One of these days I want to have our van repainted. It’s a full-size Chevy conversion van with a high top. I don’t want anything really fancy, just a nice shiny coat of paint and maybe a stripe or two so it doesn’t look like a box. I have never had a car painted and have NO idea what sort of prices I’m looking at. I literally don’t know if it would cost me $100, $1000 or $10000. Anyone more in the know want to fill me in? Maybe even give me some tips ? 
Like anything, it all depends on how wild you want to get.
First is materials cost: If you go with a budget price enamel, you’re looking at maybe $30 to $50 a gallon. If you go with a catalyzed urethane, depending on color, you can easily spend $300 a gallon. Make it a pearlescent or translucent and you can hit $500/gal.
And just as a rule of thumb, for each gallon of paint, you’ll need two gallons of thinner/reducer and at least a gallon of primer/sealer.
But then, the majority of the cost is labor. Is the van pretty straight? Any rust spots? Dents? Stick-on graphics? How many windows?
Conversion vans are pretty big and have lots of nooks and crannies… even assuming no bodywork (and a good shop will always want to scuff and degrease, so there’s almost always some bodywork) there’s still masking, taping and prepwork.
And finally, there’s usually a pretty wide range between shops. One shop may have a high overhead (building rent, etc) and have higher prices. Another shop may have some highly skilled, in-demand employees wo tend to do a lot of trick graphics and airbrush work, and so may price “simple” jobs high simply to make them worth their while.
And, of course, you can get a Maaco job for cheap… if you’re not real concerned with the final finish. 
Take it to several local shops, and get estimates. You may have to insist on getting the “plain n’ simple” job. Then go with the second-to-lowest bidder.
I don’t want anything fancy. The paint on there now has NO shine to it, it’s sun damaged. No rust though, no dents. I don’t want anything “wild” I just want fresh paint. Anyone want to hazard a ballpark range?
Here is the van: http://fathom.org/opalcat/van/
There’s nothing wrong with Maaco. I had my Daytona (may it rest in peace) painted there for around $350 or so. It looked really nice, but only lasted about 3 years before it started to fade again.
So, if you’re looking for a quick, cheap, short-term solution (as I was), you might give them a call (if there’s one in your area).
I remember a guy named Earl Scheib used to do commercials about how he’d paint any car for $99. (These ads were long ago, before I had a license or a car.) I would have gladly thrown old Earl my business, as the car was not new, and I–like yourself–just wanted it to look decent.
Maaco did the last two paint jobs on my 1982 car. The first time there was a sale on and I got it for $500 (Cdn). Last year I took it to a Maaco, bearing in mind that the sky’s the limit, and asked for a cheap job. The Maaco guy asked me how much I was willing to spend and I said $600. After a little eye rolling, he agreed to a $600 job, no guarantees, and I got a pretty damned good paint job that should last me 5 years. The point of this post is…go cut yourself a deal with the shop. Stripes are going to cost you another $100 or more. Who cares if it looks like a box?
Maaco is the Hair Cuttery of body shops. Twice I had minor work (paid for by insurance) done there which started to flake off after about a year. When I took it to a different shop, they pointed out where Maaco was lazy (they had painted over some weather stripping and got paint on the part of the window glass that never comes into view).
But to bring this back to the GQ world, I have long been thinking about getting the old ('93) Prelude repainted to get it back to looking like the shiny bullet is used to be. I went to Maaco (just out of morbid curiosity I suppose) and they didn’t even ask me what kind of car I had. The guy just pointed at their set of attractive wall posters that advertized a range of options from a basic paint-by-numbers job for $199 up to “Ambassador” service for around $1000.
What could be the difference between a $200 job and a $1000 job? Is this really a matter of the kind of paint used? The local body shop (that I’ve had much better results with) actually bothered to have a guy look at the car and said it would all need to be “hand painted” and therefore would run me in the neighborhood of $2000. I guess that means they don’t like to use the masking tape method?
A paint job should cost you between $1400 and $2900. There is a reason for this. I would be suspect of anyone offering to do it for less than $1000.
You want to spend almost $3000 for a paint job, be my guest… My feeling is that if it’s an old car, spending that much on it is ludicrous.
Another option: call your local vocational/technical high school–one that offers classes on auto body and so on (if you have such a school in your area). Often, they will do paint jobs as sort of class projects and you’ll get it done for free. There are obvious drawbacks here, of course:
- The very fact that it’s a class means that the painters are not quite experts yet, though they are being led by a licensed auto body tech.
- You may need to let them take your vehicle for several days, if not weeks.
- There can’t possibly be a guarantee on this kind of work.
Auto painting is one of the things where you get what you pay for.
Expect to pay $1800+ for a full size van. Bodywork extra. The paint and materials are cheap (a couple/few hundred bucks or so), labor is expensive.
Why not DIY? Get yourself a couple gallons of exterior latex, a roller and a dropcloth. Won’t cost you more than fifty bucks and an afternoon’s work. Just make sure to wash and dry the van first.
…what? Why are you looking at me like that?
“exterior latex”
Umm, no latex. You can of course get the real stuff as they said for about $30 a gal. They usually sell it based on air drying temperature, so you better hurry up cause its getting colder. Also, you need the spray gun, you can rent one for about $40/day.
That’s just for old cars though, new ones should be done professionally. Perhaps you could find some guy doing it offhours?
Also you need to find the paint code under the hood or somewhere so you can have it matched perfectly.
Uhhh, sorry, Handy. I was kidding.
exterior latex = house paint = not suitable for vans.
I thought the “…what? Why are you looking at me like that?” would have given it away.
I had my '70 Olds convertible painted a couple years ago. I paid 1200 bucks for one coat of paint and two coats of clearcoat. Thats with no bodywork, and I had to dechrome it myself. I got a pretty decent paint job for the price.
If all you’re looking for is a basic paintjob, prices will start around 3-400 dollars.
If your paint is just oxidized and not rusty, try cleaning it. It might just clean up OK, with the right stuff- McGuires is the best, all body shops have it, as do good auto parts stores. The mildest is Car Cleaner/wax, and it will make old paint look, well, pretty good!
There are differing grades of McGuires abrasive, and they can all be used to snap a car’s finish back. Also, a good detail shop might be able to make it nice for a couple hundred rather than a couple thousand. A LOT of people paint cars when they really only need to be deep cleaned and waxed.
Good luck!
B.
OBTW; I had a car painted in the body shop of a local high school years ago. They had the car for weeks, as they taught the students how to prepare the car for paint, etc. and the job was not the BEST i’d ever seen, but the work was pretty good and it was- wait for it- FREE.
To kind of sum up what’s been said:
You can go to a real auto body shop. To do a conversion van that size will cost you at least $1500 and up. But, it will literally look like new.
Or you can go to Maaco. A big van will probably cost you between $400 and $600. It won’t win any shows, but for 90% of people it will look great.
Or you can get Skyler, the 15 year old down the street, to do it with his dad’s Warger power painter for a case of Busch. But, it will look like shit.
I don,t paint cars but I do paint boats and planes. It looks to me that you have a beautiful multitone van that you are proud of. I’ll bet the cost of any** proper** paint job to replicate the design would be prohibitive, and anything less, disappointing.
It occurs to me this van may be a candidate for clear coating only. You said there was only sun dammage. That is lightly abrade the entire surface and apply a Dupont Clear coat (a polyurethane). That would restore the shine, maintain the colour scheme, provide UV protection, and be relatively cheap because of limited prep time and paint volume.
Now I haven’t actually tried anything like I suggested, but can any one who has painted cars comment on my suggestion?