Wraps cost about a third of a paint job. I'm doing mine. I'm painting it first at MAACO just so it's repaired underneath so that it recovers its value. (edit: It's like, scuffed bare fiberglass in huge areas, that's why)

 

Thanks for all the input everyone. The Maaco route may not be a bad idea as I could prep a lot of it myself and I have also wet sanded and buffed a lot of cars in the past. My almost 40 year old body may hate me for it but might be worth it.

I am into the car for next to nothing. Been scrounging around for some used interior pieces. If I can keep the exterior costs down, it could be a fun toy for not a lot of $$$$. My 10 year old son was devastated when I sold my last C5 so this may keep me in his good graces.

 

sell it.

If not those places sometimes do good paint work. They do it for a living, so they have experience.

 

Lot of guys re painting their Vettes in the paint section with great help from the pros. Depends how much you want to do versus paying for it to be done. Also how comfortable you feel doing the different stages of a repaint. Also helps if you know someone in the trade that can help or cut a deal with you.

 

I took my 94 to Peachstate collision and the owner told me he won't paint a Vette. He claimed that he has painted several Corvettes and the paint pealed on all of them. He said the only way to paint a Vette and get the paint to stick is to take it down to gelcoat and start over.


I'm not a painter but it seems to me that if you sand the car and do any body work if needed then seal, prime, paint and clear the car it should stick without taking it down to gelcoat.

 

I wanted to take a few minutes to clarify why in this situation I recommended taking the cheaper route vs spending a chunk of change on a repaint.

I run a high end shop and we work on newer vehicles with insurance mostly involved in paying for repairs. But when you are dealing with a vehicle that is not worth a lot monetarily well lets just say it is prudent to keep your cost at the bare minimum to keep from getting buried in your ride.

I bring this up only because I do not want to give the impression that a cheap paint job is going to be comparable to a factory like paint job. It will not but it makes absolutely no sense to dump basically the value of a nice lower mileage C4 into just paint on a higher mileage and cosmetically tired C4.

In this situation doing all the prep work you can and having a shop like Maaco (which is able to get their materials much cheaper then we can) spray it for you will allow you to brighten up the tired vette and give you some years of enjoyment while keeping your cost reasonable.

Now being that the car has been repainted already and by your description not very well, I highly recommend you explore your options of using a flat black plasti dip type material. This would cover up a great amount of imperfections, allow you to do the whole car for about $500.00 or less ( if you put it on yourself ) and best of all if you run into some areas down the road that need touched up or spotted you would be able to do this yourself.

As this was mentioned in a few prior posts I think this is a great option to explore. If by the way you get tired of it a few years down the road or you decide to put a little more money later into a better paint job you can just peel it off and start over. I am not saying this is the best option for most vettes but when you are dealing with a tired low value car it can be a great way to breath new life into your ride. Oh and did I mention you can also cover the wheels with this stuff and put a different colored stripe in the middle to spruce things up even more.

 

Why do that when you can do WHITE plasti dip?



You can even draw on it with marker afterwards:



I'm choosing to wrap though, for the reflections.

 

Last spring I talked to a corvette shop about a repaint on my 86. I has seen a couple of paint jobs they'd done in the past and it was perfect. They said drop the car off, pay $13K roughly and drive it away when done.

Never did it as the money was more than double what I'd paid for the car in the first place.

 

When shopping around to get mine painted I found a lot of shops that either didn't want the hassle at all or wanted a lot of money. I would agree that "doing it right" would involve going down to the original gel coat and taking the whole car apart, which most didn't want to do or wanted a ton of money to do.

The reality is taking everything off is unnecessary, especially for a car that is going to be driven. The only things I felt really need to come off were the side view mirrors (did myself, was a bitch) and the tail lights/reverse lights. Everything else can just get covered and taped.

Having paint that is in good shape as a base is probably important too, most paint shops wanted to see the paints current condition before agreeing to anything. If your paint is already bubbling up or falling off it would seem the $$ to repaint goes up. If the paint is just faded or you have some clear coming off you can get a repaint more reasonably priced.

Best shops I found were small private owned shops but try to find one with a good rep that has been in business a long time if possible or if it has been in business a short time make sure the painter has a lot of previous experience and recommendations.

Just my 2 cents, you can get a VERY nice paint job for under 3K under the right set of circumstances.