MAACO Paint

[SBpunk]

Has anyone had their truck painted at MAACO? I know they have a rep for being $#!&e but I'm not looking for a 2 grand paint job. Just something that looks decent and can bring the stock colors back while getting rid of some of the surface rust accumulating. Thanks 

[airspeed]

The foundation for a good paint job is the prep work,  that is where MAACO will fall short.  You can hide a multitude of sins under a nice paint job, one year later the prep will start showing through the new paint.  If you have surface rust showing up now, there will be more hidden that you don't see yet.  

[ParadiseMJ]

Spend a weekend or two doing the prep yourself.  Remove, sand out rust, put a good rust converter on it, don't just cover. Sand, sand, sand.  Remove and/or mask off stuf you don't want oversprayed.   Then take it in.

[SBpunk]

Gotcha wasn't sure how much of the prep work they did. Figured this was a pub discussion since its not really tech sorry about posting in the wrong area. 

[Eagle]

They do essentially zero prep work. And their paint is $#!&. I had my '88 Cherokee painted at MAACO because the original clearcoat was burning and peeling. The paint job looked ... "okay," maybe even "not bad" ... for about six months. After six months, the paint faded and went flat. And now there's rust popping through along edges where they sanded too energetically, and apparently didn't prime where they got to bare metal.

 

I would never go there again. I think you can do better with a few spray cans.

[buxmj]

I found the guy to paint my truck at a local auto paint store.  They might be willing to give out names of the reputable painters/body shops. I was very happy I asked.  

 

Buck.

[johnj92131]

I had my truck repaired at Maaco just a long block from my work in 2009(?).  The body man who did the work on my truck was great.  Maybe it helped that I was there twice a day taking pictures of all the work.  The body panels were well fitted, the new doors fit well and the hood lined up properly when everything was done and adjusted.  I paid extra to have them spend more time doing the correct prep work.  I also built a good working relationship with the shop owner/manager, he knew I expected a good finished job.  Not simply a cheap, low buck job.  Now 6 or 7 years later the paint job still looks presentable. 

 

There used to be 6 or 7 Maaco shops in San Diego.  This shop is the only one that survived the 2008+ economic decline.  All the rest of the Maaco shops in San Diego went under.  But the old owner/manager has retired.  The new management brought in all new people - And their work quality has declined to simple run of the mill crap.

 

I found a different shop last year to paint my Passat and am very pleased with their work on the Passat.  Again, I visited the shop and checked their prep work on my car frequently and offered to pay more for additional prep time/work.  In the end, I got a better paint job for just a few hundred dollars worth of extra preparation work/time.  And I gave the shop owner an extra $200 more than he asked for, because he did a great job.  This shop will also be doing the body work and paint on the 86 diesel MJ later in the year.

 

As others have said:  Prep work is the key to a good paint job.  Spend your time/money here. Do not skip anything here.  There is no shortcut to good prep work!

[shaylec]

The main thing is to prevent rust from getting out of control. Someday when you are rich and famous youll still have a comanche to paint and the money. Here is a link to factory color spray paint you can order for now.

 

http://www.automotivetouchup.com/spray_paint_matched.aspx

 

I also have old rusty mercedes diesels i like to play with. This guy from the pacific nortwest has got the rust repair figured out to a science. His miracle paint is impermeable.

 

https://mercedessource.com/store/miracle-paint-underbody-complete-sheetmetal-rust-repair-kit-extras

[Jackrabbit41]

Check out my build. My Macco job is pretty good. Cost me 1100$