If you're anything like us, you hate performing bodywork on your car. Hours and hours spent cutting, welding, sanding, and inhaling huge volumes of body filler dust has just never seemed appealing. In fact, the only people we've met who really seem to enjoy bodywork are those who do it for a living. These select few have amazing patience and the ability to spend hours block-sanding a single panel to absolute perfection. It also takes a certain touch to be able to "feel" the imperfections in a body panel. For whatever reason, we've just never developed the skills it takes to prep and paint a car to look better than new. This, however, is only the first part of our problem. Our second issue is we're too cheap to pay a ridiculous amount of money for a show-quality paint job. Fortunately, we've developed some skills over the years, which allow us to get the most out of our paint job by doing a certain portion of the work ourselves and picking a good shop to do the rest. Follow along, and we'll share how you can get the most out of your paint job no matter what your budget.
The subject for this article is our '69 Coronet 500 convertible. You may remember this vehicle as being involved in an accident while being towed behind a friend's truck. The accident left several areas on the car crumpled. Upon closer inspection, however, we decided that a full paint job, rather than spot repairs, was in order. We struck a deal with J.D.'s Paint and body in Mulberry, Florida, to repair and paint the entire car. This brings us to the first step in getting the most for your money when having a car painted-getting a fair estimate.
Pay For Bodywork, Not Mechanical Work
Remember that when a paint shop gives you an estimate to paint your car, the biggest part of the estimate is usually the labor. If the actual paint and supplies are deducted from the estimate, the remaining amount can be divided into the business' shop rate, which will tell how many hours they are estimating they will spend on your car. Also remember it takes a significant amount of time to remove emblems, bumpers, lights, and trim from the vehicle to prepare it for the bodywork. While we don't enjoy doing actual bodywork, we can save ourselves some money by removing all the necessary items before the car goes into the shop. We even remove the car's interior so the body shop won't have to spend any unnecessary time taping this area off or worrying about cleaning up overspray. This ensures the money we're paying is to do bodywork, not the stuff we can do ourselves.
A second benefit of removing the trim and associated hardware ourselves is that we expose areas prone to rust. Window channels, wheel lip moldings, and chrome trim can all trap dirt and moisture leading to hidden rust issues. Hidden rust can add significantly to the cost of the paint job if it's not factored into the initial estimate, so we'd rather expose any areas now and know what we're in for. Our Coronet had rusty areas around the bolt holes holding the tailpanel trim to the car that would have never been seen if we hadn't removed the panel before taking the car to the paint shop. With these areas exposed, our estimator can better evaluate the amount of work that will be needed and give us a more accurate estimate.
Before taking our car to the paint shop, we stripped it of its emblems, bumpers, lights, and trim, saving ourselves money by paying for just the bodywork, not the mechanical work necessary to get the car ready for bodywork. |
By removing the tailpanel trim, we exposed the rust underneath so it could be properly evaluated when we got our estimate. We'd rather know upfront where we're going to spend money than to be surprised later. |
Since both our front fenders were damaged and would need to be replaced, we went ahead and pulled them off the car. This will save us the cost of paying the paint shop to do it. |
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