Folks, I'm in a quandary right now. I've done a heap of work getting all the rust cut out of the 1980 Fiat Spider 2000 (Sofia), new metal worked in, and epoxy primed and undercoated the bottom. I've stripped and epoxy primed the passenger and engine compartments and the trunk and windshield valance too. Question is: now that the body is ready-to-go into the paint cycle, what is a reasonable cost for a professional to do the work of finishing the body work and painting? So far (given the state the car's in today, I've heard estimates ranging from $6000-$8500. Now, that's assuming I do NONE of the body work myself (which, of course, they wouldn't trust anyway - maybe neither would I). Here are a few photos of the state of the car at this point:

The engine compartment is stripped and epoxy primed.


The entire bottom was stripped, repaired and epoxy primed just prior to undercoating.


This is the view from under the transmission tunnel showing the undercoating on the bottom, but not on the engine compartment walls where it'll get body color.


The engine compartment after priming with epoxy.


The rear fenders were repaired and inner fenders replaced.




Some PO had bored an additional hole for the antenna and just bondo'd up the extra. I replaced with metal but haven't leveled it out yet.


The car had been repainted before and there was a slight dent in the right hand fender.

I've heard labor costs from $48-$65/hour. There are some shops that would work with me to get the body work done and probably charge less. However, I've been warned about some of the lower-end shops that would indeed charge less, but would get distracted when an insurance job comes along and your project languishes for months. I'm inclined to shy away from the cheapo shops like Earl Sch*****, but I may be totally wrong about it. Most shops estimate between 80-120 hours to get ready for paint, then the finishing work afterwards. And, they estimate $1000-1500 just for the materials.

Now, I know I'll never realize the value of the work and expense I put into it if I consider it an investment to turn around and sell. I still have a big expense coming for upholstery and a new top once the paint is all done. Hopefully, the engine and running gear are all done by now.

So, what have your experiences been with paint? Anyone done it themselves? Hired a moonlighter? Some other solution?

My bodyshop close to me charges me $40/hr. I'm not rushing them though, and they've had the car for a couple of months while they finish up my bodywork attempts and desires. It heads into paint this week. Yes, insurance jobs do usurp my wee beastie - however - they're doing a really nice job, so I'm less concerned.

Given the condition of yours (completely stripped, much of the bodywork done) then $6000+ does sound a little rich, although I can see how it could mount up. Let's assume two weeks of bodywork, just the filling and smoothing of every single panel can take a long time. That would run 3200-4000 in labor. Then add on paint, booth time, materials, that could be another $1000-1500, and finally some level of profit and taxes... easy to see how it could add up.

I've seen some Maaco paint that looks ok, and I've seen some that's awful. IMHO, it's all about the preparation - that's the labor intensive piece, and is the difference between a car that looks like a finely fettered piece of italian motoring.... or a badly painted run around. I'm willing to save my pennies up to get someone who knows what they're doing (i.e. not me!) to make my baby look good.

I took mine to a body shop a friend had a relationship with. It was completely stripped, motor out. Much like yours except the wheels were still on it so it could be pushed around, and I hadn't stripped any paint. I only had minor body work: the driver floor patched, the holes in the trunk where the rack was mounted filled. I did not prime or do any prep work before bringing it over.

I dropped it off in October, told him to work on it as background/filler work when he was slow and it wasn't done until April (added benefit - freed up room in the garage over the winter!). Total cost $3400 - although he did grouse a little about how it took more than he expected.

A lot depends on where you are, labor costs in the area, the overhead rates of the shop, etc. This was a guy in western Massachusetts with a small shop and not much overhead.

Given that you've done a lot of the work already over $6,000 sounds like a lot.

I took mine to Miracle Auto Paint. They paint entire cars all the time; most body shops can't be bothered. They welded up the holes where the bump strips had been attached to the doors and quarter panels. Replaced a rusted door sill. Smoothed out some dents in the lower front corners, along the panel below a door, some other small dings. Sanded and blocked the entire car. Changed the color so they painted the trunk, engine bay, door jams. Paint is metallic urethane with clear coat. Price was $3200. Time was almost a month.

I have received a lot of compliments on it. In fact my upholstery shop is very impressed with the paint job. I am very satisfied. Is it perfect? No. I doubt many are. Do you want a driver? or a concourse car?
Ask around your area and look for shops that have the older cars out front. Doing your homework now will save you from a lot of frustration later.

BTW, I stripped as much of the car as I could to prep it for painting:

I couldn't find anyone to paint mine a couple years ago. I finally found a local shop with a good rep where the owner was getting ready to retire and was selling the shop to a couple employees. I think he took pity on me and talked with me about what he would feel comfortable doing. I ended up removing all the trim And actually drove the car 5 miles to his shop. He repaired one small rust spot, filled in the antenna hole and license plate light holes, and smoothed out the wavy front fenders. The repainted was the original color, so there was no door jambs or engine bay to worry about. He only charged me $1800. It's not a show car, but it looks much better than it did.

I payed $2300 in 1999. and not perfect,it had a run and a spot where it bubbled

I do this for a living. the going rate for a small sports car with minor body work is about 5K these days here in the SF Bay Area region. Nearly $1000 will go into materials cost, especially if you use the better paints and primers. If you brought me a car in final primer with a day or two of final wet sanding, masking, and painting inside and out, color sand and polish, it would be in the $3500 range.

I also do this for a living and spend most of my day prepping and masking cars. Most big shops like mine won't mess with restoration because they generally don't pay well and take much longer which can bog down their techs. When you find a shop that'll do it, its important that you strip the car down IMO because then the shop and you will know exactly what their getting into, because there are cars like mine-literally every single panel had been painted several times and had the thickest Bando I'd ever dreamed of. And my car showed signs of some rust but it looked pretty darn straight until I stripped it and found HUGE dents that were just filled and really poor welds that were eventually going to fail.
So my car turned out to be easily 4 times the body labor if not more in all honesty. (just finishing that up nowadays)

Depending on your comfort level you can totally do a good bulk of work yourself body and prep-wise. Most body shops will paint your car if you prep it but will remove the lifetime warranty on their paint because almost all paint failures stem from poor prepping. With that said though- its almost always because it wasn't scuffed completely or because it wasn't completely cleaned with degreaser and water based cleaner just prior to paint.(the paint shop will do this not you)

I completely agree that it will cost you around 1000 to 1500 in materials and probably a grand or so more to paint and polish a spider complete if it were completely ready to go and already finish sanded in 600 DA or 500 wet sand.

PLEASE NEVER TAKE YOUR CAR TO MAACO. Haha I know the prices are tempting but you and your car deserve so much better! Seriously id have more faith in some cousin painting my car in a garage then I would in Maaco!!

PS Andy -nice to see that somebody still wet sands out there!

I find that the ones I care least about generally come out the best. Not sure of the why about that but it happens to friends also.

One buddy of mine was going to a car show and thought the 49 International flatbed truck that he used for transport the car was looking too shabby so he cleaned it up while dead on his feet tired from getting the show car ready and just shot a fresh coat of red on the truck cab and black on the flat bed. The car didn't win anything but the truck won first prize for a work truck still in service.

Stay away from Electro Fake (Oops I mean Bake). I had them shoot an old mini van and the paint didn't last a complete year. Since the warranty was from the local franchise which switched affiliation and reincorporated before the warranty was up corporate would not honor it so the warranty was not worth the paper it was printed on.

I had a very high end paint job with modifications to every panel except the passenger door, it came to 9 k. I had done a lot of the mods prior to paint but the body/ paint guy blended them in.....you definately get what you pay for!!

AndyS wrote:I do this for a living. the going rate for a small sports car with minor body work is about 5K these days here in the SF Bay Area region. Nearly $1000 will go into materials cost, especially if you use the better paints and primers. If you brought me a car in final primer with a day or two of final wet sanding, masking, and painting inside and out, color sand and polish, it would be in the $3500 range.

My experience matches AndyS. I live in the Charlotte area. I had to go to 3 different shops to find someone that wanted to work on it. I had already stripped to bare-metal, straightened and filled, primed and sanded, then final primed. They did final sand and 2-stage color and clear with sikkens paint. The shop was slow at the time and their finish and paint guys didn't have anything to do. We rolled it off the trailer and they went right to work. They finished in two weeks. Final cost $3500. Every piece was perfect except the decklid. There were some waves in the body work (my fault) and a bubble under the paint (their fault). He offered to redo the panel and fix both problems but for an extra charge. I felt these were very minor, so I'll live with them.

Before:



Coming Home:



After:



The biggest problem was finding someone who was willing to paint it. Most didn't want to mess with painting the whole car. One didn't trust my bodywork and wanted to redo all my work...

Thanks everyone! I'm still searching for the ideal shop to paint my car. I'm still working on final preparation of the body and doors, etc. so still have time to complete my search. I plan to put the body on a gurney which I'll build myself out of steel tubing so I can work on it and easily move it around in my small garage space. I'm guessing that I'll transport the body to the paint shop on the gurney instead of putting it on the suspension. Probably have to borrow/rent a flatbed trailer - maybe the shop I pick will have one I can use.

1: undrbody is rustproofed. if i were you. i'd use some sort of sealant on all the seems. this way you'll stop the wather getting in betweel overlapping pieces of metal. WURTH k+d was sealant i chose, but there are lots of others available

http://www.transbond.com.au/pdfs/Merben ... Charts.pdf

2: i don't know where you guys get your paints, fillers etc, but i just bought everything needed for prepping and painting a WHOLE 1971 spider, inside and out, and it cost me 550$. LECHLER fillers, sandpaper of several diferent grades, masking tapes, filters, de-greasers, thinners, RM rosso chiaro paint, 2.5 sets of it... and i paid retail prices, not wholesale like all big paintshops do.

if you're unfamilliar with brands i'm talking about, google it. paints and fillers don't get any better than these

http://www.lechler.eu/en/
http://www.rmpaint.com/

Hi,

A guy who works for me just stripped and painted my 81 spider.

The car was original with some paint touch ups done by the original dealer.

Car had never been driven in wet weather and was rust proofed when new.

We took the doors, trunk, hood, lower rockers and rear lower panels off.

Car was stripped using chemical strippers and lacquer thinner.

Two part epoxy primed, block sanded, then painted PPG with Toyota 4U3 metallic brown, very close match to the original.

Three coats of aircraft two component urethane and two weeks of polishing.

Materials alone were $2300.

He charged me $4200 for the job, and it is perfect!

I had quotes ranging from $3k-$8k.

The PPG paint costs $250/quart with discount, about $350/qt retail. Took 3 quarts.

I have a set of CD134 turbo rims in for powder coat.

I just need to re dye the door trim to match the seats (redone in cream leather and vinyl)

Last will be a new cloth top from auto berry.com.

With the purchase price at $4300+paint interior mechanicals konis etc. I'll be into the car for about $14,000 when finished.

About $4k above my original plan, but the car will be close to perfect.


Unfortunately, I can't seem to load up the pre and post pics. If you send me your email, I can send pics.

Will