Looking into having 77 vette stripped and painted , any ideas on cost for a real nice job ?

 

Define "real nice". Show car finish? $10K.

Really nice? $5K

Driver? $3K

Maaco? $150.

 

That sounds about right. My ‘78 is a driven car and I spent about 4k, but knowing in 10 to 15 years I will need to paint it again.

 

i was quoted 65-7000 depending on how much glass repair was needed...

 

Mine was completed back in March for about $7000...it was close to show quality but I drive the hell out of my car...It's my main mode of transportation, so i'm already seeing a few hairline cracks coming up around the gas cap and other areas. The stress cracks are inevitable if you actually drive your vette, my car especially since it's the original 36 year old fiberglass
this is a picture taken just after i picked up the car from paint.


You just need to pick a price/quality based on your use of your car and what you're willing to watch deteriorate.

 

Looks awesome! and thats great advice too.

 

one other little tip is when you go pick up your car when the paint job is completed it may be hard to make yourself look for potential problems just because you're so amazed by the change

one specific thing I would check is that components like the hood that were taken off to be painted open and close without rubbing...I didnt notice until months later but one corner of my hood would rub when i closed it and now there's about a 1 in. chip there on the edge

also...if you're body is all original with no damage - ie. you can see the seems where the panels were put together at the factory - make sure you tell them not to touch that area. If they leave the seams alone, they wont be visible immediately after the job but after the sun hits the paint for a while, they're eventually reappear

ALSO...if the painter is taking longer to finish than he originally projected, my advice is to just call weekly to check in and if he continues to take a long time, just talk to him about working with you on price...if you get all angry and demand it finished soon you run the risk of them becomming annoyed and rushing and not truly caring about doing their best job. If you're reasonable and ask them to work with you, they will...especially if you call it to their attention that you will be spreading the word about the work they did...
hah...i kept having more thoughts....if anymore pop up ill let ya know

 

I disagree on not repairing the seams. These are adhesive joints which shrink at a faster rate than f'glass, as it has no glass content. Also, as the adhesive shrinks, it cracks. My business always repairs the cracks and shrinkage, how would I explain to the customer who just spent $10,000 on a top-line resto paint that this is the way we do it? The factory didn't deliver it with shrinkage, neither do we....BTW, for the purists, in about 10 years, the seams will start to re-apper...lol

 

Don't take the cheapest price, it's what's under the paint job that makes or breaks it.
My new paint job, $5000.00 with no glass work at all. All fiberglass work was done at an extra cost.
Just keep in mind, find a paint shop that does alot of fiberglass painting, mine was painted by a shop that only does Corvettes.

 

$4000 to $8000 depending on condition of the car.

 

My 76 was quoted at $5200 and that doesn't include stripping it down to the glass.

 

You get what you pay for usually, especially if from a known quality shop.

My 73 came off the showroom floor Orange Metallic, but I was told the owner had it painted right away to Pearl Opalescent with airbrushed graphics and did the custom interior. Don't know who he had do it or what it cost him, but he obviously got a very good job. Here it is almost 33 years and 96K miles later, and except for a few small rock chips and the very start of some spiderwebbing on the front bumper point, it still is in excellent condition (everything on the car is). I have most of the paper trail for it, know it has been garaged all its life and very well taken care of, but who ever painted it and did the interior sure did a great job. Still trying to find the original owner to find out who he had do the work - want them to do the touch-ups for me if they are still in business.

 

I bet it is painted with IMRON, a paint popular with custom shops in the 70's, but very unpopular with the E.P.A......lol..I have used it, it is almost bulletproof, beign a true polyurethane. Nice 70's theme paint job.

 

I'm figuring around 7K by the time it leaves the shop.

 

$10k. Vert's still in the paint shop (specialize in Vette's only). My gut tells me I'm being hosed. We'll see......

 

Thats a lot of coin, but your cars sure do look good.

 

Thanks for the suggestion Gary. I do remember IMRON, and "bulletproof" seems to fit considering how well it has held up. Paint info I had was from the last owner, so he could easily have gotten incorrect info handed down to him. I'm the 5th owner of this ride - and have the names and addresses of all of the others. Was bought new in Las Vegas, on to MN, OR and WA before coming back to Vegas. BTW, used to see a lot of rods, muscle cars and HA bikes with similar paint schemes at the Oakland Roadster Show's in the late 60's to mid 70's, so it is period correct.

 

While these prices ($3000 - $12000) for a Vette paint job may seem outrageous, remember that the majority of that is labor. Even using the most expensive of paints, all of the materials (primer, catalyst, paint, reducer, Clear coat if you are using it) should run no more than $2000. All of the material to paint my car - 71 convertible with matching hardtop (black urethane, no clear coat) was less than $600. If you are changing color on a chrome bumper car, you are talking in excess of 100 hours to remove bumpers, door handles, interior door panels, weatherstrip, tail; lights, headlight bezels, doors and hoods, and properly prepare them for painting (chemical stripper or razor and sand paper). Even if the shop rate is only $25 an hour, you are in $2500 before you even buy the paint. Primer, wet sand, seal, and paint time for that really deep gloss look can be up to 200 hours. More with multicolor paint jobs or graphics. Then polishing up the finish, and reinstalling everything, aligning hood, doors, convertible decklid, bumpers etc. another 50 - 60 hours. There isn't much profit even in a real $12000 paint job.

The cheaper the job, the more that prep time gets left out. Instead of removing weatherstrip and hardware its just taped off. Door jambs aren't stripped, they are just scuffed up with some scotch brite to give them a little tooth to hold the paint. Emblems and bumpers taped off. After a cheap paint job, you will find numerous imperfections from the shortcuts in preparation. Commonly you will find overspray on parts that should have been taped or removed (bumpers, tires, wheel wells, door panels) You will find stray pieces of tape on the emblems bumpers, weatherstrip, and peekaboo old paint where the prep guy rushed the taping job. And of course at the $189.95 paint job places, you will probably find painted emblems, no evidence of sanding or even washing the car before painting and paint so cheap, it won' t last till the first car wash.

Like most the other stuff associated with our toys though, you can do it yourself. Take your time, don't rush, ask lots of questions.

Orville

 

Hey, if yours is a driver get her of that trailer!

Just kidding your car looks great!

 

I had my car painted this year at what I consider to be a very reputable shop here in Dallas. When I first thought about painting the car I had guessed I could get a fairly nice job for ~$2000. For a driver quaility job I found it was more like $3500 with a limited warranty on the paint. The main difference was how far they would strip the current layers down to, re-gelcoat or not, etc. With the cheaper job they would only sand it down so far before applying the new paint and I found the limited warranty within reason because they can't vouch for any previous paint/body work done to the car not causing problems down the road since they're painting over it.

I opted for a better job and the base cost was about $5500 to take it all the way down, clean it up and refinish with a long term warranty (covering the blistering, peeling etc, but obviously not chips or stress cracks which are inevitable at some point).

Both prices include taking all appropriate items off of the car and doing it right. Ex. the door handles, trim, etc. get removed and reassembled, NOT just taped and painted around.

For absolute show quality, you'll probably pay more like at least $10000.

In the end I ended up paying closer to $7000 all together by the time I added in new emblems, new door handles, replacing all sorts of wear and tear items while the doors are out (my auto door locks now work better than they've worked in 20 years) etc. You might not opt to do all of that, but if your car needs any of these things it can be worth it when you're spending that much on paint. It's was also worth it because he included labor for tear down and reassebly in the cost of the paint so it didn't cost any extra labor to have things like new door handles installed instead of the old ones as he was putting it back together.

I'm very satisfied with the job he did and even when I took it back to him to take care of a list of minor points I noticed he took care of all of them without so much as one disagreement.

Now the bad news. It SUCKS when you have an expensive new paint job and you actually DRIVE the car because you WILL get chips and scratches in it. That first scratch especially is a BITCH!!
Hehe...

Scratching or chipping it when you're not driving it is even worse!

Last night I came home from work to find my wife and father-in-law waiting to speak with me. At first I thought someone had died and they were going to give me the news. Turns out my father-in-law was over at our house to help my wife with a few things while I was at work. He went to use my air compressor in the garage to inflate something and the hose shot off the compressor at the quick release and hit my vette's left headlight door putting a fairly small, but very deep and noticable chip in it that looks like it goes all the way down to the gelcoat (my car is dark blue metallic and the chip is now white). I even had a cover on the car which probably helped keep the piece from scratching my car as it slid accross the hood after impact, but the initial hit was still hard enough to cause the deep chip.

I told him it was "OK" and not to beat himself up because it's "just a car", but needless to say I was biting my tongue, had a bad night, and am still not very happy regardless of blame. As for the way my father-in-law felt, I actually felt bad for him. He knows how much time I spend working and talking about this car and I could tell how much it upset him to do something like that. At one point as he was telling me he even he even looked teary eyed. I'm still mad about the chip, but just can't be mad at him on a personal level. He didn't mean to.

Oh well, such is life...
The overall paint still looks good, and I'll touch up the chip somehow.

Sorry for the long winded response. I suppose I'm venting a little over what happened yesterday.

To sum it up I'll just say a new, nice, paint job is the most dramatic improvement you can make to an old vette's appearance and it's worth every penny if you get it done right. I can't tell you how much more time I spend on my car now that it's so nice to look at. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, though I hope I don't have to go down that road any time again soon...hehe