Has anyone seen this commercial? Wow, Maaco does great work. NOT

[AtomicFirebird]

http://youtu.be/bUGDeMjy3Bw

[Mr.VENGEANCE]

god.. you would even CONSIDER using them?

id do better doing it myself...

[AtomicFirebird]

ELL No! It was a poorly placed joke about the commercial. Maybe I should have put, of all the cars, why would they use a 69 Camaro or any classic car for that matter! I wouldn't trust them with my trash can.

[67rstbkt]

Such harshness..... Not everyone can afford a high dollar paint job. My first project car when I was 18 was painted by Maaco. It was definitely not the greatest job and I did pay extra for the add-ons, but for an 18 year old kid with a beat up looking paint job it was awesome. :2nd:

[twosaturns]

Such harshness..... Not everyone can afford a high dollar paint job. My first project car when I was 18 was painted by Maaco. It was definitely not the greatest job and I did pay extra for the add-ons, but for an 18 year old kid with a beat up looking paint job it was awesome. :2nd:
agreed. on my 2nd car when I was 20 (70 nova) I made such a mess of the new lower quarters I took it to maaco to get finished. paint, finish my bad bodywork, install new tail panel, IIRC all those years ago it was like $1300.
of course it could have been better, but not by me!
the one thing that grated me though; I brought it to them w/ all the trim removed so they wouldn't have to mask it all (I was changing colors also) but I left the taillights in the trunk. when I picked it up, they had installed them, but they looked funny. sure enough, they were swapped from side to side!
the idiots, instead of checking why the holes didn't match, just drilled new ones! it didn't show, but all they had to do was try them on the opposite sides!

[AtomicFirebird]

Ok, maybe they can paint my trash can. Am I the only person that thinks, Wow that's weird, a 69 Camaro in a Maaco commercial. I am not trying to bash Maaco, just the fact that a 69 Camaro was in the commercial kinda had me taken aback. My buddy worked at Maaco and he did not have anything good to say about it, only that he had a job.

[twosaturns]

well sure, it's the mcdonald's of body shops, but they have their place.
it's just a commercial, director just wanted a hot rod I'm sure.
it's not reality ok?
besides, plenty of people have messed up their camaros on their own, they don't need maaco's help!

[LeighP]

lol...I'll just bet that Camaro was painted by them....riiiight.

[Mr.VENGEANCE]

yet again.. i would get some books on how and paint it myself.

then... if i ever wanted to repaint it(if i got better at painting) it would be no problem.

[DartorDemon]

lol, my buddy went to maaco for his 73' challenger when we were in highschool. Every 3 months he had to go back and have them respray it in different spots.

[Mathius]

I don't know why car sites bash away at Maaco. Even Car Craft has admitted that if you do the prep yourself you can get an ok paint job from them. Of course your results are going to vary depending on the quality of work put out by the Maaco in your area as well. The paint roller method has proven that with enough elbow grease and sanding you can have a solid paint job for very low cost.

And you know what? I'd rather DRIVE my car then sit there looking at my $20,000.00 custom paint job that I'm afraid to scratch.

And thank you Mr. Vengeance, we heard you the first time. But not everyone on this site even has a garage or even a house to paint their own car at. Not to mention I can get a full paint job at Maaco cheaper than I can buy the paint and equipment I'd need to do my own car.

Mathius

[Damn True]

"Do it myself" is not an option in CA. Illegal.

[joe440]

maaco couldnt pay me to bring my scooter there

[CamaroAJ]

"Do it myself" is not an option in CA. Illegal.

its only illegal if you get cought.

[AtomicFirebird]

Mr. Vengeance, what in the world is your pic? The devil, a vampire, a blind man that needs a teeth cleaning or some crazy dude hype up on crack with some still in his mouth. What's that pic from? Because it's creepy.

Ummm, I just read you interest and occupation, never mind I don't need to know what the pic is. Thanks have a nice day.

[AtomicFirebird]

Joe440, do you really own a scooter? Not that there is anything wrong with a owning scooter. I'm just asking. Can I see it? Please
By the way, I love your car. That is one green sweet ride.

[DarkBuddha]

I make absolutely no apologies for having my Mach painted by Maaco. I probably could've afforded a more expensive job, or even done it myself for the same money (maybe slightly less), but Maaco was the right choice for my criteria: a reasonably priced, adequate quality, base coat-clear coat, nation-wide guaranteed paint job for a car I knew would get plenty of door dings, rock chips, and road rash, and wouldn't upset me everytime it got scratched or nicked. And depending on the intended purpose of the car, I'd do it again. IMHO, not every car needs a great quality paint job to be the car it's meant to be.

[AtomicFirebird]

I have to say, from what I can see of the Mach's pics, it looks pretty good. I like the color.

[Josue]

Yea, you gotta LOVE the advertising that goes on nowadays! hahaha


And you know what? I'd rather DRIVE my car then sit there looking at my $20,000.00 custom paint job that I'm afraid to scratch.

+100!!

I don't know why people bash Maaco for doing lower quality work.....um HELLO....YOU PAY THEM to do low quality work!!! It's not the shop's fault! If you pay for a $300 paint job, guess what...you're gonna get a $300 paint job! If you pay for a $5000 paint job, you'll get that. If you pay $20,000 for a paint job, again, you'll get that. You get what you pay for with body work...

Maaco's CAN do "normal" quality work, you just have to pay them. They're a normal body shop, with normal technicians. They do collision work, and insurance claims, they just so happen to offer cheap, quicky paint jobs.

[69stang]

I don't know why people bash Maaco for doing lower quality work.....um HELLO....YOU PAY THEM to do low quality work!!! It's not the shop's fault! If you pay for a $300 paint job, guess what...you're gonna get a $300 paint job! If you pay for a $5000 paint job, you'll get that. If you pay $20,000 for a paint job, again, you'll get that. You get what you pay for with body work...

Maaco's CAN do "normal" quality work, you just have to pay them. They're a normal body shop, with normal technicians. They do collision work, and insurance claims, they just so happen to offer cheap, quicky paint jobs.

Normal quality for a kindergartener maybe. Paid about $1200 to paint my 79 mustang about 12 years ago. Didn't pay them to sand the perimeter of every piece of glass in the car including my new windshield and that's just the tip of the issues I had with them. I'll paint a car with brushes before I ever give them any business again and I'll bash them every time the subject comes up.

[724tim]

http://youtu.be/bUGDeMjy3Bw
bUGDeMjy3Bw&feature=youtu.be

[Josue]

Normal quality for a kindergartener maybe. Paid about $1200 to paint my 79 mustang about 12 years ago. Didn't pay them to sand the perimeter of every piece of glass in the car including my new windshield and that's just the tip of the issues I had with them. I'll paint a car with brushes before I ever give them any business again and I'll bash them every time the subject comes up.

Again, sounds like you got a $1200 paint job.

[AtomicFirebird]

724tim, WTF, how did you do that? I spent 20mins trying to do that. Dang!!!

[MonzaRacer]

Ok so right up the road from Lincoln tech was an earl sheib. You could get taxi cab paint job for $99 in his colors, $89 you bring materials, or pay good money and get good work.
Had class mate with a late 60s Dodge, forget model. he found paint/body supply store, bought sand paper, and primer in gallon, he sanded car for like a month or better, everywhere. took to 3 diff body shops, got ideas on how to deal with door dings(this was in 85)so he rollers on lacquer primer by the gallon, probably went through 10 gallons between spills, sanding, etc. and none of it thinned.
So he decides on one of the metallic colors and had it sprayed, looked like crap for about 3 days, he gets call "hey we forgot to clear it,,.,!" Its "new" clear coat, so they take it in remove all of his chrome he just reinstalled, cracked his already cracked windshield and get him new one(ooppss on their part but he got new glass for free) and they must have put 10 coats of clear on, its slick as concrete.
He takes to local shop with only film layer tester in Indy I think. it has like 10 mill of clear, that shop says give it month or 3 and bring it back and we will color sand and buff.
So for $450 the second shop did that and lo and behold a mile deep "metal flake" metallic red(well orange-ish red) paint job that looked great.
Painter was good Earl Sheib shop wouldnt/couldnt thin clear, they didnt have thinner for new paint yet! This was why it looked so bad it was too thick to spray.
Second body shop loved it as they smoothed his car out nearly perfect in 2 days of color sanding, turns out they could start with 600 grit to level it then go to 1000 plus for shine.
Also had several friends do a lot of prep, and have economy shops shoot for them and paid slightly better money for painter to take more time.
Most of those guys do better work on side so can do good paint. Just got to check reputation.

[Mathius]

Earl Sheib is a totally different story from Maaco for the simple fact that they're all independently owned now so whatever warranty/guarantees you get aren't likely to transfer. http://www.earlscheib.com/

I would source an earl sheib like you would any other body shop now and understand that you're paying for a cheaper grade of paint job.

And to '69 Stang... again, $1200 for paint isn't a lot of money and again.. Maaco's are going to vary in quality from shop to shop the same as any other shop. The advantage of a place like Maaco is they rely on customer service to a large extent to stay in business. What actions did you take after you weren't satisfied with your paint? Did you speak to a mgr, or try taking it to another Maaco?

Mathius

[DarkBuddha]

Normal quality for a kindergartener maybe. Paid about $1200 to paint my 79 mustang about 12 years ago. Didn't pay them to sand the perimeter of every piece of glass in the car including my new windshield and that's just the tip of the issues I had with them. I'll paint a car with brushes before I ever give them any business again and I'll bash them every time the subject comes up.
Uh, that does suck... big time! But remember that each Maaco is a privately owned franchise, so it really does depend on the folks working there.

As for my experience, I knew going in what I was gonna get with Maaco: they have the equipment, they get the paint, they can do some basic prep, but otherwise I didn't expect much. Knowing that, I talked to them ahead of time and told them I would deliver the car 99% stripped (minimal masking), we talked about what I wanted (including full primer, basic prep and block sanding, and base-clear paint with upgrade to Dupont), what I could expect, and we negotiated a price ($1000 even). Take a look:

https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif (http://img413.imageshack.us/i/78843129.jpg/) https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif (http://img291.imageshack.us/i/paint13.jpg/) https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif (http://img541.imageshack.us/i/paint9.jpg/)


https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif (http://img291.imageshack.us/i/paint11.jpg/) https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif (http://img413.imageshack.us/i/paint8.jpg/) https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif (http://img251.imageshack.us/i/88566939.jpg/)

After a couple years:
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif (http://img393.imageshack.us/i/14resized29ui.jpg/) https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif (http://img393.imageshack.us/i/m34resized0fh.jpg/) https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif (http://img393.imageshack.us/i/27aresized3xh.jpg/)

+5 years:
https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif (http://img72.imageshack.us/i/img0640smallqn4.jpg/) https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif (http://img158.imageshack.us/i/img0631copysmallxj2.jpg/) https://static1.pt-content.com/images/noimg.gif (http://img204.imageshack.us/i/img0619smallen2.jpg/)


And it still hasn't ever been wetsanded, polished, buffed, or even waxed yet, so there's more depth and shine to be found yet.

My only point being that depending on what you want, how you go about it, and what you expect, Maaco can be a viable option for those that can't or don't wanna spend big coin on paint.

[69stang]

Again, sounds like you got a $1200 paint job.

Nope, got a $200 paint job. We're not talking about a little dirt in the paint here or there or excessive orange peel, expected some of that. I surely didn't expect it to be perfect by any means. I did expect proper prep before paint like filling scratches and ensuring all the surfaces to be painted were sanded/scuffed. They obviously sanded some as the glass was nicely sanded but they missed other areas. That's just painting basics. Didn't realize at the time they weren't capable of performing basic paint prep. I know better now. I also expected them to remove the old factory pinstipe instead of painting over it.

Mathius
I left it with them to make it right (except for the glass) and it was still messed up. Negotiated and got about $300 back to cover replacement glass. Had to have the car to get to work at a new job 35 miles away so I had no choice but to take it as is. The store manager was a real DH and chose to blatantly ignore obvious issues. I got on with the new job and chose not to deal with it anymore figuring I'd redo the whole thing myself. Chalked it up to lesson learned.

DarkBuddha
Before leaving the car I told them what I wanted done & agreed on a price. They clearly screwed up and played dumb about it.
Your car looks really good and will probably look even better once sanded & buffed. It seems to be a crap shoot, you got a good one and I didn't.

[Mathius]

Nope, got a $200 paint job. We're not talking about a little dirt in the paint here or there or excessive orange peel, expected some of that. I surely didn't expect it to be perfect by any means. I did expect proper prep before paint like filling scratches and ensuring all the surfaces to be painted were sanded/scuffed. They obviously sanded some as the glass was nicely sanded but they missed other areas. That's just painting basics. Didn't realize at the time they weren't capable of performing basic paint prep. I know better now. I also expected them to remove the old factory pinstipe instead of painting over it.

Mathius
I left it with them to make it right (except for the glass) and it was still messed up. Negotiated and got about $300 back to cover replacement glass. Had to have the car to get to work at a new job 35 miles away so I had no choice but to take it as is. The store manager was a real DH and chose to blatantly ignore obvious issues. I got on with the new job and chose not to deal with it anymore figuring I'd redo the whole thing myself. Chalked it up to lesson learned.

DarkBuddha
Before leaving the car I told them what I wanted done & agreed on a price. They clearly screwed up and played dumb about it.
Your car looks really good and will probably look even better once sanded & buffed. It seems to be a crap shoot, you got a good one and I didn't.

You sound like someone with a very narrow view of just what Maaco is offering you. You wanted way more than I would have ever expected from them. They don't tell you in the publications to do the prep yourself for no reason. Maaco is about one thing. Quickly spraying down new paint on your car. If you want body work done, you pay extra for that.

Overspray is normal, and don't expect much in the way of prep. It's a quick process for a reason. Body shops pay by the hour the same as everything else. They can't give you a $1200 paint job if their body guys have to spend 20 hours sanding your car.

Then you take your car and the posts of the guy's car above and with two paint jobs for evidence you proclaim it a crapshoot. Narrow indeed. Sounds like you didn't make much effort in getting them to make it right either because you were just pissed and not willing to deal with it. You're still pissed and holding on to it after 12 years. That's the impression I'm getting. Here's the thing, after 12 years? Maaco's still doing pretty good business... most of those people at the shop you went to have moved on to other jobs, and you're the only one who really cares about what happened to your car all those years ago. Life's moved on. If you think that shop is putting out the same work after 12 years, you are mistaken sir. Might be better, might be worse, but I doubt you'd have the same experience. They may have even closed that particular shop. But Maaco is what it is and you expected way too much for $1200. It cost me $400 just for the base, clear, primer setup 7 years ago and I know the price has gone up since then and that was for PPG opening Omni line of paints back then. That doesn't include labor, supplies, overhead, or profit.

Mathius

[69stang]

I expected no more than what was on the workorder and at the price agreed on. It was all spelled out. I'm not ticked off about it anymore and I sure don't lose any sleep over it, just relaying my experience with them. Bottom line, they agreed to certain work and ended up doing a half--ss job. simple as that.

[MrQuick]

my buddy is a painter at Maaco, you get what you pay for. $200 paint job will look like a $200 paint job.

If you do go to Macco, get the body work done else where (or do it yourself), have them spray it with a couple extra coats of clear. Then cut and polish it yourself.

Even if you do "do it yourself" paint and material is $1200 easy.

Im not one to spend a lot on the paint. Depends on the car I guess.
Vince

[Happyfunballs]

I worked at Maaco in the 90's. It's a great place to cut your teeth as you learn a lot of what not to do. However, if you do the prep work yourself, sand all of the hard to reach area's, and have them paint and clear it, it isn't bad at all.

[Satatic]

Id rather have maaco do the hard work (prep) and then I spray it :lol:

[Happyfunballs]

Then you'd be in trouble. :lmao: The good part is that if you ever wanted to strip the paint off, all you'd need to do is take it to a car wash.

[Mathius]

I expected no more than what was on the workorder and at the price agreed on. It was all spelled out. I'm not ticked off about it anymore and I sure don't lose any sleep over it, just relaying my experience with them. Bottom line, they agreed to certain work and ended up doing a half--ss job. simple as that.
They advertise you can buy Ribs at Burger King, but that doesn't make them worth eating.

Mathius

[elitecustombody]

Yea, you gotta LOVE the advertising that goes on nowadays! hahaha



+100!!

I don't know why people bash Maaco for doing lower quality work.....um HELLO....YOU PAY THEM to do low quality work!!! It's not the shop's fault! If you pay for a $300 paint job, guess what...you're gonna get a $300 paint job! If you pay for a $5000 paint job, you'll get that. If you pay $20,000 for a paint job, again, you'll get that. You get what you pay for with body work...

Maaco's CAN do "normal" quality work, you just have to pay them. They're a normal body shop, with normal technicians. They do collision work, and insurance claims, they just so happen to offer cheap, quicky paint jobs.

Um. NO!. No matter how much you pay, you'll still end up with cheap crap job, even if you paid $8k for a paint job, at least at the MAACO next door to my shop, the painter can lay the paint nice and wet, but there is always so much trash in the paint,it looks like someone is throwing dirt in wet paint on purpose. MAACO is a great choice for small car lots or people on budget , who want a cheap $200 paint job, if you pay anything more over $300, you're wasting your money, I've been next to MAACO for over 15 years ,on average they paint 10-15 cars per day, I haven't seen anything impressive yet . Want me to tell you why? Because there is no qualified personnel to do quality work,