lexlikenother

I finally had a chance to go to the body shop to get an estimate on my car. After the long and tedious hours I spent perfecting my 97+ bumper conversion, plus a new left fender, the body shop guy told me that I would have to take it all off for them to paint it. He said it was because he couldn't get in the cracks. I was thinking that if I took off all of my lights, then shouldn't he be able to reach everything, and I mean EVERYTHING?? He said so the paint wouldn't start to crack, and that they have to paint it from the inside. This place is a very reputable shop, and he said that some places would paint it with it left on. And he was also talking about taking my door apart, and my rear view mirror off? WTF for ?!? That's not even connected to my bumper, and it's not interfering with my fender. As long as the parts you can see with/without the hood closed are painted, that's all I'm worried about.

So is any/all of this correct, or should I find a place that knows how to paint it with the parts still intact?

sexinthelex

Trust me, you WANT to take it all apart as much as you can... well, if you care about your paint not looking like ****. My dad has a '77 Porsche 911, it's cherry man, 55,000 original miles. We had it repainted a couple years ago and we took the interior completely out, headlights, tail lights, doors, windshield, back glass, all the trim, bumpers, everything. It's totally a show car. It takes more time and effort, but you'll be very happy in the long run.

hoops_24

Well, who doesn't know ***** about cars now??

Just messin' man. You should be glad the shop wants to do it right. The rear view mirror needing to come off is part of the "blend" process. The cracks will begin to peel over time because you will have a paint curl at any rough edges. Get the stuff taken off and painted correctly or you will regret it.

Sorry you wasted all that time bro'

Hermosa

My SC4 is being taken apart as we speak and getting the back half repainted for that lame hit and run incident that someone bestowed me with.

I rejected some shops for the following reasons:

1. They said they did not need to take the car apart to paint it

2. They said they would just fog the existing paint but still charge $3600.

3. They said it would take three weeks to paint.

lexlikenother

The MAIN reason that I thought I had to put the stuff on my car first is because I see all of these little hondas and whatnot, with the full body kits on, unpainted. So I guess their paint will be peeling off soon.

Still don't understand why the outside rear view mirror has to be taken off so it can be blended. Anyone care to explain??

Hermosa

The reason why many of those kids with the body kits have unpainted parts is that many good body shops will not even touch them. The materials vary so much these kits that it is supposed to be hard to match the paint. Also the kids probably couldn't afford to get it painted since they have Honda Civics anyways, hehe.