I need a little advice. I'm going to be getting quotes to start my body work in the next month (well, after the holidays) and I'm trying to keep the cost of it all...within reason (not, cheap, just not insane).

I've been wanting to do a color change (my 95 Si is white) but I'm not really looking forward to gutting my car and having to get nutty with bagging and tagging. Is a color change where they do door jambs and possibly my hatch floor worth it or will it just be "cheap looking"? I plan on pulling my motor so the bay will be done as well if that helps.

If the above can't be done correctly, then I'm just going to have the white re-done and cleaned up here and there.

So if you have any experience with this or have seen the out come of what I'm talking about, speak up.

Oh and here's a pic just to keep it interesting:




Thanks,
Steve

 

A color change requires the jambs to be painted... there is no getting around that unless you want to drive a car that people laugh at. Not sure why you want the floor done though..

 

What I mean is, I don't want to gut the car to do a complete "baller status" color change with clear. I simply want to do it as right as possible with out doing this. Since the rear hatch floor is visible since I don't really have stuff in there, I was considering getting that area painted as well.

I want to do the jambs, don't get me wrong. Just don't want it to be a shitty looking paint job.


Steve

 

Well to do a color change correctly everything needs to come out.You could tape off the edges but that always leads to problems later in my opinion.The outside of the car is going to need to be stripped pretty well also to do the color change and since you are going to have to remove some of the interior you might as well just take a week or two longer and totally strip it and get it done correctly.

 

Which requires me to pull my carpet, dash, harnesses, clips, etc... ?

Guess I'm staying white then, just not that committed to a color change I guess and I try not to do stuff half-assed.


Steve

 

Wait a minute... why would you gut your whole car for a color change? You already explained that you don't want a 'baller' paint job that requires a stripped shell to be fully dipped inside and out, so why even think about that? No one will ever see the floor or behind the dash. People who do that kind of color change have more money/time then they know what to do with and just want it done 'because they want to'. Also, if the hatch floor is visible (i.e. because you have a roll cage), then just paint the rear floor. There's absolutely no need to do underneath the carpet or dash.

A 'color change' just means changing the color as seen from the outside. You do the jambs as well as the outer panels. In order to do it properly and without tape edges, you need to remove all of the easily removable items like all the lights, the bumpers, the sunroof if you have one, the moldings, window trim, mirrors, etc. You also remove the hatch, doors, fenders and hood so that you can do the underside of each and the jambs at the same time as the shell. To completely disassemble a car for paint should take you no more than an hour or two max if you have a friend to help lift the heavy stuff off the car.

If you want to go a similar route but you want to paint everything together, you can 'cut-in' the undersides of all the parts and the door jambs first, then reassemble all of the sheet metal parts and tape it up for paint and do all of the outer panels at once. Bumpers always get done off of the car and all other parts remain uninstalled until after paint.

Click this:https://honda-tech.com/forums/paint-body-84/crashs-92-hatch-2827788/ and look at post #8 and post #19. There are a lot of pics missing but you'll get the idea. That's what your car should look like during paint if you go with the 'cut-in' method. You don't need to remove all of the interior, just the panels that are in the way. You just need to be able to back-tape the jambs and plastic/paper it up.

 

leave it white. looks clean (:

 

it takes hardly any time to gut a civic. I did my whole interior, seats, belts, panels, door panels, consoles, etc... minus dash in like under an hour.

If I were you I'd gut the whole thing, and check for rust. there's going to be places you never thought to look before like under you sideskirts. take some rust-mort and spray everywhere that you can.

my .02

 

I agree, leave it white. It looks nice! I'm doing a total color change also, I'm just doing the jams and hatch area. That's all you're ever going to see. I was thinking of doing my jambs and all that black, but having the outside a blue. Unsure of what anybody thinks of this, but if done right I think it would come out slick as gooseshit. I dont think it would work for white though. haha.

 

you dont need to gut the entire car....i at most took out the A piller plastice and the read 1/4 plastic pieces and did my jambs that way so i know i didnt get any paint on the plastics then tape off really well and you wont have any problems

 

I thinking about doing eaither a color change or just repainting the enitre car the existing color. How much dose this cost to do color change/ repainting. And hoe much would you save if you did the prep work yourself such as sanding and removing all the lights bumpers fenders ect ? i dont mean to jack this thread i'm just wondering how much it cost to get a good paint job.

 

all i know as far as "prepping" is if you prep your hole vehicle before you take to maaco then they do a much better job. what i've heard about maaco jobs is they sometimes do shitty tape offs so there's paint all over your trim/rubber pieces. and paint is not great either I hear, but if you prep it badass, then it's probably worth the low $ that route?? if your on a budget anyways :D

 

I'm not going to maaco. I'll be taking my car to a body shop. I really only want to do this once. (Regardless of people's experiences.)


Steve

 

To me the idea of going to Maaco is no different than the idea of buying a cheap ebay turbo kit. It will function but the question is 'how well' and 'for how long'. If you want a low cost option, Maaco is not that bad if you do your own prep work, but something very important to consider is the quality of materials.

People dismiss good quality paint materials as being an 'optional upgrade', but realistically besides prep it's the most important part of the entire job. Maaco uses cheap crap... plain and simple. If you can live with the possibility of a delamination problem a month or a year down the road then that's fine. Just remember that you truly get what you pay for. There is a substantial difference between a $75/gal. clear coat and $250+/gal. clear coat, and there is definitely a huge difference between even a good single stage paint and a mediocre base/clear system... neither of which Maaco uses.

When you buy a high end paint job (or even a typical 'good' quality job), you don't just pay an inflated price for the same quality job as Maaco. It all comes down to what you're willing to spend on your car for what kind of quality. To some people paint is not important. They simply want something 'not as shitty as rattle can'. Other people, like me (obviously), see paint work as being the most important part of building a car properly.

 

well yah... it's not only that but if you have a paint gun and place to paint and do it yourself, sure, buy expensive paint and do the best you can.

but when it's $400 at maaco and you prep,
vs.
$2000+ because you don't have resources/tools

I agree, paint is Very important. A nice paint job in a crowd of ok paint will set your
ride in another class

 

For those with knowledge, how much more would it cost to do the jambs of a car (color change) vs just painting the exterior? I know I'd be doing a lot prep work in terms of removing lights, molding, etc... but is there a larger markup for this step of the work? (Or not so much because there is minimal "work" to be done in these areas?

Thanks,
Steve

 

It's not a matter of marking up a price, rather the body labor cost. These numbers are just pulled randomly, but if a shop charges $50/hr. for body labor and it they bill out 3 hours of work to disassemble it completely, then double that for reassembly time as well. $300 in body labor to tear the car down and put it back together is not that much to pay in order to be 100% hands-off. Add on the additional prep time and materials used for the jambs and you might be somewhere around $500-600 extra for jamb work. If you're paying $2000 for a good paint job, then $2500-ish is not that much more to pay for a proper jamb color change.

Talk to some shops. I can't say this enough: there is nothing wrong with open dialogue. Just call around or stop in and pick their brains. Ask them about prices for both a 100% customer's hands-off color change with jambs included and then ask them how much they'll charge for the same job already disassembled. My guess is that you'll save a good chunk. We don't allow customers to do their own prep work for many reasons (or at least we really don't like when they do), but if a customer were to bring us a fully disassembled car that's just about ready to be prepped and sprayed that saves us a lot of time and trouble and saves you money. We like that.