TheSamba.com :: View topic

Fri Dec 09, 2016 10:48 am

If Maaco is like Earl Shieb, they will paint (not very well) the rims to match! Didn't notice any hub caps in your photo, but take them off before going.

Sat Dec 10, 2016 10:40 am

Or you could give that awesome existing paintjob a good buffing and enjoy it as is.

Sat Dec 10, 2016 11:19 am

unclewede wrote: IF/when you want to do it "right" you need to sneak into the back of those collision repair places and find the pair of guys who are moonlighting.

Be VERY CAREFUL in trying to seek out someone to do paintwork on the side. If you are brave enough, it needs to be treated as if it was in a commercial shop with contracts, price projections, and progress updates. My shop has heard of/completed one too many side project jobs from someone else that had money paid up front with intentions of getting work done during weekend free time. 5-10 years later, nothing had been done to the car, and the upfront money ends up tied up in litigation that usually is never recovered.

Sat Dec 10, 2016 5:23 pm

Ok, so I picked up the car on thursday morning (Dec 8, '16). At the shop I took a few photos and installed some of the body gaskets that were easy to deal with. Specifically the tail-light to fender gaskets, the License light cover gasket, the deck latch gasket. Also installed the wipers and the mirror. Attempted to install the trunk weather stripping, but it turned out to be much more difficult than I had imagined. I got part of it done and decided to finish it at home.

So, before I go too far, I'll remind everyone that this is a budget paint job and I had a good idea of what I would get. I'll say that it met my expectations but qualify this result as a '20 foot paint job'. I'm sure you'll all know what I'm talking about - it looks good at 20 feet but as you get closer you start to see the flaws.

This whole thing was a learning experience for me for sure. I see now that the result could have been better had I really done as much sanding as possible on all surfaces. It's clear that the time they spent on sanding was primarily to remove the line transitions between the three colors. I got exactly what I paid for - the lines are gone, but you can see that they must have done that work with a vibrating sander or some other tool - at the right angle you can see uneven surface.

All that said, I'm good with the result. While I can pick apart the work, my wife was absolutely giddy with the result. That is the most important part in my view.

When I dropped it off for paint, I also made an order from Wolfsburg West and from Bug-Eyed. These orders included fender beading, trunk and deck weatherstripping, lots of body gaskets and new running boards (the old ones were trash). It took me part of thursday, friday and saturday to install most of this stuff. At the reveal to my wife, I still have details to deal with - the bumpers and mounts need to be cleaned up and installed, the windshield wiper arms need to be painted for example.

So, here's how the car looked when I 'revealed' it to my wife.

So, you can see, it looks pretty good. I did replace the wheels as she really wanted the full moon hubcaps. I think it looks pretty good. She was super excited about it.

So, what about the details of the budget paint? Here's a few examples of 'the bad'.

I forgot to take a photo of the inside of the doors. Of course this job was exterior only so the door jams were not painted. When you open the doors you see a little bit of yellow and a bit of white - on both the door and the body. It's not horrible, but clearly marks it as a budget paint job.

So above I showed an image of the inside of the hood without the weatherstripping, it looks much better with the weatherstripping installed:

and the nose looks better too from a person's normal perspective:

I had mentioned about the fenders and how I remove the beading, but cut the bead and left the remainder. My hope was that it would increase the gap between the fender and body and insure some paint got down in there. FAIL! I should have listened to you guys and just removed it completely. Thankfully, it was only on this one fender, but this is what I ran into when I was removing the old beading:

Thankfully, the new beading covered that up so it looks pretty good in the end.

Anyway, I started this thread just for fun and to document this phase of Jenny's bug's life.

Thanks for all the comments and advice leading up to this.

Sat Dec 10, 2016 5:42 pm

The absolute most important part is your wife's happiness. Glad she liked it ;)

As expected, an inexpensive paint job proved it's worth. But as long as your wife is happy, that's all that matters.

Have fun!

Sat Dec 10, 2016 5:52 pm

Was that a Maaco job?? Looks pretty good to me, what's that run these days.

Sat Dec 10, 2016 6:37 pm

Cusser wrote: Was that a Maaco job?? Looks pretty good to me, what's that run these days.

From my previous answer to this question. Budget for sure but now she'll drive it with a smile on her face and I can focus on my Baja.

madworks wrote:

The half off paint special is $349 (normally $699, something like 4 or 5 year warranty) and they're charging me additional body prep (sanding of the color transition lines) of $200. And a sealer charge of something like $60. Budget for sure but I never meant for this car to be a restoration at this point, it was always intended as a driver and for me to learn a bit about VWs.

Sat Dec 10, 2016 7:26 pm

For the price, I think it turned out great. As long as it lasts a few years anyway.

Sat Dec 10, 2016 8:04 pm

Hey, FWIW I think you did the right thing here. That looks fine and honestly as others have said the "perfect" paint job on a beetle is going to be several grand, ~5K. So much of the car is painted metal and the whole car needs to be disassembled.

So if you're not looking to spend 5K on a job that might be many times over what some cars are bought for, my take is to do as much prep work as you can on your own and go bargain. Why spend, as an example, 2K, since a job at that price point won't be perfect either.

I don't see how Maaco can make any money at all on a job like that. The materials (I'm guessing even for a body shop) are expensive and you can only take so many shortcuts on labor, the thing still has to be masked and sprayed, prep and cleanup, etc. They could have done better on the deck lid, but otherwise it looks like "mission accomplished."

One tip, you can get that paint color mixed up in a special 2K rattle can at your local paint store, or just get a quart and a cheap HVLP gun at Harbor Freight or even one of their airbrush kits with small compressor if you don't have a compressor in your shop. Over time as you work on the car you can start painting some of the other areas. With a little practice you can really fix quite a bit a weekend at a time. If you've got a good paint match, you would be surprised what can be done, I've fixed some small areas in plain view that body shops refused to touch, and you can barely tell. Wet sanding and polishing can work miracles.

Sat Dec 10, 2016 8:21 pm

irun5k wrote:
One tip, you can get that paint color mixed up in a special 2K rattle can at your local paint store, or just get a quart and a cheap HVLP gun at Harbor Freight or even one of their airbrush kits with small compressor if you don't have a compressor in your shop. Over time as you work on the car you can start painting some of the other areas. With a little practice you can really fix quite a bit a weekend at a time. If you've got a good paint match, you would be surprised what can be done, I've fixed some small areas in plain view that body shops refused to touch, and you can barely tell. Wet sanding and polishing can work miracles.

That's a good tip. I'll dig into that for sure. Putting the drivers side running board in place was tough due to bent fenders. Caused me to make a scratch on the front fender. Not visible, but it needs to have paint coverage.

Sat Dec 10, 2016 8:49 pm

Do you remember the name of the color?

Sun Dec 11, 2016 3:00 am

Looks great!

Sun Dec 11, 2016 3:46 am

Looks good from where I'm sitting! Glad your wife is happy!

Sun Dec 11, 2016 6:10 am

joey1320 wrote: Do you remember the name of the color?

It's a factory VW color called Yukon Yellow. Factory code is L19K.

Sun Dec 11, 2016 7:49 am

madworks wrote: joey1320 wrote: Do you remember the name of the color?

It's a factory VW color called Yukon Yellow. Factory code is L19K.

Yeah, I also thought it might be Yukon yellow, like some 1970 VWs had; I like that color a lot.

For the areas in question: take it back to Maaco and let them fix it !!!

Sun Dec 11, 2016 7:57 am

Yeah - I had done that years ago with the custom mixed rattle can for a project so I could shoot the wheels body color. Research it first though, I think I had to "buy a quart" so, I had several cans made up. Wasnt cheap, but came in real handy. Car looks good - glad it came out as nice as it did.

Sun Dec 11, 2016 8:49 am

For what it cost to have Jenny's car painted. I think it looks pretty good.
Yea your not gonna get a perfect paint job for that price. I'd be very happy with a 20 footer. I might do this next winter.

Regarding custom mixed rattle cans. I have had mine mixed at my local Napa. There was (in my case) no minimum purchase. The paint matched pretty well. So I was happy with the results.

Happy wife, happy life!

Sun Dec 11, 2016 9:43 am

irun5k wrote: Hey, I don't see how Maaco can make any money at all on a job like that. The materials (I'm guessing even for a body shop) are expensive and you can only take so many shortcuts on labor, the thing still has to be masked and sprayed, prep and cleanup, etc. They could have done better on the deck lid, but otherwise it looks like "mission accomplished.".

They can do and make money because they buy the cheapest materials and in bulk. The pay crappy wages to the people working there and they cut corners like mad. But if all you want is a solid color 20 footer you got it. Obviously there's a market for these types of quickie paint job. Keep it out of the weather best you can and don't wash using high pressure. Looks good enjoy.

Sun Dec 11, 2016 10:02 am

Scheib painted the hood on my truck a few years ago, satisfied with that too (I bolted it on).

Sun Dec 11, 2016 10:12 am

Cusser wrote: madworks wrote: joey1320 wrote: Do you remember the name of the color?

It's a factory VW color called Yukon Yellow. Factory code is L19K.

Yeah, I also thought it might be Yukon yellow, like some 1970 VWs had; I like that color a lot.

For the areas in question: take it back to Maaco and let them fix it !!!

I wasn't aware they would actually match or duplicate a factory color. I thought it was more of a "Pick from what we got" type of deal. Nice. I like that color and I'm sure it wss the original to my newly purchased bug.