Paint job prices

Has anyone ever had experience with their paint cracking or checking on their tacoma? I took mine into the body shop today cause I noticed some little white lines in the paint, (not scratches), and he said my paint was checking. So bummed, and he quoted me $4,406 for a paint job on just the cab, its not happening on the bed for some reason. Does that seem awfully high? Theres no way I can afford that being a broke college student. I mean thats half of what I bought the truck for but the rest of the truck is perfect, no rust what so ever and it only has 90,000 miles on it. So i dont know what to do. Any suggestions?

 

Sell Truck and buy one that is not checking.

$4k is way too much to reinvest in most trucks. I've heard it is a base coat issue and that be-ing the case it must be taken down to bare metal and re-shot.

Mine (Black) is checking too and it SUX... it is like a spider web of endless micro cracks.

 

I have some scratches in mine and wanted a complete the B/S quoted about $6-7 K, I use to be in the trade back in the day and can't beleive the way paint and material has gone up my truck is Black Sand Pearle( its a base coat clear coat) and its $125 a qt, so with the clear, catalyst, reducer,miss material, there is almost $800 in material alone, so I bought a gravity feed gun for $300 and I have the rest of the equipt, I plan on doing it myself this spring, and I'll still have a grand in it.

 

Someone here explained paint jobs very well and why they vary so much in price. You can get either the 20' paint job, the 10', etc up to the 1" and they go up significantly in price the closer you get. What that basically means is some paint jobs look great from 20' away but you'll see the imperfections once you start getting closer. If you want it perfect, even up close, it costs a lot of money to do so. Lots of prep and time to paint. If you're looking for a cheap option, try Maaco. They're not half bad and cost effective.

 

I Really dont want to sell my truck, It definatly has a lot of life still in her, like I said it hasnt even hit 100k yet. Also Im not looking for a show paint job I just want something that will last and protect my truck.

Whitfield you say yours is checking too, and you have the same truck in the same color as me. What causes checking? Is it a defect from the factory?

 

You can have the whole truck line-x'd for $2000. Would be sweet!!!

 

that is a perfect answer. alot of people do not understandwhat goes into making a paint job look good. Anybody can paint, but it takes skill to make it look good.

 

x2!

 

Nooo, it's been done and actually looks pretty awesome! Line-X makes colors now, there's a few pics on this site of vehicles done top to bottom.

 

Dont sell the truck just because of the paint. Paint can be fixed. Dont sell a perfectly good Tacoma because of the paint. Save up and get it fixed and search for good deals. IMO a Tacoma aint a show truck, its the best truck/tank ever made and ready to take any abuse you throw at it! Lol. So just a decent/good paint job would be fine. But then again by the time I re-paint my truck, it will be a trail rig so Im not going for a show room floor paint job. Just something to protect the metal and looks good for what it is. Jmo though.

 

X2, It does look pretty badass!

 

Not to worry about it. It's a pick up truck.

Another 15 years from now, when the truck is still running perfectly and you're no longer a broke ass college student, you can get a nice paint job and make'er look purdy again.

 

personally id try not to let it bother me just cuz that seems like an awful lot of money to drop on ur truck for a paintjob. even though i dont really know what all goes into painting a vehicle.

 

Yea i guess, theres not much I can do, I just dont want the metal to be unprotected but that has a way to go. That line ex is kinda cool, but I would never do that. and even 2 grand is too expensive for me ha.

 

I would think the metal should be fine. Just keep a look out and fix any rust spots that might appear (like you should anyways) and it should be okay.

 

How would I go about fixing a rust spot?

 

just rhino liner the entire truck