Repainting Festiva

[1990new]

I am going to get a quote later this week for a paint job on Trixie. Her paint code is B1 (Dark Charcoal Clearcoat Metallic).

One will be Maaco and another from a local body shop were I had a hatch painted before.

What should I expect to pay? Comments?

[WmWatt]

Might want to consider removing some trim before they paint.

[1990new]

Might want to consider removing some trim before they paint.

Thanks for the tip... I will definitely do that if I can get Trixie pained at all.

My estimate from the local autobody shop was $6,000. I guess that's one of the reasons auto insurance rates have hit the ceiling lately.

If the Macco estimate is that unreasonable too, I may just forget about having Trixie painted.

[WmWatt]

Sure you said paint, not gold leaf? I'd send email to a buch of body shops for a quote with a couple photos of the car.

[1990new]

Sure you said paint, not gold leaf? I'd send email to a buch of body shops for a quote with a couple photos of the car.

The body shop said the $6000 quote was their minimum charge for a paint job and did not include any body work. I believe they only want to paint higher value cars covered by insurance to make more money.. which is why they are in business. I imagine most of the body shops in the area do the same.

Got two quotes from Maaco yesterday:
1. $934 total which is basically just scuff up, mask, and paint using Urethane + Integrated Clear ($799) plus Urethane Sealer ($110).

2. $3004.95 total for Base Coat Performance Clear Coat ($13,399) + Premium Urethane Sealer ($100) + Tailgate Rust and dent repair ($330.00) + sanding edges of Fender and door top and a few other minor repairs ($770).

Don't think I'm can afford the $3000 job but I may take the $934. If I do that I will remove all the trim (Ford / Festiva L logos), windshield wipers, radio antenna, the head, tail, marker and turn lights, the rear side windows and the hatch glass and do some light sanding before I take it to get painted. I will leave the side molding on and just let them paint over it as it was done before.
I will also try my luck at repairing the little rust spot under the hatch window at the left bottom.

More Advice.. Comments anyone?

Rust spot on Trixie Hatch.jpg

[theastronaut]

A quality paint job is very labor intensive on the bodywork/prep side, and paint/materials costs have skyrocketed since covid. 6-8K is about the bare minimum for a quality repaint that will last and look good. Any cheaper and they're using low quality paint/primers, or short-cutting prep.

We recently handled having a '67 Cougar repainted for one of our long time customers. We used a friend that has a collision/restoration shop to do the job. The car was still in it's original paint that was in excellent condition for it's age, only had a couple of minor dings, and only two small rust spots on the inner fenders. The cost to dissasemble, strip, repair rust, bodywork, prime, blocksand, repaint, and wetsand/buff was $22k. $8k of that was materials. We are regularly seeing $25-50K paint jobs on older cars that don't need extensive metalwork, and more for cars that do need metalwork.

Maaco's paint is absolute bottom of the barrel and does not hold up, it'll look terrible within just a few years. There is no such thing as "integrated clear coat', that is just a fancy made up name for single stage. Quality of prep work varies by location, but they're working for cheapest of the cheap prices so don't expect the best. My uncle had his Tahoe repainted at the local Maaco 2-3 years ago and it looked ok at first but the clear has totally lost it's gloss by now and will be peeling soon. Low quality clearcoat does not have UV blockers to protect the basecoat, so the basecoat is deteriorating underneath the clear and will eventually cause the clear to separate. You need at least two coats of high solids quality clear to have enough UV protection, cheap shops just don't use expensive enough clear to provide adequate UV protection.

Most cars will have their resale value ruined by a low quality paint job, its better to leave it in it's original paint instead.

[theastronaut]

You can do a high quality DIY paint job for reasonable cost by saving on labor. I repainted my old '92 Capri back in '21 for around $750 in materials. I used Southern Polyurethane Inc's epoxy primer, 2k primer, base coat, and clear which costs around $550 back then. I easily had 80-100 hours in bodywork and paint prep though... most paint shops are $100/hr or more. The car has been out in the weather since then and is holding up well with no sign of deterioration. They are a smaller company that keeps overhead low by not advertising, only having a minimal amount of basecoat or single stage colors to choose from, and especially not installing mixing systems in shops (PPG, etc subsidizes the cost of installing a "free" mixing station by increasing the prices on all their products). Tons of restoration shops use their products with excellent results and there are plenty of long term reviews to prove it's durability. I currently have a '66 F100 in our shop that will end up being $50k+ for metal, body, and paint work and am using SPI products to repaint it.

https://www.southernpolyurethanes.com/

[1990new]

Thanks for all that great information and pictures John.
Trixie had had one of those Maaco paint jobs when I bought her back in 2013 and she looked pretty good for a while but it didn't last.
She had 89K on her then and has 104k on her now (25K in 11 years). She was sold new at Crown Ford in Alpharetta, Ga.

I'm going to take your advice and not have Macco do another cheapie job on her. Trixie is promised to my youngest grandson on his 16th Birthday next year.
In the meantime I'm going to plan on spending a lot of time doing prep work and save up for a quality paint job later.

[WmWatt]

Nice info to have on the site. Thanks.

My '89's paint has held up well (to my standards, anyway). It lives in a garage and gets a wax once a year. We have winters here (Ottawa) but I've found spraying each October with a garden weed sprayer underneath and inside the body panels with 4-1 canola oil-solvent mix prevents rust. The vehicle has carried cartop boats and bicycles on a rack and gone on month long camping trips. It looks good (aged well) and continues to attract attention and questions when out shopping, etc.

[1990new]

Nice info to have on the site. Thanks.

My '89's paint has held up well (to my standards, anyway). It lives in a garage and gets a wax once a year. We have winters here (Ottawa) but I've found spraying each October with a garden weed sprayer underneath and inside the body panels with 4-1 canola oil-solvent mix prevents rust. The vehicle has carried cartop boats and bicycles on a rack and gone on month long camping trips. It looks good (aged well) and continues to attract attention and questions when out shopping, etc.

What color is your 89? Do you have pictures?

[WmWatt]

The sun came out on shopping day so I took these photos as requested. The car hasn’t been washed since last summer but stays in the garage so is pretty clean. I included one of the front edge of the left rear wheel well where rust starts from inside. The bottom of that photo shows the weave of the fiberglass reinforcement and the top that it needs work I got a good colour match by mixing two shades of silver paint. (I collected discarded small paint cans of many colours for touching old bicycles.) There is a photo of the weed sprayer I use to spray canola oil between the panels. Note the access panel to the rear lights is open. That’s where to spray for the wheel well. If I knew about this technique when I first bought the car there would not have been any rust in the wheel well. Of course all this info is too late now for these 30 year old vehicles. They are, as they say, a part of history. J

PS The wheels are the winter (snow tire) one’s. During the off season they have been cleaned up with a wire brush on an electric drill, had two coats of black “rust” paint brushed on, and after curing for a few days two coats of polyurethane applied with a brush, all without removing the tires. The summer wheels are light grey, same
IMG_3937.jpg IMG_3939.jpg IMG_3940.jpg treatment.IMG_3941.jpg

[F3BZ]

i'm retired now and have a garage and compressor so maybe i'm in a little better position but have you considered doing it yourself? admittedly I haven't done so yet but out of the 4 festivals I have at least 1 will be a DIY paint job just for the learning experience. maybe i'll find i have a hidden talent I didn't know about. I've watched a 100 YT vids on painting and feel pretty confident. check out paint society on YT. they have a lot vids for 1st timers and a can-do approach. also, what about a wrap? I don't know how long it lasts or how much it cost but maybe an option.

[1990new]

Thanks for the pictures WmWatt.. looks like you have maintained your 88 Festiva very well over the years. It still looks really good after living in your harsh winter climate as a daily driver for so long. I hope you can keep the rust at bay for many more years. (BTW, My wife and I met a couple from Ottowa yesterday who were touring here Charleston. They told us that they are short on moisture this year and the danger for forest fires in the area could become a big problem.. hope you get the moisture you need soon.)

Yes F3BZ... Like you, I'm retired, have a garage and an air compressor also. Much of the garage has been occupied by my garden tools, woodwork supplies and tools, plumbing supplies and tools, electrical supplies and tools, and Festiva parts for the last several years. Last summer I built a new garden shed and now I have almost completed moving most of those supplies and tools to it. I still have many of the Festiva parts and my auto mechanic tools in the garage. I've been trying to give away Festiva parts for a couple of years now but still have some that I really hate to throw away. (Let me know if I might have any parts you need.)
I have decided to do the paint prep work myself but am not too confident about auto painting. (In my younger years I did work for a year on a paint crew doing spray painting of the interior of house and apartments on my off days when I was a fireman. I got to be a bit of an expert doing that.)

As I gain more space in the garage and things progress with the prep work on Trixie this Spring and Summer, I will give serious consideration to your suggestion about painting her myself.