oto60

I am just curious to know how many 911 owners have cars that have been re-painted. I am wondering how much the value of a car depreciates if any if the car is original color and is painted correctly to original specs. Any comments appreciated. For the most part most cars I see unless they are garage queens have some sort of paint done. Especially darker colors. I find it hard to beleive some of these car owners claim to own a car with original paint and it be over 20 + years old.

imcarthur

Mine is 2/3 resprayed. When I was looking, most of the cars (if not all) had had some respraying. Hoods, doors, front bumper & valance are the common areas. Even owners that claimed 'original' paint typically had something resprayed on them . . . whether they admitted it or not.

As for value, what looks best - ugly stone chips or a respray on a selected area (assuming a good paint match)? Everybody wants 'original' paint (fear of hidden crunches) but I bet they seldom get it unless it's a 25K car. As they age, I think it matters less. These aren't limited production cars after all.

Ian

jimcabc

I agree with Ian. I also have an '87 Cab, low miles, purchased 5 years ago. It looks very clean, but the left front fender was resprayed and probably the left front door too. The po, which should have known better, did not think (or admit) it had been repainted. It's pretty hard to drive a car for 20 years without running into something or having something run into you. It's got to affect value somewhat as the really obsessive will want a totally original car and these must now be very rare. My opinion is if I need to go over the paint with a magnifying glass and strong light to see the difference, what is the difference unless you are going to have a garage queen just to show?

Jim

Peter Zimmermann

My '82 was original (with some road rash and light damage, door dings, along the sides) until idiot owner #2 bought it, thought it would be a cool track car and had it sprayed at the Earl Scheib level. Then he sold it to me and bought a late model racer. After I bought the car I had everything but the roof and bumpers/valances done by a craftsman, and the car looks terrific. The roof paint has a little "dirt" in it, but is bright and shiny so I left it alone. The car has never been hit, even lightly, and shows it with perfect seams. As already stated above, most 911s between '65 and '89 have had some level of paintwork, totally original drivers were far and few between at my shop. Avoiding road rash is almost impossible, and sooner or later somebody is going to put their foot on your bumper to tie a shoe, etc. Bad seams and bad paint are things to avoid, good repaint work is OK, concours paint on anything but a show car really isn't necessary, but some shops can do it, and some owners will pay for it.
Pete

oto60

well said. I just got in touch with the dealer who sold me the car again. The gerneral manager was able to obtain additional papers on the car. He faxed them over and just as I thought the car was re-painted about 8 years ago for about 5500.00 dollars. Its a pretty damn good job because I went over the entire car before I bought it and could not find anything that showed a re-paint except that the paint looked to fresh to be an original paint job since 1986. After further inspection the only thing I found was some surface rust where the spare tire sits due to a battery boil over years past. All areas were cleaned and treated.

Luus

Mine is coming up on 50K miles and still has its original paint, just as nice and glossy as new. So it is possible to drive a car for 18 years and not need a respray.

theiceman

My Car is a 78 , so that is almost 30 years now. Belive me I wanted a car that had been repainted.. I figure and unresprayed 78 would look pretty rough. It looks good and like anything else, you have to hope it will last. !

Brian_77_3.6

My car had several thick repaints during its life and when I bought the tub 5 years ago I had it stripped and a $5000 paint job done by a top notch coach works. People ofen ask me if the paint is orginal because thats how it looks. You get what you pay for in paint work.

My87Targa

my car has been re sprayed a couple times, as it sits now its grand prix white base with galaxcy (sp?) blue pearl in the clear coat. its real light so eventually ill re strip the car re spray it white and add some nice thick and heavey pearl to make it stand out better

pjc

I have a '76 car that had a cover over respray just before I bought it (18 years ago) and I drove it like that (OK from a distance but so-so close up) for 14 years then just bit the bullet and had a total body resto - boy does she look cool now! Also run a 993 which had the usual stone chip damage to the front when I bought it - first job was to get the front respayed - again, she looks great.

PJC

Jay H

Both of my brother's SC's have been repainted. One of them is on it's 3rd repaint and it looks exceptional. The prior owner paid huge dollars to have the car painted after it's turbo look conversion. That repaint probably didn't do much to the car's value due to the turbo conversion.

The second SC he has is an average repaint, but we purposely looked for a car for him with a repaint (or weren't bothered by the fact the car had been repainted). It was meant to be a driver, so why not have fresh paint on it rather than rash from being driven for 23 years? This car was a bit cheaper due to the average repaint, so it's value was affected slightly downwards.

Reasons for the repaint are important. A repaint after an accident is something to check for and may decrease value. A repaint due to cosmetic vandalism probably isn't the worst thing for a driver. The car should drive the same as a non vandalized car. A repaint due to just freshening up an old car from sun or road rash is probably a good thing too if you want a good looking car to drive. It may or may not affect value...

PCA has certain concours classes that won't allow a car to be shown if it's been re-painted over a certain percentage of the body. So, for certain concours cars (not all though), a repainted car could be seriously compromised in value if it's been extensively repainted.

Jay
90 964

zois

Mine is painted the original color only because I like white and I can change the graphics to most any color....

It's your car...do it any color YOU want....you shuldn't worry about resale, let the new owner worry about it...IF you chose to sell it.

Auto_Werks 3.6

My 83 has mostly original paint, but it has had the right rear fender painted, and the right door painted for sure. I honestly believe that the previous owner didn't know, and it went through a PPI by a porsche specialist. Apparantly I am the only owner to drive the car in rain since the work was done, because I noticed that those panels tend to oxidize a little, but clean right up with a little zymol. I can tell that the car was not crashed because the tub is still straight underneath, and the rear fender still has the factory texture under the lip. In the long run, I wish I had known when I bought the car, but it really doesnt bother me, as the work was done really well (windows out etc.). Like others have said, you get what you pay for, and the value is almost all in the prep work. A monkey can use a spray gun, but it takes time and money to lay down a nice coat of paint.

Dan Cobb

I'm going thru this exact issue in my head right now. It really shouldn't bother me all that much, but for some reason it is getting under my skin.
The car is at the shop right now, getting the LR 1/4 repaired and resprayed. I need to reshoot the tail, the hood, and the roof (Thanks to the clearcoat peeling away with the blue 3M tape I used to protect the paint while replacing the sunroof seal last winter).
Anyway, it appears that the roof and RR corner were resprayed once many years ago becasue I found a paint seam along the drip rail and there is a small area with sanding marks that show through the paint in the right lighting.
I hate the idea of having a 911 that has this many resprayed areas on it. I am worried it will adversely affect the value of the car, even if they are all done correctly.
It makes me want to respray the entire car, but right now that isn't going to happen.
It bothers me enough that I have given serious thought to selling the car.
Please tell me that I am nuts for allowing this thought process to overtake me this easily. I am almost certainly aware that by selling it, I may never have another one, but the thought still keeps popping into my head.

Quick... someone talk me in off of the ledge!
+++

imcarthur

They're war wounds & the inevitable scar. If you're going to drive it, you have to expect it. If it was a trophy car it would be worth stressing about a value drop. We're talking $1K in price difference to a buyer - if that? On a Diablo it would be $20K.

Every time I take it out, I get a stone or two wacking somewhere. Just wince & slap it into a lower gear & the smile will come back. And respray it when it gets too bad.

Ian