Anyone ever done their own paint work?

[ziggaman91]

Painting a car is one of those things that's dead simple, except for the muscle memory needed to do the work. If you really want to do it yourself, go to a junk yard, buy a large panel from a car, a hood for example, and strip it, bondo it, sand it down, primer it, paint it, and clear coat it. It will look like shyt, so repeat those same steps 10 times, and by the 10th time you may be good enough to do a passable job.

This. Also depends how important the car and it's paint finish is to you. If it's a daily run of the mill car do it yourself after practising. If its a special car to you, get it done by a professional.

[wasp9166]

Unless you have full flow ventilation ,you're going to get dust in it

I used to paint planes

Let a body shop do it

[dannyg1217]

I went through dent pulling and minor binding stuff. Wasn't that bad

[JT11RTR]

Don’t listen to the morons here saying you can just spray clear over it.

Honestly it’ll be better if you just sell the car.

Painting a panel is one thing, painting an entire car is a huge endeavor with countless places where a small mistake can make it look like absolute trash

It's really not hard to repaint the clear coat as long as the base is decent.

[Godfrd824]

It's really not hard to repaint the clear coat as long as the base is decent.

That looks like shyt.

[swole-striation]

2 grand for a paint job is pretty good. saves you weeks of prep, buying materials and wasting your free time.

[OneLegSquats]

This never ends well.

Its such a ridiculously complicated job that you better do a lot of overtime and let a pro shop handle it.

That's why you dont see old cars with fresh good looking paint jobs. You either spend more than the car is worth on a good paint job or you do it yourself and it shows.

This
There's a reason it costs so much. The paint itself that they use is OEM spec of better, and it doesn't come cheap. Secondly the sheer labour required to get even an acceptable finish is obscene even for a team of professionals. Then the equipment needed. All of that adds up. If you attempt it with some cheap sprayer or rattle cans outside or in a dusty garage it will look trash and fail in no time. I'd just get a DA on the clearcoat failure, sometimes it can level it off and make it look better. If not, leave it or sell the car before it gets worse.

[DolphinPilot]

This
There's a reason it costs so much. The paint itself that they use is OEM spec of better, and it doesn't come cheap. Secondly the sheer labour required to get even an acceptable finish is obscene even for a team of professionals. Then the equipment needed. All of that adds up. If you attempt it with some cheap sprayer or rattle cans outside or in a dusty garage it will look trash and fail in no time. I'd just get a DA on the clearcoat failure, sometimes it can level it off and make it look better. If not, leave it or sell the car before it gets worse.

Yeah I'd like to do something about it to at least minimize it for the moment. Nervous whatever I do will make it worse, though. I figured just some rubbing compound + high-speed buffer, maybe?

[headturner1]

Op, if you don’t mind.. how old of a car?

I have a 13 year old Lexus and the paint is still rock solid.. in all fairness, it’s garaged all day.. used to be garaged at work doing the day, but now it just sits inside unless I go out obv..

Related to thread, I’ve painted little parts (body kit pieces, gas door, etc..) and it never looked that good.. I ended up paying to get my front bumper resprayed and glad I did!

[DolphinPilot]

Op, if you don’t mind.. how old of a car?

I have a 13 year old Lexus and the paint is still rock solid.. in all fairness, it’s garaged all day.. used to be garaged at work doing the day, but now it just sits inside unless I go out obv..

Related to thread, I’ve painted little parts (body kit pieces, gas door, etc..) and it never looked that good.. I ended up paying to get my front bumper resprayed and glad I did!

It's an 03 I'm kind of lucky as I know a few people with cars ~5 years older that had clearcoat issues long before I did.

btw once again not going to sell the car. At least not now, because of this. I feel I have to say that again

[DolphinPilot]

Well damn son I did a big detailing job over the weekend. Wash, clay, used compound + polisher on that trouble section on the roof, finished with a ceramic sealant spray. It cleared up a good portion of the clearcoat failure and the surrounding oxidation. It's not completely gone but it's a hell of a lot less noticeable! I may go back in in maybe winter time and make another pass at it as it was my first time uaing a DA polisher and I did a half-assed job lol