Maaco Paint Jobs?
 

you get what you pay for.

If Maaco is your ONLY option, read up and do all the prep work yourself. Curious to how much are they quoted you?

If your miata is a 90/91 and is white, don't pain over it. The new paint will just flake off if with the old paint underneath
Posted via RS Mobile

x2. FWIW, you can get a decent paint job from them (not Concours or OEM quality, but OEM-like to the average person looking at your car) if you do all the prep work yourself. The paint that Maaco uses is pretty across-the-board average; the shoddiness of the work from them IMO comes from lazy prep work. If you have the time and skill to sand down and mask the car yourself, you can probably get good results. At the end of the day, a paint booth is a paint booth, which is better than your garage. You are guaranteed a much better job if you go to Maaco compared to doing it yourself (for 99% of car owners not familiar with painting/prepping/clearcoating).

Also, take the time to sit down with the manager and make it clear which surfaces you want painted and which you don't. The $500 you see in ads is for crap-tier paint; you will pay around $700-$1000 for better quality paint w/ better hardeners, more coatings, clearcoat, etc. which is worth it in my opinion. You'll save on labour costs too, by like I said, masking the car yourself and sanding things down so all the car needs is primer, paint, and clearcoat.

A buddy had an AE86 that he painted black (the original color) there, which IMO is the hardest color to get properly right as it reflects all light and imperfections show really easily. The work wasn't something I'd put on a show car (orange peeling effect under very bright light), but as a DD/occasional track car it was more than decent. Especially considering he paid $750 + taxes for it.

Let me speak from experience, even after paying them far more than was required for prep work...



HAH

HAHHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Don't do it. At all.

See all that rust and Bando? Yeah... they were supposed to cut out all the cancer and weld in a replacement panel from a perfectly good shape donor car. Obviously they didn't and told us they did...

https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hpho..._2362361_n.jpg

Would never have known without someone hitting the exact spot that was allegedly fixed in the first place.

As others have said, you get what you pay for.

Wrap it.

dont be a cheapskate

Srs. If you're willing to prep the body, you'd probably get the best bang for your buck by wrapping it. It's a small car, few seams and no roof.

btw, this looks totally legit :troll:

There's no shortage of options that fit that description out there. Check out Craigslist, for starters. You should also consider simply saving up longer. Paint is not something to cheap out on. If you don't want to look at shitty paint while you save up, you could plasti-dip it or, like Ice Boy suggested, wrap it.

Side note, bolding/changing the colour of the text in every one of your posts makes you look like a bit of an idiot. Let the content of your posts attract attention, rather than making them look different to stand out. Just a tip.

I would consider wrapping, but I don't like the Matte finish. And I guess I could save up longer as well.

Lots of people in the other forum I'm on, bold and change the text, just for fun. Guess it doesn't fly here.

Plasti-dip is a matte finish. Wrap can be matte or gloss, however.

I might just email canawrap and ask for a quote. Hardly any wrapped MX5s out there.

NORMAL FUCKING FONT! WOOHOO!


Figure ~$2000-3000 for a wrap.

by the time you can afford a decent paint job you would probably just want to sell it and buy a newer car.

by the time you can afford a decent wrap job you would probably want to save up a few pennies more and buy a newer car.

You seem young and completely inexperienced, just take your mx5, drive the hell out of it, learn from the community and sell it and buy something you can work with...

Get mm design to wrap it :troll:
Posted via RS Mobile

Wrap is totally DIYable. Perfect weekend summer project for a young, broke guy.
Posted via RS Mobile

Wrap it!

You can choose from any colour under the moon. You know from looking at the vinyl that the film will be identical to that on the car, and with a small car like an MX5 it would be pretty inexpensive.

Yeah if he wants to spend his summer wrapping his ride instead of driving it.

A pro company will turn your car around for you in a few days.

Doing it yourself depends on your patience and devotion to it, even then you can figure having the give atleast the front and rear bumpers to a pro to do if you want it to look good.

At that point you might as well just let them hammer it out for you.

If OP wants an estimate shoot me a PM I can put you in touch with people, or just come talk to me at the next thursday meet (tmrw, or whenever you come by). You can have a look at my FX and we can discuss my experience with wrapping/having my car wrapped.

As Mindbomber said, a wrap job is a perfect diy job for a young broke guy. I mean, if the car is cheap and kinda beat, you can guaranteed make it look better with even a bit of patience. For a nicer car, with nicer paint, I'd say yeah, let the pros do it. Even if its not perfect it will look better than trashed paint. I mean, you can pay someone to wrap it and make it perfect, but on a 3-4k car, I'd rather spend 500 bucks and a weekend with a couple buds and a few 26's

Penney Auto Body on Main and Marine. Not the best quality but definitely not bad at all, considering their low prices.

no it doesn't :suspicious: