Maaco (uh oh...)

Nick,

In the automotive refinishing world, you'll just have to take people's word for it...Maaco does not spray a good paint job. They are sloppy, the paint job usually doesn't last (inferior materials), the car will be a massive runny, over-spray ridden mess.

I don't know of anyone on the forum that would use them. In automotive painting - you get what you pay for.

I know you want to save money...and doing the prep work yourself is very wise. However you can do the most awesome prep job and primer...and Maaco will come along with one of their $1.99 paint jobs (I think they hire their guys from Burger King) and trust me when I tell you - you will not be happy. Fixing a Maaco paintjob is not worth the hassle. You're better off not painting the car at all, and saving your money for a real body and paint shop.

I have seen the end result from Maaco on quite a few cars. Runs, orange peel, thin places in the paint and over-spray. You'd be better off driving the car around in a nice, even coat of primer.

How about another amusing anecdote about Earl Sheib, a competitor to Maaco in the budget/ghetto market. My dad carpooled to work and it was the other guy's turn to drive for the week. He showed up Monday morning in his freshly painted station wagon (it had been sprayed at Earl Sheib the week before) and off they went to work, the man joyfully explaining what a bargain he'd gotten and how good his old wagon looked. Doing 60 on the freeway a small rock or something struck the hood and the paint started to peel. At first a tiny flap starting waving in the wind, then bigger and bigger until they got to work it had peeled off about a foot square. The man was so embarrassed that he dropped dad off a couple blocks away so other coworkers wouldn't see his peeling wagon, turned around home and called in sick the rest of the day. Dad drove the remainder of the week. The following week, dad's car-pool buddy had a brand new wagon because his wife told him she wasn't going to be seen driving the old one.

Phil D.

Having had two MkIIs painted (in the original factory colors) over the past five years, and being very picky about any work that's done on them, I can tell you that you're better off saving your $$ for a while (even if it takes a year or so) and going to a shop (more specifically: a painter) that takes the time to take off parts that can be removed (like the flares, mirrors, window mouldings) and really doing a good job prepping the car before spraying it (including removing rust!!). I paid a lot more for my paint jobs but am damn glad I did....they computer-matched the color to Toyota's specs, there's no overspray anywhere and the clear coat is well done without any runs. If I couldn't have afforded it straightaway, I would have waited and saved for it. Trust me, if you really want to restore the car, save your bux and don't go to any of those bargain-basement places. You can save some money by stripping the car down yourself, also.

Phil Dupler has pretty much said the same thing, several times. His cars are gorgeous.

My $0.02 worth (USD, CDN, Aus$, GBP, whatever!)

-- Bob --

I made the mistake of taking a car to Maaco once, back in 93 or so. It was a 79 Z-28 that I had just spent the better part of 9 months working on as part of a frame off resto on it.. I had stripped the entire body to bare metal, primered it and had it ready for spray. I was running low on cash and just wanted to get the car a "cheep Paintjob" to last it until I could get it done right...

So I trailered the car in on a buddies trailer (at this point it was a rolling chasis.. but it did have the wheels I planned on keeping on it ion). They said "just leave it on the trailer, it will make it easier for us to get it in the shop when we are ready for it." Three days later I get a call sayin that the car was done.. When I showed up that afternoon I nearly lost my mind... The paint looked like shit (really thin in area's, runs in the clear) AND the trailer was COVERED in overspray, was were my brand new spun aluminim rims. They never even took the car off the trailer.. and the scariest part, when I called the manager to complain about it, his response was "Oh, thats company policy actually."

I'd rather go to Rice-boys and get a dozen spray cans, and paint the car that way before going to Maaco..

my dad got his van painted there. Overall it looks decent. But for what he payed, he could have gotten it painted elsewhere. There are runs in the paint, definatly some orange peel, and shoddy masking abound. Also he had a hell of time getting them to do what he asked. He had to go back several times to till he got what he asked for. The worst was, once they finished all of the prep, they found a couple small rust bubbles that weren't too visible before. The bastards actually painted over them! They refused to fix them as they weren't part of the original deal :roll: I ended up doing it myself and with some serious convincing we got them to respray the areas I fixed. Actually now that I think of it, I belive my dad had to pay a little bit more to get them to do that even. Anyways, the van looks decent now untill you look really really close (its bright red so it hides flaws well), but at 4grand it was no deal and was certainly not worth the headache.