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So I've owned this 87 944S since new and have put an insane amount of miles on it (well over 200k). I've had the head blow up with a broken belt, blow up again with a broken timing chain, and had most of the failures you can have in a 944. Still love the car, it's a good egg. But it had the 1987 Crimson Metallic paint and the clearcoat quite simply blew up, peeled, and looked like total sadness.
Thus I dropped it off at the end of last year at the Jessup MD Maaco with a request to "fix it" with a $1400 best paint option, match factory color, and about $300 extra to fix the rust in the rear panel, shredding sunroof top, the broken up front spoiler, and dents from hail and trees/branches/shovels/whatnot. And fixing the driver's door when I backed up over a log that tore out the door stay and crumpled the door. Why not, the car really wasn't worth anything except for sentimental value, and I wasn't going to pay Jeff Shaw $15,000 to repaint it. Besides he didn't want to do it because it's not a 911.
They spent 6 months working on the car, prepping it, fixing the dents, sanding down the crap paint and clearcoat, and fixing all the hail dents all around. And after all that they didn't charge me a cent over the estimate. I think it was a labor of love or something, maybe they just don't get to work on cool cars too often.
Regardless I'd recommend them highly. No it's not a 15k paint job but this isn't a 15k car. I think it looks great, it looks like it did when I saw it at the Porsche dealership, and I hope it lasts another 30 years. At that point I'll get it done again.
First, the old pictures....
Probably the best view Peeling Sunroof looks like it has been eaten by a bear I took off the 944S crest before sending it in. Crunch went the door. Paint is just shot. Note rust in front of wheel. Rust is starting to eat the car. Need paint now!
Every couple of months I would pop in to check on it.
Look at that door work! More door Other side Chewing away at the old paint Looking better! What a sunroof! Dusty but working They totally did the hood. Then did it again Nice top!
Sitting next to another 944 and my Insight. Where are they coming from? Closer view Door stays fixed My putting in a new seal popped the glass a bit. Damn! Still. Wow. The beast and the bucket, my two big Porsches Looks good. Need to get the 944S badge on there. Yet another 944. Lot of them out there. Side view Close up of the sunroof Front on with badge back on. Sharp looking car....
Looks excellent! I love paint threads and honestly Maaco’s can do great paintjobs the key is the owners standards and them not rushing to finish. Whats your paint code by the way?
I had a similar attitude back in 2002 when I repainted my 944. Everywhere I went kept giving me quotes of $8-15k as soon as they looked at the car but none of them could tell my why it cost that much. I ended up doing the Maaco thing also. I decided that the places the paint would most likely have long term trouble would be wherever there was a tape line so I stripped the car down as much as possible to avoid those tape lines and delivered them a car with minimal need for taping around trim and whatnot (I pulled the tail lights after driving it over to them).
I bought new seals, hood crest, and so on and reassembled the car.
I think I spent a total of $3.5k when I was done. It wasn't a perfect job but well worth what I paid and a lot of people were surprised when they found out it was a Maaco job. I probably could have made it a bit better by wet sanding it but it just wasn't what I needed to do at the time.
The paint has held up pretty well, all things considered. Since it's thinner, it is more easily chipped and it has picked up a fair amount of those during the last 17 years and almost 100,000 miles and the clear coat is just now beginning to flake a bit on the front bumper. It's a bummer but, again, not anything I'm upset about given what I paid.
I won't say that Maaco is right for everybody but it can be a viable solution.
Maaco painters can lay down paint extremely well when given the time. They paint more cars than practically anyone else after all. The thing they cheap out on to keep costs low is the prep and sanding.
Do that work yourself and have Maaco lay down the paint and you will have a great looking paint job that looks like it cost over 3X what you paid for.
If you want it really perfect looking, take it to a nice detail shop and have them wet sand the whole car after the paint has cured for a while.
Are both these cars guards red? Looks a little off if so. I ask because my 944S was repainted as well and the doors jams vs outside are different in shade. Original guards was a more vibrant red vs what the paint shop laid. Both cars looks great just curious is all.
Are both these cars guards red? Looks a little off if so. I ask because my 944S was repainted as well and the doors jams vs outside are different in shade. Original guards was a more vibrant red vs what the paint shop laid. Both cars looks great just curious is all.
They are different colors. One of them is guards red, that was not a basecoat/clearcoat combo. Mine was Crimson Metalic, which is a deeper and richer shade of red. When mine peeled (as the metallic paints do) the underneath was a much more dull red. The repaint is pretty close to the original, which I can still see if you look under the rear carpeting.
I think the key to having a car painted is to drop it off in the late fall/winter when things are slow and have them do it over 6 months. Every time I went by I said "Take your time, no hurry or rush" and they spent the time either training people on it or just fitting it in when they were slow. By spring everyone's bringing in other work, but by then they had properly stripped it and just did a monster amount of work prepping all of the dings dents, and crunches from years of ownership.
Given that they do an endless amount of Toyotas and such in accidents, they seem to have enjoyed working on a sort-of classic and took some pride in the outcome. And no it's probably not a 15+k paint job like my dad did on his 68 911L, but that is a 200k+ car these days which is a bit different. So if your paint is really totally shot, take everything you feel comfortable with off the car and drop it off in late fall. Come back by the beginning of summer and you'll be pleasantly surprised with Maaco.
It just *feels* like it did when it was new. I really like that, so the "smiles per gallon" value of this job was out of this world.
07-12-2019, 06:44 PM
New paint photos from a $1700 Maaco job
