crxaddikt

i have a 1990 honda crx si,with 240,000miles, with newer engine, it runs great and has no major problems, the worst thing is the paint, its been an outside car since dont have garage and been in texas 100 degree heat.

it was painted at Maaco in 2003, (10yrs ago), with the ultra-urethane package, did a color change from white to a dark midnight blue, and painted over the plastic side moldings.
it looked great & lasted longer than i expected, but has started chipping a lot on the hood & front fenders, down to bare metal, it seems like they didnt put primer on the hood & fenders cause rest of car is fine?, theres small rust spots 1/4"-1/2" in diameter too,

i wanted to paint the hood & front fenders so it matches the rest of the car,
which is still decent, ive looked into using color-matched spraypaint products from AutomotiveTouchup.com, which seem like are good prices compared to other similar companies, ive talked to a cust svc. guy who gave me some info, but its really hard trying to estimate how much paint, primer or clear you need to buy in order to be able to paint the body parts you need ? along with sandpaper, body filler, etc ...

after adding up stuff, and trying to get an estimate, it looks like it would cost around $150 - $180, at first the main reason i was looking into doing it myself with colormatched spraypaints was so it would be cheaper, but after estimating how much everything would be, its a little more than i thought, now im wondering if its even worth going this type of route ? or if i should just get the car painted at a shop somewhere thats affordable ?

i just wanted to get opinions on what i should do in order to paint it cheapest ?

(remember, i don't need the whole car painted really, just hood & front fenders, color matched to rest of car, which should be cheaper? unless they only paint whole cars?)

if it would make it easier, i can remove the hood & fenders and bring them to them, so they would'nt have to tape off rest of the car or anything, and just paint the body parts,

how could i find a shop to just do that for me at a cheapest price possible? i can prep & prime it myself beforehand (to knock some of the price off?)

thanks for any advise

94EG8

Those color matched spray bombs never work well. For one thing they hardly ever come close to match, but even if you're lucky and it does it really doesn't have the same kind of finish as real paint, it always ends up looking dull even with clear and it's still somewhat permeable (probably not a big deal in texas, but here on the east coast it will start rusting after a while) I would take it somewhere, even Macco and get what needs to be painted painted. Unless they really screw up it will look better than a spray bomb.

vrhyan

Bring it to a local shop that can do the paint properly. You might spend a little more but you can be sure of the outcome.

crxaddikt

yeah, i plan on just finding out if maaco or some other shops can just paint my hood and fenders for a decent price ? and ask if it would be any cheaper if i just remove them off the car myself and drop just the parts off to them ? cause then they would'nt have to mask off a car or anything like that. ..

i have a feeling it will still be a lot even if they just paint those parts, probably $200 + i'm guessing, but probably worth it, but for a little more i can just paint the whole car !