BigRed

Anytime I talk to any of my friends about changing the color of my car they say that it'll drop the resale value of my car and not to do it. As far as the resale value, I really don't care. I hope to hold onto my FD for life. but when you do a color change on your car, how detailed is the job. I know they can't/won't rip out your whole interior and paint every piece of your body inside and out. but what do they do? will the engine compartment still be the original color? how about just inside the doors and rear hatch or anywhere else that has been painted previously.

FYI: If I do this (not for a while) I'm thinking about going from montego blue to either black or a darker silver (not original silver. more of a titanium color)

TIA for all the feedback

Bigred
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'94 Montego Blue Touring

Icemark

The big key to a color change so that it does not drop the value is prep.

If you want to do it right, you should remove the interior, all the glass, bumpers, head lamps, mirrors, door and body trim.

All the old paint should be either removed if it is in poor condition, or very finely sanded.

You may want to use a standard off the shelf color used by Mazda or another volume manufacture, as touch up paint then will be easier to find in case of accidents or minor scratches.

Some of the parts should then be painted individually such as the mirrors, bumpers, headlamp covers, etc.

Then the car is re-assembled.

MrFreeze

well im painting my car from blackto blue i plan on having the engine takin out and painting the whole engine bay door seals exteior of corse and the trunk. every thing else would be such a pain in the *** i mean who is going to rip off pannles to make shure its the orginal color. also if they where smart they would know rx7s didnt come in blue here. i wouldnt worry about resale too much

Touring FD3S

First, I know you plan on keeping your car for life, but somethings do come up sometimes, but I HONESTLY do not think that if it looks nice someone will turn down an FD cause it was painted a different color (assuming nothing off the wall). I could see that happening to an escort or mustang, but definitely not an FD.

As far as repainting, that too is that path I want to take in the future. I love black and dark colors in general, but want something other than black. Dark blue or something like that. If I do go with black, I probably won't change the engine bay, but everything else is a definite (door sills, trunk, exterior, under hood).

But to answer your "how detailed is it" question, it all depends on what YOU want. You can go to Maaco if you want and have them paint just the exterior, leaving door sills and engine bay and stuff the original color (my friend did it to his Jetta, Maroon to gray ). Or you can just have them paint certain parts, or do as Icemark said and get the whole damn thing done the right way

BigRed

Thanks for all the feedback. If and when I decide to do this I would definately want to do it "The right way". Now it's nice to know what that is

MrFreeze

1. DONT GO TO MAACO they ******* suck big time.
2. i had a truck that was blue and painted it black but didn do the engine bay. when ever we would open the hood it was like EH nasty i highly reccomend painting the engine bay it makes all the diffrence.
3.DONT GO TO MAACO the REALY ******* suck i cant even begin to tell the storys i got from there

joemomma

A $250 maaco paint job probably will suck. It really depends on who owns/runs the shop though. We have a Maaco here in Hampton, VA that does pretty good work and is good about honoring their warranties. The good thing about Maaco is that since they are a large company, they can afford the best paints and equipment. I believe they use heat drying rather than air, which is good. Most of the complaints I hear agianst Maaco are from people who have gotten their 'bargain' paint jobs. You really have to be assertive and let them know up front what kind of quality you expect. I failed to do this the first time I had a car painted (not at maaco) and I got a shitty job as a result. Any paint shop is capable of doing quality work. Very few will do it unless they know you expect it. They make their money off the people who don't bring their cars back to have the problems fixed.

As for removing an engine to change the color of the engine bay, I would not go through the trouble. It's hard enough to remove/reinstall a FD engine (I've done it on jackstands), but then you have to remove or mask all the crap that is still in the engine bay. This would be a huge job. You might find a shop that would do it for 10 grand (show quality job). I would like to one day find an FD with no motor and strip the entire car down and paint it innocent blue mica (99 J-spec color), but no way would I remove an engine just to do this.

MrFreeze

well theres a local guy here who has taken out a engine for a friend of mine so he can paint the bay for 300bucks. put it back after the painting and every thing runs fine and dandy. im takin the car to him so he can do the same. because it looks nasty having a car blue (wich im painting it) and then pop the hood and see all this black it just looks off. find your self a local rotary shop ask how much to remove and reinstall the engine. then just find ur self a tow truck to take it to the paint/autobody shop.

Touring FD3S

OMG. I hope no one took this as me saying it was all right to go to Maaco. I can see now as I reread it that that idea could be derived from what I said, but I was using Maaco as an example of probably the cheapest job you can have done. If you want something nice, by all means go to bodyshop that is gonna spend more than 3 days to paint your entire car. Make sure prep work is done properly so it turns out nice. Usually local body shops or classic automobile shops do great jobs. We have a few around here that are good. Just ask friends or someone around there if they know first hand of anyone.

Once again sorry if conveyed the wrong message, need to word things better next time

joemomma

300 bucks??!! What is this guy a crackhead? J/K. I'd jump on it for that price, if he does good work.

Jade Falcon

From what I know a good paintjob done right can cost you upwards of $2,000. wheeeeeeee.......

MrFreeze

yeah he has a new small shop he is trying to get the word out. but 300bucks just for takin out engine and putting it back aint too bad

silvr94r2

iTrader: (3)

We had my girls car repainted....the car was stripped to the metal...no motor,interior,etc. It cost us $2500 with a friend doing all the work and me helping. It is show quality for sure....beautiful! Pics don't do it justice....if I could just get off my lazy *** and get it all put together

silvr94r2

iTrader: (3)

pics of the car and the engine bay.....it's further along than these shots. Not much but it's getting there.....I'm rebuilding the car from ground-up. It's gonna be brand new when I'm done....whenever that is

Flybye

I've seen a MAACO $300 paint job. I think you may get better results if you use a can of spray paint

If you want it done right, it WILL be in the $2000 figure. Not just for painting, but for the buffing and wet sanding.

Lowering its value only happens if it is done poorly, or if the car is painted in an odd and uncommon color...like pink

kelrx7r1

at least 2g's with a hook up

enuttage

Yep.

It's gonna cost me upwards of 4 G's to get mine done. It'll be a color change (but not in the engine bay - too scared of electrical "gremlins" appearing after detaching all of that stuff...even though the engine is out).

I tell you this though, I've seen the guy's work and I'm very impressed thus far. I'm eager to get it back.

-E

Gearhead

iTrader: (1)

Ok. I paint cars. Do the door jambs. Trust me... everytime someone gets in or out, they'll see the old color. Do the engine compartment if you pop the hood or have a nice engine that you like to show. I would recommend it, as if you get the job done properly it will be around $4k or so depending on color and condition of your car b4 painting. Not every shop is good at painting. Really good painters are hard to find and make around $80k a year. Many of them are proud of their work and have protfolios. Check these. It's your car and you need to think about how long you'll have to look at the car. If you're gonna keep the car for 5 yrs and the price between a good job and a great job is $1k then the cost per day is like 50 cents a day. That's well worth the difference to me. A good paint job will last much longet than that. Now I say take this for what you want. I am a perfectionist.
Don.