Cheap Resprays... Experiences and Thoughts

[Lewis's Friend]

I'm thinking about getting a bit of a project car, and I'm unsure what kind of quality (bodywork-wise) I should be looking at.

So my question is this. What experiences do people have of cheap resprays? And what kind of money can you get them for?

I'd be looking to get an original body colour finish, and if helpful I could prep all the panels myself so all I would want is the paint actually put on and then flatted/polished up.

I've heard some horror stories though about this kind of thing, so has anyone done it and got a good result? Any recommendations?

All thoughts appreciated (it would probably be on an e30 325 sport by the way, and I live in North London). Thanks.

[Dab of oppo]

To be honest I wouldn't bother, you may not be happy with the finish and want it painting properly.
I'd save up and pay for a proper job rather than pay twice.
"Cheap" re-sprays are cheap for a reason.

[Lewis's Friend]

Fair enough. But how much (speaking roughly) constitutes a proper respray?

[Dab of oppo]

I guess that would depend on your location and vehicle size, condition of the car and prep required etc, etc.
I'd ask a few bodyshops rather than on here to be honest.
I estimate you'd be looking between 1.5 - 3k for a decent re spray of a family saloon car.

[Lewis's Friend]

That probably makes buying a cheaper car worthless then... I'm trying to strike a balance as I want to strip the car out and make it a bit of a track car.

Seems a bit silly taking a cherished example and ripping it apart, but if its going to be that expensive to make one look halfway decent then that doesn't seem a good option either...

[ymwoods]

for a track car spray it yourself!

[johnnyBv8]

For a track car, don't spray it at all! I'm sure there'll be things to spend money on other than cosmetics.

[kwk]

I have sprayed a few cars myself with very good results. Unfortunately cellulose paints now seem hard to come by and anyway, the price of paint these days mean that the really cheap respray is a thing of the past.

[garethj]

I painted one of my cars with Rustoleum, following the guidelines here

I put it on really thin, which meant I could put a coat on in the morning, flat it down and put the next coat on the following day. Needs about 5 coats, but flatting it down took me about 45 minutes, and each coat about the same to apply. I took a week off work, did the painting in the morning and spannering for the rest of the day.

My camera's pretty rubbish, but the first coat looked like this


And the second or third coat looked like this


It polishes up really well. 600 grit between coats, 1200 grit before the last coat.

There's no overspray to worry about and the finish is very good, certainly better than a £500 respray and the whole lot including paint and everything to apply it cost me much less than £100

[madala]

....you pay for what your get....in some instances you don't get a lot for your money.

[Lewis's Friend]

Cheers for the input guys.

What equipment did you use to spray the stuff yourself? I used to work for a short time at a crash repair place and the amount of specialist bits and bobs they used made me think that that pretty much made it impossible to do a good job in your garage...

And your right, first thing would be a rollcage methinks. But I just don't want a completely grotty looking thing. If I could spray stuff myself though, that'd be excellent. I could then clean up the look of the rollcage etc too...

[PeteG]

Get something that looks a bit sheddy, then stick random vinyls all over it. Make it look like a battle-scarred racer.

[AndrewW-G]

To paint a car yourself, unless you’re going to use a roller, you'll need:

A compressor - with a big enough receiver to ensure that you don’t run out of air pressure mid-way through a coat and preferably big enough to also run an air fed mask
Airline long enough to go comfortably round the car without getting caught up
Spray gun - you can get away with using one, however you really should have at least two different sized air caps / needles for the different thickness of the various coats
Air fed mask - although you may just about get away with using a specialist disposable (ask whoever you get your paint from for advice on this)
Sander polisher

You can get away with no having a DA, but rubbing a car down by hand will be a rather physical process

Supplies you'll need are (I've put in rough costs, with cheap paint):

Wet and dry paper various grits from 80 for flatting filler to 1200/1500/2000 etc. to remove orange peel before final polish £10
Sanding block £5
Filler £10
Stopper £7.50
Barrier coat £15
Etch primer £15
Primer filler £30
Base coat £75
Lacquer £40
Activator for the various coats £40
Gun wash (cheap thinners) £20
Thinners £10
Masking tape £15
Masking paper (easier and better than newspaper and not exactly expensive!)£20
Scotch pads £5
Polishing compound £10

Polishing mops / sponges £20


YOU WILL ALSO NEED A NICE DUST FREE AND WELL VENTILATED PLACE TO PAINT THE CAR, THE VARIOUS CHEMICALS USED IN THE PROCESS ARE VERY VERY DANGEROUS AND WILL KILL YOU IF YOU DO NOT TAKE ADEQUATE PRECAUTIONS.



My 2p on the whole idea, is that unless your comfortable with doing it yourself, visit every single paintshop in a 10 mile radius until you can find one who will do the work cheaply and to a high enough standard

[garethj]

Lewis's Friend said:

Could you tell me more about the system you used. I followed your link, but can you tell me more about the finish etc please? How its lasted, how hard the finish is?

I'm guessing patience is quite a large part of it, but how easy was it to get a nice look?

Posted from a PM, because the info might be handy...

The finish is pretty good, it’s not quite up to a £2500 respray (that I had done on my last car) but it’s not far off, certainly much better than a £500 respray. The paint is hard, I think there are others available from other manufacturers which are polyurethane based and they’re even harder. The advantage is that it’s cheap to apply, easy and you can touch it up easily if it gets knocked.

Flatting down the whole car between coats took me less than an hour. 600 grit wet & dry paper and a hosepipe set to “dribble”. The trick is not to let the paper clog up so keep the water running on the bit you’re sanding the whole time. None of this tedious bending down into the bucket or having to change sandpaper often, a new piece over the sanding block every other panel was fine. Very easy, and because you can see it making a difference so quickly, it’s quite pleasant to do.

I did it over a good primer coat, over any kind of paint it should be easy. I’ve not tried it on bare metal.

The mixture with thinners is debated depending on who you ask; when I started it went on quite thick but it was a swine for getting bubbles forming under the foam roller, I settled on making it really thin – thinner than water and although it took more coats it went on much easier and was a doddle to flat back.

Patience isn’t really the thing, you just need a reasonable eye for detail and some time. I took it as some days off work and it was a relaxing change. The fact that there’s no overspray is brilliant, as is the lack of smell. If you’re after a showroom finish this isn’t the best method (although plenty of people spend thousands on paint and still get a crap job) but it’s cheap, simple, you’re in control and it looks good.

[liner33]

I had a £2k respray on my Skyline (mates rates ) pretty good job





My mate has just had a cheap £900 respray on his car and i cant see a great deal of difference , just because you pay a lot doesnt always mean you end up with a better finish

[bramley]

Paint it yourself with a roller, that's what I did to my E30. Never got round to giving it more than one coat though.

[Galsia]

garethj said:

I painted one of my cars with Rustoleum, following the guidelines here

I put it on really thin, which meant I could put a coat on in the morning, flat it down and put the next coat on the following day. Needs about 5 coats, but flatting it down took me about 45 minutes, and each coat about the same to apply. I took a week off work, did the painting in the morning and spannering for the rest of the day.

My camera's pretty rubbish, but the first coat looked like this


And the second or third coat looked like this


It polishes up really well. 600 grit between coats, 1200 grit before the last coat.

There's no overspray to worry about and the finish is very good, certainly better than a £500 respray and the whole lot including paint and everything to apply it cost me much less than £100

That looks pretty good. I could do with doing something like this on my Mk2 Golf. It looks really tatty on the outside but its reliable so just needs tidying up. Can you just paint it straight over the old paint?

Edit: Just read through the wiki and it appears that prepwork is the key to a good finish. Might try this...

Edited by Galsia on Monday 21st June 10:02

[A205GTI]

If its a car for racing surely a Blowover would be enough, not the best but circa £600ish

[garethj]

A205GTI said:

If its a car for racing surely a Blowover would be enough, not the best but circa £600ish

Depends on the class of racing. A coat of Dulux Once, riveted doors and scaffolding poles works for some