blindeye

Thinking about painting my 83. Book value shows $3700 in avg cond. $5700 in excellent condition. Mine is avg. 185000 miles. It needs painting and front and rear seats need recovering. Great history. Owned the car for 9 years. Invested about $10,000 in those 9 years to keep it running. But with the value of the car its not really practical to put a $2000-$5000 paint job on the car is it? I'll never get it back. I hope to own the car for a long time, but dont have the funds to drop on an expensive paintjob. 2 kids in college. I probably could swing a $1000-$1300 Maaco job if it were prepped well and wet sanded for a smooth finish. I hate orangepeel. Any thoughts or input appreciated.

lilredpo

Probably no more practical than the $10K. 944's are labor's of love, not logicy. Shop around for low cost shops and get referrals. Maybe check with a local high school or tech school that may want a project.

Or, sell the car, take the paint mmoney and upgrade. For $5k you could get less miles and better interior.

Just my .02

Good luck!

rickb20

If you do plan to keep the car don't worry about whether you could recoup the money for the paint job...it's irrelevant anyway.

As for saving money, buddy up to someone who has done paintwork before and learn everything you can. Practice by painting "expendable" items. Do all the prep work yourself and then let a pro do the final shoot if you don't feel comfortable with orange peel.

Rick

Mike C.

If you do the prep work yourself and only have the body shop paint it, you should be able to get a reasonbly good job for not too much.

TRWright

These cars are not investments. If you love the car, I say paint it. I realize that I am into my 951 for life, unless I want to take a MAJOR loss on it. You just need to accept it!

Porsche-O-Phile

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What he said.

Airplanes, cars, boats, women - all fun. All lose money. Bigtime.

Russian Rocket

Do the prepwork yourself. I know it doesn't exactly answer your question but Maaco paintjob will make you regret it the first time it rolls out of the shop.
Prep. is 90% of the paintob, you can learn how to do it by searching some of the paint threads on rennlist and reading a coupla good articles. Find an independent shop that can cut you a good deal if you do all the prep.
Good luck
Vlad.

88black944

doesnt maaco have a 300 dollar paint job??? just get like 7 of those...

lilredpo

Anotyher alternative, look into painting with DuPont or similar Acrlic enamels. With a gloss hardner additive, they can be wet-sanded with 1500 paper and buffed to a glass finish. This works especially good with non-metalic colors because the wet-sand on met's could take the tips of the flake. But no problems with non met, Guards Red.

This would eliminate the orange peel.

Your probably not looking for show quality, a bright shiny finish at 10 feet would be slick!

Good luck again!

sharky47

I used acrylic enamel all the time, just painted the inside of my hood this afternoon - almost done with the restoration.....

Ac enamels are great, not too expensive and wonderful outcome! Just make sure to use a "flex agent" on the plastic bits or they will peel eventually.

KLR

$10k for 9 years of driving is pretty good when you consider that these cars stopped depreciating a long time ago. You would do much worse if you had owned any new car over that period. As for what to do now... it depends on what you want to do with the car. If you want to keep it for a while, then it is worth putting in whatever you think would make you happy. There is a strong emotional component to this. If you will have more $ for this in three-four years, you may just want to wait, as it is difficult to "undo" a crappy repaint. If you want to do it now, I wouldn't shy away from spending decent $ if you want to keep the car. As stated before, the most rational thing to do is probably to sell and spend a few $ more for a nicer example. This is not a very emotionally satisfying thing to do. I didn't shoot my dog and buy a puppy when he got old, and I'm not trading my wife in for a younger model either. The car is an inanimate object, which makes it different, but when you're attached, you're attached.

rvolk86

beautiful

rvolk86

http://www.carcraft.com/howto/24820/

maybe that might help...

blindeye

I appreciate all the help. I love the little car. We have invested a good bit of money. Not intentionally, but as you know things happen periodically that have to be repaired to keep it going. And I like the fact that I am keeping a 944 on the road, whereas if I didnt make the repairs and sold the car, soon it would end up a parts car. When we bought it, we were uninformed about the importance of buying the car's history, so we jumped in blindly. The car looked great, but after a year or so the paint began to fade on the front end. The previous owner hadnt polished the car so it hid much of the actual finish. In its past, the car had a front end collision. Dont know what was repaired or replaced, but the car had been repainted from the front bumper to the doors. The front end repair was prepped very well. All of the original car's slight texture on the entire front clip was sanded to a glass smooth finish inclluding both doors. The new paint job was faded in near the door handles. Now the front clip is pink. And the clear coat is peeling off like a passing sunburn. Everytime it rains more pops up. I peel it off with a credit card and re-polish. I'm just about down to the bare metal on the right fender. I probably should sell it, but I am attached. I am still mad at my Pop for selling his 40 Ford when I was a kid. And trading his 64.5 Mustang for a used Tercell. So my inclination is to keep it even if its never worth more than $5k. I dont want to regret selling it. Even if I go with the cheaper paint job, it will still look far better than it does now with its pink peeling rosatia (sp?). After the kids are outta college, I can spring for the good job. I picked it up from the shop Fri after having an 88 read end installed - my ring and pinion died. They parked it out front beside a true red 944. Thats when I realized that any paint job is better than a faded, peeling pink Porsche 944. I have read all the links about prepping the car at home. I might give it a try. I am handy that way - but patience is not one of my virtues and I work long hours at the office. But if I can save some greenstamps and take it to a better paintshop, then its worth it. At least the weather is nice out. I'll call Harboor Freight for prices on a DA. Anyone know if a 5 gal compressor will run the DA? My compressor tops out at 60psi. Is that enough juice? Thanks

500

Most DA sanders are air hogs. My 5.5 hp/32 gal./150 max. psi/10 CFM compressor is not really good enough for one.

Sanding the car by hand is not THAT bad though. I'm pretty much done on mine (expect to shoot primer this weekend). The hardest part was the engine compartment (8 hours sanding... my car is completely stripped).

But you're right... it takes patience!