Paint Job Cost?

[lotusacbc]

Just out of curiosity, doing a paint job on an Esprit, would it be any different in terms of money than a regular car?

In other words, my friend got his Mustang painted a beautiful silver metallic color perfect for $4,000. Would this be about the same for an Esprit?

[karmavore]

For a quaility job that the Esprit deserves I'd estimate 7-10K.

Luke.

[lotusacbc]

karmavore said:

For a quaility job that the Esprit deserves I'd estimate 7-10K. Luke.

Wow, thats alot of money!!

But I guess the car would have to be in pretty bad shape to consider a full paint job as oppose to a respray on cracked bumpers or front spoiler pieces

[igreenrover]

In terms of actually putting on the paint The Esprit is a VERY easy car to paint.

As long as you don't need to repair any panels (i.e. if you only have stone chips to take out) then even following the prescriptive procedures in the manual its still easy.

The only expensive part of the job is the labour in removing and re-assembly of the body parts to make sure its done properly. They want to charge a fortune just because it’s a Lotus.

For info mine is currently in my brothers paint shop for re-spray and colour change. He has charged me £500 for materials and 1 weeks labour, I pulled it apart first though and will need to put it back together.

Gareth

[lotusacbc]

igreenrover said:

In terms of actually putting on the paint The Esprit is a VERY easy car to paint. As long as you don't need to repair any panels (i.e. if you only have stone chips to take out) then even following the prescriptive procedures in the manual its still easy. The only expensive part of the job is the labour in removing and re-assembly of the body parts to make sure its done properly. They want to charge a fortune just because it’s a Lotus. For info mine is currently in my brothers paint shop for re-spray and colour change. He has charged me £500 for materials and 1 weeks labour, I pulled it apart first though and will need to put it back together. Gareth

Yeah thats what I thought, once they see its an exotic car, they think they can raise the price dramatically. If it ever came down to it, I would do what you did and take the parts off my self.

Only reason I thought about what it might cost to paint an Esprit, is because 2 days ago I was in Elmsford, NY and saw a nice red '88 Esprit at a shop. I pulled next to it naturally and dreamed for a few moments, but I immediately noticed the bumper and the front wheel well lip had paint flaking off.

>> Edited by lotusacbc on Friday 18th June 16:09

[f1karting]

With the cost people charge for body and paint these days.. I spent the money, took a short course in refinishing and bought the equipment. Once you learn a few tricks, its not that hard. Rent a booth and DIY.

Practice on your friends cars first Jan

[MikeyRide]

I've been doing the same as Jan but it's still pretty expensive. I have $1300 in a nice HVLP turbine system with respirator. A gallon of Really Bright Red basecoat is $300. My BC/CC/activator purchase was over $500. Hell, a gallon of Dupont URO primer is $155!

Here's my cobra hood. JPG compression makes it look a little funny.

[kylie]

Nice work on that hood. You cant beat learning new skills and spray painting is a handy skill to have. We are planing on painting Simons Rod when its finished. As Jan said practice on other things first.

I think 7-10K for a paint job, they have seen you coming and rubbed their hands, hell they charge a top job here in NZ for that price in NZ dollars. I got 3/4 of my car stripped back and and repainted about a year ago and cost around $2K, but I had to bat the eye lids for that price Shopping around and checking out workmanship is what you should do. Recommendations from your mates or through dealers is not always the best option.