maaco paint. good or bad

Dunckel

Active Member
Jan 16, 2007
2,949
0
36
43
Spokane, WA
i was just wondering if anybody has seen or has heard stories of maaco paint jobs, good or bad. $200 seems really cheap for a paint job.
 

bigaaron

Supramania Contributor
Apr 12, 2005
4,692
1
0
49
Pomona, CA
www.driftmotion.com
I know Earl Scheib uses a good quality paint that they manufacture. Macco doesn't have as good of a quality paint but they seem to do a little better prep work. For $200 I would not expect much. You want to get a clear coat and have it color sanded, but the color sanding they don't all do anymore.
The $200 Macco paint will be a cheap synthetic that will fade in about a year, but for the price you could just paint it once a year LOL
 
Last edited:

AF1JZ

Almost civilian status...
Jun 26, 2006
3,109
0
0
Fredericksburg, VA
bigaaron said:
The $200 Macco paint will be a cheap synthetic that will fade in about a year, but for the price you could just paint it once a year LOL

Pretty much good enough to sell a car :naughty:
 

ChadMKIII

Yup, Thats The G/F
Jul 14, 2006
369
0
0
34
Bay Area, Ca
Ugh. No way.

Unless you take Aaron's advice and plan to go back every year, I would DEFINITELY NOT get a Maaco job.

Just, no.
 

HIDPLANET

89 1JZGTE
They put on a paper thin coat of their paint and do little body work so you can imagine that it wont turn out very nice. If its just to sell the car or make it look better but not expecting too much, you can do 1 day paint and body.
 

supra90turbo

shaeff is FTMFW!
Mar 30, 2005
6,152
32
48
40
MA, 01440
Here's the deal. Maaco is good!
However, you must do many things in order for them to be good.

1: Prep the car yourself. Prep it thoroughly, and do a good job.
2: Remove everything that needs to be removed.
3: Tape everything that needs to be taped. Windows, wheels, wheelwells, gas tank... everything. If you look at something and say "i dont want paint on that" tape it off and cover it with paper!

Basically do everything except paint it. They will paint it, and you can even bring your own paint.

The problem with Maaco is they have a set amount of supplies that they are "allowed" to use per job, they are also limited in terms of time spent on the vehicle..
The good thing about Maaco is the painters there are actually very good. Since they paint so many cars, they have very steady hands, and will lay down a smooth coat.

So the deal with Maaco in a nutshell: Choose the cheapest paint job available.
Do all the prep yourself, and all you're paying for is to have them spray the car, and since all the time that would be spent prepping it is not necessary, they can take longer to paint the car thoroughly and make it come out great.

fwiw, there are a few threads on this already, but i felt like typing all of this out. lol
 

MKIIINA

Destroyer of Turbos
Mar 30, 2005
1,825
0
36
41
Plano, TX
my brothers car was painted by earl schieb. it went well overall but like stated above my brother did alot of the prep work. there were some things that could have been done better but overall not too bad. it cost us about $800 or so total. get the warranty. they did some body work on the car (dent in the hood) and i know had to do a fair amount of work on some parts where the clear and paint had gone to pot almost down to the metal. it has a 6 year warranty for workmanship and a lifetime on fading. we took it back after a year to have some minor touch up work done.


bottom line its not a bad deal especially if its just to sell a car or if you tell them to use factory paint (will cost a little more but its correct)
 

bigaaron

Supramania Contributor
Apr 12, 2005
4,692
1
0
49
Pomona, CA
www.driftmotion.com
I had my 88 4runner done at Earl Scheib, and after several years the paint still shined like new. The only complaint I has was they didn't sand off the old stock paint stripes well and in the right light from an angle you could see the outlines of the stripes in the paint. Otherwise it was well worth the $800 or so that it cost including some dent repair and clearcoat. Their 6 year paint job is really quite good for the money. I removed all the mouldings and door handles and bumpers myself, which really made a big difference overall when it was done.