I am considering selling my 1994, Red Touring, 5sp, Glass Sunroof, with 89k miles. The car needs a paint job and I wanted to get some thoughts on whether I should have it painted prior to selling. I have done a lot of the reliability mods, but have saved all of the major OEM parts. Just wanted to see what others might suggest. Like most, I would like to maximize the amount I can sell the car for; just didn’t know if it would be worth the investment.

 

a crappy paint job will hurt the sale a lot because it will have to be re-done. decent paint jobs from great shops will be in the 7k range depending on body work. keep in mind the value of the car doesn't go up by the amount put into it. a 7k paint job will not make the car worth 7k more. in this situation since you're looking to maximize profits, you would sell it as is. let the new owner deal with paint.

 

Yep. May be worth paying a professional detailer to do as much as possible to the paint, buff it out and work on it. A few hundred bucks most likely but they can do some miracles sometimes, I think that would be money well spent.

Dale

 

Unfortunately the car was keyed pretty bad when the second owner left it sitting a parking garage. The car is a solid 10 footer, any closer than that the scratches are pretty noticeable. I was able to buff out most of the lighter stuff, but the car really needs good paint job (it was next on my list of things to have done).

 

That’s a pretty low mileage 94, all things considered.
If the only part’s of the car that need paint are the areas where it was keyed, then you would probably want to let the next owner take care of it. You already tried to get most of the scratches out.
if however there’s areas where you clearly see the paint has disintegrated, then I would invest in getting a paint job. A decent one will run you about 4-6g’s. If you’re doing just the visible areas that is. Which is what most people do on resprays.
The biggest problem is finding a reputable shop…

sucks to hear it got keyed.