Paintjob time - any advice?, Getting a Maaco job Options

[GriffGirl]

Okay, so here's the deal– my hood is badly faded and the bumper has mad rock chips. Someone opened up a Maaco not too far from me and is having a special on their "Supreme" Paint Service, so I'm going to take advantage of it and have my car painted. I'm keeping it silver, but am changing the silver from Alpine Silver (Maaco calls it Silver Metallic) to a silver that's a tad darker and has more metallic flake in it. I can't remember the name of the color.

I know there are things to be aware of, such as removing whatever I want removed and not taped off, etc. I figure a moderately sh1tty paint job will look better than the way my paint looks now. The guy @ Maaco warned me that with a single-stage paint, there's a greater chance of flaws. When I asked "like what" he said there could be some orange peel, even some dirt. DIRT!? WTF? I'm not expecting a $2k paint job for what I'm paying here, but dirt!?

Lastly, I have a crack in my bumper. Maaco wants $180 to repair it. If I had the $180 to repair it I'd just replace the whole bumper. (anyone in the PNW have a bumper for me! ) So I'll repair it myself. I know it won't be top notch, but I can do the best I can with whatever guidance you 6GCers might have to offer me! Current photo of the crack can be taken/posted if that would help.

What prep work can I do myself? What things can I do before hand to get the most out of the Maaco job? What can I do once I get the car back from being painted, to "help it along" and make it look as good as possible?

[presure2]

griffy, ill give you some good tips on the maaco paint line when i get back in a little bit, gotta run over to wally world and whatnot.


::edit::

basicly, you want to remove anything you can get off the car easily before they ever touch it.

bumper, lights, door handle trim, all that stuff you should take off.

they want you to change color because of the single stage paint.
silvers, and light metallics are very hard to lay evenly with single stage paint, and in order to get the metallics to lay properly, you have to dust light coats on, which makes for alot more orange peel in the paint, and then you cant wet sand and buff it out like you can with a basecoat clearcoat job.
does that package include a full intergated clearcoat? if it dont, haggle with them to get them to at least include that for free, it litterally takes the painter 3 extra minutes to add the clear into the last coat, and definetly makes the single stage paint look better and last longer, it just takes a better painter to make it look good with the metallics and pearls.
if you know your way around a DA

you use that, with ~150 or 180grit to get all the big rock chips and scratches out, and be sure not to "dig" into the paint.
you want to feather everything way out, so you dont get any "bullseyes" (low spots created by digging into the paint)
use 220 to feather things further, prime, then sand the whole car with 320grit. you can finish it with some 400 or some wet/dry 600 if you want, but with the single stage paint, it wont make too much diffrence, to be honest.
maaco will use 320 or 400 grit for single stage paint, depending on the car.
you can use a grey suff pad (grey scotch brite pads) to get all the spots the DA dont fit into, just be sure to get everything really well, including the rocker panels.
the better you prep the car, the better off you can be, provided you do it right. if you really dont know what your doing, your best bet is to find someone who knows what theyre doing to help, or pay someone to do it.