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Anyway, the house needed a beer run so another friend and I hopped in my car and I drove us to the local grocery store. During the 15 minutes we were gone, the building materials store delivered two tractor scoops of sand for the jacuzzi concrete work in the street, right were I was parked moments ago. Long story short, my friend and I return from the beer run, as the sun is setting at eye level - I pull up to the house coasting slowly to my spot and BOOM! I run halfway up this 5 foot pile of sand and bury my car almost to the windshield in sand! I was only going like 5 MPH! See, the pile of sand blended in with the mountains in the distance and with the sun in our eyes neither my friend nor I saw this pile of sand even as we approached it going so slow. It was like a perfect dirty trick to play on someone - no injuries or anything but it left a thousand little sand sized scratches in the hood and front bumper of my car.
So about this time last year, I decided to take fine sandpaper and wet sand the entire hood and then wax it. It looked incredible. Mirror like. Problem was that by the end of that summer the paint just started fading. First a little gray strip appeared then within a couple months the entire hood looked like this:
What a mistake that was to sand off half of the paintjob! But wait, later that year, like around wintertime it hit the rest of the car. Check it out on the trunk:
Now this trunk has so much wax on it that it still beads when it gets wet. It wasn't a lack of care. And I never sanded the trunk lid. I tried removing the wax, I tried wax for black cars, I tried windex; nothing fixed the paint deterioration. When you touched it, it was like a powder. I started looking around on the road and noticed that I wasn't the only one with a car that had paint problems like this - but it got to a point where it was embarrassing to drive. So I decided to get one of those cheapo paint jobs Earl Scheib style.
Now that sounds easy but somehow getting your car painted can become a major chore. What color? Who does it? What kind of paint? How much prep work?
I decided to check out Earl Scheib - there are two of them near me - one is a half hour away and the other 45 minutes. Walked into the first one for about 30 seconds and just left. It just didn't look like a place I wanted to deal with - small tiny room with a grubby counter, junk cars lining the parking lot, I didn't even speak to anyone just left for the further away shop.
This place looked a little better and I spoke with the guy for around ten minutes and just decided against them. I had that feeling like I was being suckered into something. They probably do good work and all but I just felt out of my element while there. They only do Earl Scheib paint colors - it costs you extra to get Honda black - and even then they said they would match the paint by sending in the gas tank lid? There is a color code sticker on the door - why not just use that? A few other issues that just didn't make sense to me. But as I left the guy kept saying "I'll paint your car for 399" "Charcoal gray - that's your color" "That's not cheap enough go across the street and ask them how much they'll charge - I'll charge 399 right now." See money wasn't really the issue, I mean, what could I expect for $600 or even $1,000 - I'm not doing this so it will look bad.
I went to Maaco the next day - Large, sparking clean waiting room, questions answered, etc. I asked the guy if after they were finished if I could bring the car back in a get a few more coats of clear put on it. He say's no - you'd just be wasting your money. Anyway, I decided to go with them. Paid extra for them to prep the whole car and primer it before painting it the factory color. It was approximately $500 in bodywork and $500 in paint job (4 year warranty).
The day before I was to bring it in, I washed the heck out of it. I had a feeling that if you bring someone a car to paint and it has bird shit all over it, and looks like it hasn't been washed in a year you will get a lesser quality job than if your car is super clean - at least then they know that you care about your car. So I washed it real well with lots of soap and marked all of the door dings and stuff with a paint pen. I had 29 door dings:
I also removed things like the antenna, the rubber mud flaps, and generally removed all I could to get paint where they might just mask. I peeled of my "1337" sticker and razor bladed off a factory delsol sticker. I decided to leave the emblems rather than have them removed and bondo'd.
This place Maaco is an hour away from me. I decided to book a morning tee time at a golf course in that area and then called up all my golf buddies asking if they felt like playing Tuesday morning. One said yes, and I say "Oh, and can you pick me up at Maaco first and then drop me off at my house after?" - No problem - cool. Maaco worked on the car for 4 days and I golfed on three of those days so I didn't miss it too much. I bummed a ride from a friend who happened to be going to that area on the morning of the fifth day so I got away with no rental car, and didn't really inconvenience anyone over it either.
Here it is - is that the same hood?
See those 13 inch stock wheels - I'm replacing those as phase three next week I hope..
This paint job looks really great from 10 feet away - And that is all I care about. Close up there are a few spots where it looks like it bubbled or dirt got on it or something. And that is fine with me - it is not worth the hassle of dropping it off to fix. But one thing that I am a little disappointed with is that the entire paint job has like a texture to it - it looks like orange peel. I don't know if waxing it will get rid of that I hope so. I am not supposed to wash it for a week, and not supposed to wax it for a month.