How much should a paint job cost?

apocalypse1812

apocalypse1812

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Nov 29, 2006
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I have been looking at getting my '96 repainted because the paint is peeling off to the primer pretty much all over and it it the only thing besides the cracked dash that is keeping it from being a pretty truck.

Abouts how much should a shop charge to strip down and reprime and paint it, It is a Cab-and-a-Half Long Bed, so it is the big one...

There have been a few estimates I have gotten, they range from $4500 on down, so I dont know how much is too much, and how little is too little...

I'm not going to paint it myself, I have already thought about it. I suck at arts and crafts.
 
Do bed liner on the rockers and it'll be even better. It really depends on what color you're gonna go and how good a job. I would say 4-5 grand for an entire truck is about right.
 
Considering that the paint coming off those is a known issue and it will have to be completly stripped...4500 is cheap.
Almost too cheap...make sure they're gonna strip it down right.

The estimate on my truck, which includes door jambs, with me stripping the truck down....is 5000 in labor plus materials....roughly 8 grand total for what I want.
 
my friend just had his painted it was stripped to bar metal and everything was 4,000 to do it it would have been a bit cheaper but he took it to a cheap A$$ who said he could do it all for 2k well lets just say you get what you pay for
 
I have talked to like 2 guys around here who;s trucks have the same problem, and they said that they diddnt have to strip it all the way down to the metal, just to the primer, reprime it, and then paint/clear it.

My Truck is white BTW
 
I know one job we just did on a 97 insurance payed us $5600 and that was no body work just labor striping the panels and money for new emblems and moldings. Something that is pealing we will strip only if the primer is checked,pealing,or rusting and it turns out to be around $3000-4000 if someone is paying out of pocket. Try and find a smaller shop and they should take care of you.What is the larbor rate where you are?
 
I would agree with Rich.. 4500 bucks for a truck that size is very, very cheap. No way you'd get a good paint job around here for that little..
 
I would definately have it stripped to metal, then epoxy primer it before paint. $4000 is extremely cheap for that job, lots of work to do it right.
 
Paint is high. I stripped my wifes grandfathers 91 Ram down to bare metal, then epoxy primer, y2k (2 coats) and then base/clear. Had about 140-160 hours in it, not counting spray/cure time.

I learned two things, #1 Body men earn there money. #2 Epoxy primer will never be used by me again. I hate the stuff!
 
We had one of our work trucks painted the other day and it was peeling badly. The body shop took it down to bare metal and painted it back the same color and fixed one sizable dent. It took about 3 weeks and it was 2200 dollars and just a cab and chassis so 4500 for a ext cab long bed sounds pretty good. The same shop painted my 12 valve regular cab longbed bout a month ago and fixed some rust on the rockers and changed the color for 2000 but it didn't have to taken to the bare metal. It was painted under the hood, door jams, the bed, and they took the bed off to paint the cab.
 
Paint jobs

When I totaled my truck out in dec 2007, after I got my broke back and ribs fixed, I bought my truck back from the insurance company. Went to a body paint shop reccomended by a good friend Bob Goodwin, They replaced the truck 8 foot bed, both doors, I cut most of the cab off and they spliced on another cab, did body work on the hood, both fenders, painted the truck for 6,000 bucks cash! Anybody that looks at my truck cannot believe what a amazing Job he did. Thanks God he had a worker that could speak english. Love my truck! Still off roading where I totaled my truck.
 
bsmith said:
Dammit, i need to get into paint and body.
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No you dont. You dont make nearly as much as you think. Here is a quick break down of about how much stuff is to do a complete truck.
Primer 250-300 for a gallon
Base coat (color) 320-400
Clear about 300
For a complete your looking at 1k plus in materials. If your using all good name brand stuff such as 3m and ppg its not cheap at all. You can make more money off of repairs than you can on a complete. We dont do complete paint jobs because they eat up to much time.I have been doing paint work for 14 years and the only time I make real good money is doing side jobs.
 
I think the price for a gallon of paint and primer is about 1/2 of what you listed. Unless things have changed in the last couple months since I priced it with PPG.
On edit, I noticed you're in California with all the envro-nazis, there's probably a 50% tax on it :doh:
 
CL2000 said:
No you dont. You dont make nearly as much as you think. Here is a quick break down of about how much stuff is to do a complete truck.
Primer 250-300 for a gallon
Base coat (color) 320-400
Clear about 300
For a complete your looking at 1k plus in materials. If your using all good name brand stuff such as 3m and ppg its not cheap at all. You can make more money off of repairs than you can on a complete. We dont do complete paint jobs because they eat up to much time.I have been doing paint work for 14 years and the only time I make real good money is doing side jobs.
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Why dont you open your own shop then?
 
that might be cheap on that size of truck i was quoted 4500 to do mine, a rclb and that was tear down and re paint. was not going down to metal and back up only sand primer and paint.
 
bsmith said:
Why dont you open your own shop then?
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IMO Its not worth it in CA you have to do a ton of work as a shop to keep a float. We have been very lucky because we are small and have kept very busy. $75 an hour isnt much after all bills and everyone is payed. Labor rate for mech here is 100-175. Shops are not cheap around here to rent.
 
CL2000 said:
IMO Its not worth it in CA you have to do a ton of work as a shop to keep a float. We have been very lucky because we are small and have kept very busy. $75 an hour isnt much after all bills and everyone is payed. Labor rate for mech here is 100-175. Shops are not cheap around here to rent.
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I figured start up and overhead cost were not worth it.
 
CL2000 said:
IMO Its not worth it in CA you have to do a ton of work as a shop to keep a float. We have been very lucky because we are small and have kept very busy. $75 an hour isnt much after all bills and everyone is payed. Labor rate for mech here is 100-175. Shops are not cheap around here to rent.
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wow
your labor rates are alot better than us

our rates are
45
45
60
58
30
thats in a toyota bodyshop
we do about 450,000 month...
i did all the bodywork on my truck and painted it and it still costed me 1800.00 3 years ago for paint and supplies only
 
Yeah it's not cheap and people don't seem
to understand it. When we switched to waterborne and got all the new regulations. Now we have to use sealer that only comes in galons and is 320 with out activator. To do waterborne right you should have all 3 colors of sealer. The zero reducer for sealer primer and clear is 108 for a gallon.
 
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