[AMC-List] MAACO or equivelent paint jobs.

["John Elle" <johnelle@xxxxxxxxx>]

In my life I have done a number of cars and painting them has ranged
from spray bombs to chain paint stores (MAACO and equivalent) a decent
body shop and DIY. Each selection was made based on my budget, need and
objective as to the use of the car. First of all if you want a decent
paint job, figure out how to do it yourself or expect the equivalent of
the $30,000 Legendary paint job.  You can get a passably decent paint
job using spray bombs. If all you want is an ok driver that looks good
when you drive it to church Rust O Leum will work quite well and I have
seen a really sharp Gremlin that was done with duplicolor spray cans,
but that does come under the do it yourself category. 
As far as MAACO goes my experience sort of parallels Tom and maybe
others. In my case there was a MAACO shop that was getting a lot of good
press in the local cruising news. I visited it. I saw a Jag sedan, a
Corvette, a couple of other collectables and a Chevelle  that was having
quarter panel work done on it. So as I was building driver that I could
show and the top of the line MAACO made sense I dropped of my Spirit,
stripped of all chrome, lights, bumpers, builder wheels and tires new
upholstery, new rugs, detailed engine compartment and some body
detailing. When I went to pick it up I was sorry I ever had it there. 
Can we say OVERSPRAY?
EVERYWHERE!!!!
Under the hood, on the engine, under the chassis, on the black bumper
shocks still bolted to the car, on the new rugs through the holes in the
rear fascia where the tail lights were no longer. They did not bother to
plug the holes, they did carefully mask part of the body that I had
replaced with a black piece cause the white one was broken but they did
not bother to put paper over the holes going into the hatch through the
tail lights or the shock mounts for the bumpers carefully painted black.

I do not know how they got as much white paint ALL over the engine
compartment and engine as they did. But they did not bother removing the
body parts that were in the hatch that had to be painted too despite
instructions that left on what to paint and not to paint. Not only that
but the windshield wiper shafts and mountings were painted. The list
goes on. It took me over a year to clean up and repaint due to over
spray. Not to mention that when they finally did the body parts that
they left in the hatch they did a lousy job of matching the selected
paint color. 
When the aggravation was finally said and done and the year plus time
was spent cleaning up the over spray the end result was not all that bad
and as long as the car was garaged and waxed regularly it looked good.
It was and still is driven daily and has placed well in local, regional
and national shows. However the last year it has had to sit out side and
after one years time the paint is oxidizing badly. Yes, you can get a
maybe o.k. paint job for about $2000.00 from MAACO or equivalent, or
maybe you might be very upset about what you got for $2000.00. I was! I
can do a better job than what I got from MAACO using single stage
Acrylic Enamel for about 25% of what it cost me to have MAACO frustrate
me so that is what I will do from now on. 'Sides that paint is orders of
magnitude better than the top of the line paint from MAACO. The cheap
paint from MAACO will oxides out in about 3 months around here. Not even
worth the effort to use it. 
For what it is worth, that is my experience. 
John
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