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How Much Does it Cost to Get Your Car Painted?

15 Oct

Any reader who holds on to a car for a long amount of time will one day wake up and discover that the paint has faded on your once beautiful automobile. It is time to get your car painted. If you have never gone through this process before, then you many not be aware of what is involved. Painting a car is not so simple as getting a couple of guys with cans of spray paint to have at your car. Repair and body shops that specialize in car painting go back down to the car base material level by first sanding down all of the original paint, applying a new coat of paint using particular tools for the job, and by adding invisible layers of clear coat to protect the paint. This article discusses the factors affecting the price involved in getting your car professionally painted.

Painting Process

Quality paint jobs on cars need significant amounts of preparation work, special skills, and expensive materials. Because of this, the quality of work and considerable time involvement plays a role in the cost of getting the car painted. After they wash the vehicle, good professionals will sand it down and cover the windows and chrome. A clear primer is first put down to extend the new paint jobs’ life. Then the paint color is applied utilizing spray guns. A protective coating, also invisible, finishes up the job. Body shops that race through the different steps will charge less.

Materials

A few materials also comprise the cost in painting a car. The garage will need to be paid for the cost of clear coating, paint, and primer. With a few coats of paint needed, a good set of reasonable materials quickly adds up to from $1,000 to $1,500. Quality also impacts these prices, and a high end paint will run over $5,000, while a low quality paint goes for a few hundred dollars. There are colors which are most expensive, like red paints. A vehicle’s size will also impact the price as more or less paint and other materials will be needed.

Labor

This is a hard to quantify component in the pricing of getting your car painted. Quality of work as well as area of the country determines the cost of the labor involved. Quickie paint jobs are available for less than $500. In these jobs, there is no preparation work and the paint application is commonly both sloppy and inconsistent. The majority of body shops and garages will do the entire task from start to end for about $2,000-$3,000 in labor cost. Quality again determines the final numbers in this category. A vehicle’s size will similarly impact the numbers. Highest end costs of labor can run in excess of $50,000 or even higher, for highly specialized jobs.

Total Pricing

Once the number involved in materials costs and labor costs are tallied up, a normal paint job will run in the ballpark of a $3,000 to $4,500 price range. While a poorly done paint job can be had for a mere $800, the highest end and best quality ones can run $75,000. Saving money in painting the car yourself is possible, but you will still have to purchase sandpaper, a spray gun, and cover materials for the chrome and windows. Paints are also more expensive when purchased in small quantities by an amateur.

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