Paint - the longer version ......

 We would like to help you have a firm understanding of the Paint process, & work that leads up to it, so that it will make deciding what you're looking for in the end results. There are many levels of Pre Paint prep & of Paint jobs themselves.

  Compare a house, it has a water problem in the basement, over the years its caused to foundation to crack, which has caused the outer brick walls to crack. You could slap some vinyl siding up on outside, & now your house looks fine driving by it. Or you could fix the Brick, costs a bit more, but is keeping house more authentic. Or you could go nuts, actually fix the house correctly , have trenches dug around it with drainage tubes & filled, dig out & repair foundation , replace brick walls, etc.. Now your house in solid again, & should not have same problems again.  Of course if you only paid to have the vinyl siding done, you wouldn't go complain to the installer of the siding that your basement still leaks would you? That would be crazy, yes?

 WHAT LIES BENEATH?

You car is no different. You can't have a 10,20,30 year old car that looks 1/2 ok, & want a sand & shoot to get a shine back on it for $1000, then come & complain " The paint is bubbling here, it cracking here, it has divots in it"......... . NO, no, it does not,  the material underneath, the old dried up paint has issues, or rust is popping up, crows feet starting, delamanation, clips, it could be several things.

 The metal on your car, is like the foundation of you house. Taking a car down to metal assures you are not painting over problem paint, panels that have multiple layers of paint & repair, rust problems that someone else did not repair well, etc.

 Every car is different. Some cars may have excellent paint on them, not necessarily shinny, but good solid paint, & can very well just be sanded with 400 & sealed & painted.

 PREP

- So if it looks like you do have a car that does not need stripped, This is good. Paint will be X amount of dollars, now, look at the front of your hood & fenders up close, is it ok, or is there a million & one stone chips? To remove those you need to feather edge each one, if there are a lot of them, the feather edges from each will overlap, basically stripping that area of paint. Its not uncommon on a 2 or 3 year old car to need to strip front 1/3 of hood, tips of fenders, & some of front bumper just to do a decent paint job. Chips on door edges? , scratches around car, dings that you don't see, until you bend down & look down side of car, etc. These all add up to a healthy amount of labor to prep the car to paint the 100 percent correct right way.

 - So if your car did need stripped to metal, its not wonderful cost wise, but you will have a good feeling when its done. After its stripped, it will come back be sanded a bit on edges, caulking dug out of seams, & 80 grit sanded. Then it will need a coat of etch primer or Epoxy immediately. Then it gets  whatever welding, panel replacement , straitening, plastic work, etc. it needs. Then worked areas re sprayed  with Epoxy, then entire car taped & sprayed with a good 2 part Urethane high build primer, then Hand Blocked & final sanded, re primed in spots, re final sanded, then seam sealed at body & panel seams, & then you getting ready for the paint.

 Do you want all the trim taken off, glass out,etc? This is hours of labor as well, many cars you have to gut each door completely to get off the handles, locks, & belt moldings, pull the under hood pad to get wiper squirters out, etc. It all adds up.

 BE a REALIST

 Go look at your car panel by panel, hard. After reading above, you now can look at it & maybe have a better idea what to look for. Decide what you're going to want car to be, just a daily driver that's going to get beat on a lot? A semi driver that you garage a bit, & drive to cruise nites?, A rarely drivin car that will see alot of shows? Do you want it denibbed & buffed a bit after paint? Do you want it completely wet sanded to glass flat & buffed (couple days worth of work). It can go on from there, for superior appearance, depth, gloss & holdout, you can paint car, after a couple days when the base & clear have setup, areas that have been worked have shrank in a hair, etc..You can wet sand entire cars down flat (the clear), re tape, & re clear car again, this gives it a super slick finish, that looks spectacular. You can spend about double getting a 100 percent show job, as you would  spend on a 90 percent very good job.

  A lot of people like to try to pay for the scuff & shoot, saying they'll be happy just to have car one color & shiny, but then they pick it to death & want it flawless after paint is done...........guess what? They paid for the siding, they don't get the foundation & brick jobbie. (Remember the house?)

 That wont happen here at Hot Rod Refinishers, because you're reading this, and  we will talk to you about YOUR car, panel by panel when we look at it, & you'll understand what we will do, what it will look like when done, & we want you to be educated, & feel happy when you're car is  done, & that you got what you came for. We prefer not to do cheap paint jobs, even if thats what you want, because sometime, someone will look at you car & ask "where do you get that painted?"  We'd prefer they are looking at a stunning top notch job when they ask that, not a nice to so so paint job that was done in low end quality paint & not preped well.

 MATERIALS

  They cost a lot for the good stuff. Yes,... you can buy a gallon of single stage , no name synthetic acrylic, or mystery paint for $50 a gallon On Ebay, or at Carslie , or you can spend $200 a gal. on primers, $200-500 gal. on basecoats, $200-400 on Clears, $150 on hardeners, plus stripping, grinder discs, mig wire & gas, body plastic,POR15,sand paper in grits of 40-80-120-180-220-320-400 & 600 will probably all be used on your car prior to paint, 600-1000-1500-& 2000 grits after paint a nicer jobs, tape, paper, then buffing compound, polishes, wool pads, foams pads, rags, etc.

  Materials can run from $1000 on a newer good condition car, to a few Thousand on an older car that's getting rebodied & painted.

 OVERALL PICTURE

 If you need the old paint stripped, it can run $700- $1500 to get it stripped to metal if needed, then a few hundred to tens of thousands to get body into shape, then  a thousand to a few thousand in Material, $3000-$10,000 for the paint job itself. If you want custom flames, airbrushed art, etc, you're looking at another couple thousand additional.

 Figure what you have to spend, what you want, & see where you stand. We are happy to look at you car & see if we can make it beautiful for you. Hope to see you soon.

   Thank You, Jeff & Bob