I'm wondering about having my car painted a different colour, but have no idea of the cost to have it done at a decent shop.
It's a little Acura RSX, so shouldn't be too big a deal. The current colour is boring, plus the door is slightly darker than the rear panel, which drives me batshit.
My wife repainted her (first) car with spray cans, LOL. We still don't let her live it down. I do respect her initiative, however... she even did her own bondo work!
Seriously, you will get a *wide* range of costs, and you do get what you pay for. The figures posted by Registered kwhj81979 are at the low end. You pay more for:
- Removal of trim rather than just taping t off
- The level of detail on surface preparation. This does make a difference in adhesion and look of the final finish
- Application of the proper primer; some cheaper shops will just spray the new color and call it done
- Proper surface conditioning (wet sand) between coats
- Number of coats applied
- Clear coat application, including number of coats
Some of the above you do not need to do. You can go crazy, and the cost will be crazy as well. Some things, like removal of trim, proper surface prep and priming, and a wet sand at certain points, are things you don't want to skimp on.
My wife repainted her (first) car with spray cans, LOL. We still don't let her live it down. I do respect her initiative, however... she even did her own bondo work!
Seriously, you will get a *wide* range of costs, and you do get what you pay for. The figures posted by Registered kwhj81979 are at the low end. You pay more for:
- Removal of trim rather than just taping t off
- The level of detail on surface preparation. This does make a difference in adhesion and look of the final finish
- Application of the proper primer; some cheaper shops will just spray the new color and call it done
- Proper surface conditioning (wet sand) between coats
- Number of coats applied
- Clear coat application, including number of coats
Some of the above you do not need to do. You can go crazy, and the cost will be crazy as well. Some things, like removal of trim, proper surface prep and priming, and a wet sand at certain points, are things you don't want to skimp on.
Thanks. Wow, maybe I'll live with it! :-O
There was a light scratch on our other (the wife's) car. One day I looked at it and said, holy crap, where did you park, there's tar smeared across and dripping down the side of the (black) car!?!? Well, the wife took it upon herself to try to fix the scratch with some touch-up, which she must've applied with a paint roller (I exaggerate), and so much that the extra dripped & ran down the side. The lease is up this spring. The dealer will have a field day on that, and I'm going to have to defend the wife's standard of care, LOL.
If you want to stay the same color a grand MIGHT do it, but the quality would still be mid-level (basically about as good as a factory job, which are pretty much shit, as your door color illustrates..)
I've been around, and involved in, car restoration for most of my life, and let me tell you there are some serious considerations when it comes to changing color.
Basically the removal of trim listed above would still be a crappy job, as then your "jams" will still be the old color - imagine opening your door and seeing a different colored jam, same for hood and trunk.
What I'm getting at here is that the cost of removing all of the bits of body that SHOULD be removed, and doing the appropriate prep work, and a quality paint job (materials alone should come close to 1K), will cost anywhere between $7-15K.... Basically, you're much better off just selling the damn thing and buying the color you want next time slippy.
Of course, you could do what I do.... Just stop caring what color the thing is, or if it has a scratch/dent somewhere... Make sure it runs, steers, and stops well, beyond that it's all just silliness.
There was a light scratch on our other (the wife's) car. One day I looked at it and said, holy crap, where did you park, there's tar smeared across and dripping down the side of the (black) car!?!? Well, the wife took it upon herself to try to fix the scratch with some touch-up, which she must've applied with a paint roller (I exaggerate), and so much that the extra dripped & ran down the side. The lease is up this spring. The dealer will have a field day on that, and I'm going to have to defend the wife's standard of care, LOL.
:) It can be removed, pretty easily if she didn't bother with surface prep, a proper touch-up should be available for about $200, along with a bit of color-sanding to clean up that mess.
Honestly, it looks pretty nice, you'd need a fairly expensive job just to get back to this level of "nice"..
Just for fun, go take a look around at some shops, and see what the finished jobs look like, then ask what they cost.
I do understand your dislike of the tonal difference between the door and body (always a danger with metallic finishes, even a slight difference in pressure or volume of air during application can cause major differences in the way the metallic particles "lay" on the surface - causing a different sheen/color appearance...)...
The best solution that is cheap that I can offer (and is commonly used by car folks to hide shit like this) is a graphics package, just something down the side to liven up the look and to distract from the slight color difference, you should be able to find a pretty sweet deal on something like this. Same goes for the wife's car.
I'm going to put the money toward my taxes. I didn't really think through the details of work and how much it would cost. I figured, tape up some stuff, drive it into one of those paint rooms, spray it, done. And I'm not going to cover up an excellent factory paint job of a a boring colour with a shitty paint job of a decent colour.
Ha, Simms, I've seen that episode. His poor dad gets a lot of abuse. :-D
To do a proper color change is a nightmare. If you don't pull a major portion of the lights & trim, shoot the inside of the rear hatch, and do something under the hood, you will regret it. If your car has metal painted surfaces inside that rear cargo area, it will look bad if you don't paint them as well. And a color change, especially one not done properly, is drastically detrimental to the resale value of the car.
I've done color changes for customers when I've restored their cars, but when it was time to shoot the paint, the body was entirely gutted so that ALL of the metal was sprayed the same color.
If you want to change the color, that's entirely up to you, but go around the car first, look at all the areas that are painted the exterior color that you'll see when you open the hood, doors, cargo area, open your hood to check your oil, and see how many things have to be taken off to make a nice flow over the big surfaces before you spend the money. It's too late after the car's sprayed to decide it doesn't look right if you don't spend the time and money to do the change thoroughly.
When I was a bit younger I had a neighbor paint his car with a wash cloth and a bucket of white paint. At twenty feet it didn't look too bad. It might have been better had he put on two coats.
