The cost of a decent paint job?

When I had my roof done at a custom shop (about $800) I had them run a quote for when/if I wanted to do the whole truck and it was about $10K. This was everything stripped down, bed off, trim, lights, etc etc. Not a small job. Obviously not the route for everyone, but if I go sufficiently nuts one day, that's the route I'll go.

 

This is a repost from my painting experience on a previous thread:

I had severely corroded clear coat on my roof and hood. I just went ahead and repainted it myself because once the clear starts to go, there’s no saving it.

I sanded down the panels down to the factory primer coat, then used an HVLP spray gun to do a base coat clear coat paint job. It cost me about $300, the base coat was like $100 a quart and I used two. The leftover money paid for the clear coat, and primer.

That cost assumes you already have a spray gun, a decent air compressor, sanding blocks, and all the right sandpaper, polisher, pads, and all the buffing compounds. A pneumatic dual action sander will help immensely, but it’s possible to do with an electric palm sander.

Even if you had to buy all that stuff it’s still cheaper than a respray at a body shop.









Here it is before cutting and buffing. The orange peel will go away once that’s done. The process goes 1000 > 1500 > 2000 > 3000 Grit > Hard Cut > Medium Cut > Fine Cut Compound > Wax

 

How long did that take you?

 

I probably sanded for twelve hours or more. Sanded the shit out of that thing. I paint for a living.

 

This is something I have wondered about. Your paint booth in a garage. Did you rig any special ventilation? (Not you wearing a respirator but protecting from a spark igniting the aerosolized paint and blowing up the house) How real is the risk of fire / explosion in a make shift paint booth? I have always been told there is a safety reason a proper paint booth is important but I don’t know how significant the risk is. With any flammable paint, it seems like there would be a time window of some pretty real risk at the peak of spray in the air. It seems like at least 3 risk sources for a spark - the car electronics (but could remove the battery for this), the garage door opener and any light switches, and then any powered tool, compressor, etc.
How do you avoid that risk?

 

I have been thinking of having my 95 Tacoma painted. It looks great from 50ft… until you look at the top of the roof where the sun has beat on the paint for 27years. It really looks like no significant rust, but when I replaced the windshield for chips, the windshield guy told me that the upper gutter is pretty rusted - it looked pretty bad. Even though with windshield in you can’t see it - it is there. I suspect things like that will quickly add the cost to have it done correctly.

 

If that was all an issue I’d be dead by now, lots of ignition sources in that garage. I was wearing a Tyvek suit with a solvent filter. I also painted my 300zx in this garage. My filter setup is very basic. It’s HVAC furnace filters taped to box fans aimed out the garage. Perfect? Absolutely not. Does it work? Yup.



I paint, and do bodywork/fiberglass work on double decker tour buses too. Our setup at work is far more rudimentary than my garage.

 

I painted one of my trucks in my garage "paint booth". I did setup an exhaust fan. I spend about $400 for basecoat/clearcoat (1 gal/1qt) plus additives from an automotive paint supply store. It was their lowest grade.

Sanded pretty much same as you. Came out okay. Not perfect by any means, but okay. Just depends on your desired quality level of outcome. You want perfect, better spend the $5000-10,000.

The other truck, I painted front fender, hood, bed cover, and roof outside. It actually came out better, but with a little dust embedded.

Exhaust: HF high speed fan w/furnace filters to catch paint.


The top is open. Air is being pulled in and down by exhaust fan, but it still got heavy in there at times and I had to stop at times to let the air clear.



Outdoor paint booth. I did wrap that in plastic on three sides. Couldn't find a picture.

Harbor Freight HVLP $9.95 paint gun!



No buffing, just after painting.

 

The best paint jobs requires prep work. One of my paint jobs was done in a garage. But we spent so much time in the prep work.

 

I had an estimate of $7500. On my 2008 Radiant Red Tacoma.
Materials are around $1300.
I think $6200 in labor seems a bit excessive.
The hood has road rash chips on it, no dents. The top has Clear coat issues. (Small bubbles appearing). The rest of the truck was painted 2 1/2 years ago. I just want the whole truck paint to age together instead of 2021 paint vs 2008 paint vs 2023 paint.
I don't mind paying a fair price for a good paint job. Is $7500 a fair price?

 

For an entire vehicle that is a fair price. They have to sand it all back down and start over... Its a lot of work

 

I would agree $6200 is a bit high for mainly prep work and a basic spray, which should take about 20-30 hours. If they're going to spray, clear, wet sand, and buff all the way to showroom quality, that could be justified, but I would accept nothing less than perfection at that price. 40 hour baseline, that's $155/hr. Is that worth it? Not in my opinion.

 

Lots of variables. Color change increases costs drastically. This is my truck we just finished up, done in destroyer grey with matte black accenting. This would have been all of 20k if we didn’t do it all ourselves. Luckily, my dad has been in the game for over 40 years.

 

I can say a bad paint job cost me about $120 DIY (I already had the tools). $100 for a gallon of Krylon tractor paint (including hardener and reducer), I have about 3/4 of the gallon left. Painted outside, in the wind, with bugs landing on it, and dust blowing. This is what it comes out as when you do not care at all.

 

Seen this outside of a maco.

 

Had my roof and hood done for $2200 by a high quality shop. $8k for a bed off, full rest of truck job. I just can’t bring myself to do it when the truck isn’t worth but $12k to $14k.

 

I had my entire truck painted in Lunar Mist for $3500 cash with very minor body work. The truck was painted in 2019 and looks great.
The shop is called Victory Auto Body Shop in Bellflower, CA.

 

I got two quotes in 2019 for a complete bed off respray of my 96 Tacoma, both were 4,500. One said 4,000 if I took the bed off. I did the hood and roof only where the clear had come off the worst, the front of my hood was down to bare steel