Looking for body/paint guy in South OC, CA

[king2887]

Hi guys,

 

Title is pretty much self-explanatory; could really use some help finding a shop or guy who paints 2002s and does the necessary body work beforehand. I’ve had my 2002 for a little while now, but am not particularly used to working on them. So, again, I could really use anyone’s help on this. Thanks so much to any responders, as I’m kinda clueless here and feeling a bit lost!

 

Thanks, 

Daniel

[AceAndrew]

Daniel,

 

I feel your pain, paint/body will either make or break a project.  First, I have a couple questions for you that you should be prepared to answer when talking to a prospective body shop...

 

1) Are you wanting a full bare-metal paint job? are you wanting just an exterior respray?  Door jams?

2) In what condition are you delivering the car?  Stripped?  Blasted bare shell?  Complete and running?

3) What do you expect the body shop to do?  (depending on previous answer) Everything (including stripping, blasting, rust repair, reassembly, etc?)?  Rust repair and paint?

 

Remember that the body shop is charging by the hour, so any work you do in preparation before hand will save you hours of labor charges from their end.  In my case, I did everything I could before.  This included stripping the chassis, rust repair, and even undercoating.  I delivered the shell with preliminary primer and blocking done.  The bodyshop will now do two more block sanding procedures before wet sanding and paint.

 

-------------------------Here are some bodyshops you can talk to.

 

1) Harbor Autobody (San Pedro) - Have a restomod muscle car friend who swears by these guys.  The cars I've seen look good, but I do not know the relative cost involved.

 

2) Bell and Vaughn (Pasadena) - Have seen a couple cars look nice, but they do both "concourse" jobs and "quickie" jobs.  Larry Chen is getting his Z painted there, and they've done at least one Clarion car.

 

3) RP Enterprises (Hawthorne) - Roy is who I am using to paint my car.  I've seen the work he did on @Schnellvintage's 2002 and it was immaculate.  His Porsche work is equally impressive.  The only trouble is that he runs a small shop and it could be months before he has a spot open up.  I know there is a long waiting list as it is.  I didn't hear from him for three months and then got a call that he could take my car the next day!  That was a bit of a scramble.  Not the cheapest, but certainly very thorough. 

 

4) Tijuana - You'll have to ask @jrhone for details and look at his thread.  His car presented well.  This option probably offers the best bag for buck results.

----------------------------

 

Best of luck on the project, hopefully this helps get you pointed in the right direction!

 

-Andrew

[king2887]

Hey Andrew, thanks for the help. I now know what to ask and expect from a body and paint shops.

[chargin]

Andrew is spot on

 

the first question you have to answer for yourself though is how much are you going to spend?

 

question 2: what seals are you buying?

uro or OEM?

 

$400 or $1200? There’s a reason so many buy OEM

 

question 3: chrome? Is yours ok or should you repolish? Plenty of metal polishers in south LA

 

question 4: Bumpers? How are yours?

 

And don’t forget your headliner

 

these questions will greatly effect your budget 

 

Day 1

 

 

Day 1 at  body/paint

 

4 months later

Edited December 24, 2018 by chargin

[Schnellvintage]

Here is the example to what Andrew is referring to: 

A few before and after photos of work done by RP Enterprises.

 

Matt 

 

[king2887]

Thank you everyone so far... I have template of a car from the bring-a-trailer website. Although I want to make adjustments between that example and others, I appreciate all of your advice. The more examples, the better! So, thanks again, guys.

[jrhone]

So for my car I was not able to go for a $5k-$10k paint job and thats what I was quoted from reputable shops.  So I looked around and a lot of VW and Porsche guys were taking their cars to a place in Tijuana Mexico.  There are lots of posts about the process, and its not a drop your car off and write a check type scenario.  I went back to Mexico 4 times and watched the progress as well as got pics of the updates.  I was very happy woh the outcome and now over 2 years later, I'm still happy with how it turned out.  Is it perfect? No, but for under $2k it can't be beat.  Looks like it cost me 3 times that easily.  Here are a few threads to look through....

 

 

[king2887]

More great information. Thanks to everyone for there input. I will start looking into these suggestions, I’m sure I will be enjoying a new paint job soon. Thank you