On Wednesday, July 22, 2015 at 4:18:10 PM UTC-4, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 7/22/2015 3:14 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 22 Jul 2015 13:12:42 -0400, Keyser Söze
wrote:

My trusty daily driver is "up there" in years and miles, and I'm looking
at a replacement with one third the miles and very good mechanical
condition and service documentation. Body's in good shape, with no
visible damage (dents, tears, bruises, et cetera), but the exterior
paintwork is in really lousy shape...it looks like the owner spent time,
and a lot of it, driving behind gravel trucks with uncovered loads.
There are paint dings aplenty everywhere.

I'm toying with the idea of having it repainted. I've never had this
done. A friend who has had one of his cars repainted said it cost around
$2000, and that included removing all the trim, filling in dings and
scratches, sanding, a base coat, and maybe two top coats and a clear
coat. I forgot some of the details.

Does that sound about right? Too high, too low? Is it worth doing on a
nondescript seven year old vehicles?

Without the details it is hard to say. I would shop around at a few
other places, just to see what a good price is.

This was $700 at Maaco but it didn't last long
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/redcar.jpg



The first ding in a new paint job will stand out like a sore thumb.
If it were me I'd just drive it as is and not worry about how it looks.

I don't know what good paint jobs go for now-a-days. Many years ago I
bought a 1965 Ford Galaxie LTD that had badly faded and worn paint.
I had it redone in one of the Ford paints for that year (powder blue).
IIRC it was about $750 which included removing and then replacing all
the trim rather than just masking it off. Also included the door jams
and all visible areas. So, $2,000 today for a similar job doesn't
sound unreasonable.

The kind of paint job you're talking about (door jambs, etc...) will be more than $2k these days. Maybe twice that. It's a ton of work.

A decent paint job will be $1500-2000, but all the trim won't be coming off and there will be no significant body filler applied for that kind of price. That's all labor intensive. As Gregg points out, you can get a spray for $500-1000, but there is minimal prep and it doesn't last long.

The actual painting of a car doesn't take long. The cost is in the prep labor, and then in the (good quality) paint. And those two things are primarily what makes a good paint job, along with the skill of the sprayer.