000 won’t buy the materials. If you do much of the prep work, $2000 might get it sprayed with a single stage color coat (no clearcoat). If you want a factory quality job, I’d guess $5000 would do. But these places give free estimates. Go ask for one.
Since you live in Texas … My college chum drove his VW Beetle from Colorado to Mexico and had it repainted there, reduced fee. You’d need a personal recommendation for the Mexican shop.
Back about 1968 my friend bought a surplus highway patrol car. It was maroon but had it painted green by a friend. Next school break he had a new interior. Got it done in Mexico pretty cheap. No dung stuffing or anything. That car was fast for a ford and they never disconnected the rear black out switch.
