You may have read about my incident about a "parked" hitting me.... well anyway, their insurance company did the claim the old fashion way. i.e. send me a check in the mail made out to me.

The check was for $1,128.44 The only damage to the car was the passenger side fender, which i promptly picked up at a junk yard for 50 bucks and installed it myself.

The only problem is the color is off a bit, not much, but still. After spending lots of money on other stuff like exhaust, cold air, etc.

I now have decided to paint my entire car. Right now it is maroon, and i would like to keep it that color, or similar. I was looking at some plums and stuff, but didnt find much that suited me.

Anyone got any suggestions on what color to paint it. Keep in mind I am keeping it maroonish due to the fact of the engine bay and stuff, so basiclly its only the outside being touched.

Now I decided to sand and primer it myself, so what should I use to do that brand wise, et cetra? Or if you just want to throw some more info at me that's be great too. Thanks.

By the way. My car is a 1988 SE.

 

Unless you're also going to do the painting yourself, I'd suggest letting the shop that will paint it do the prep-work for your car. That way, if anything goes wrong with the paint job you can at least have some leverage to get them to redo it. But if you prep it, they may deny you the rework since they did not do the prep. Just my 2cents worth on that.

As far as color, it's really ALL dependant on you. I'd ask the shop that will paint it for a sample chart with colors in it. Also in case you get into a wreck later down the line, you might want to stick with a color that's not custom (ie. they can buy another can of the paint and color match your car without mixing different colors).

 

bump

 

Trust me, there is much more to sanding and priming for a professional paint job than you might think. Primers make a big difference in the durability of the final paint job. Just the primer for my car was $170, but I stripped to the bare metal which made a lot of extra anti-corrosion work necessary.

If your stock paint is not cracked you can just scuff it down with a scotch brite pad using soapy water and that is all the topcoat will need. In other words, you don't need any primer unless you have body filler somewhere. For prepping repaired panels with body filler, the stuff I like is called "Tec base surfacer-sealer". It is like a primer, filler, and sealer all at the same time. But like I said, unless you have body filler you don't need primer. If you have chipped paint then you should fill the chips with two part spot putty or they will show through the final paint.

Anyways, there is a lot going on with prepping. I would let the paint shop do it unless you need the money.