MAACOS.... 95naSTA and I went back and forth on this because he worked at one.

1. They are all different. Only use one that has been in biz for 15-20+ yrs. Better yet, find a corporate shop. Their equipment is the best and maintained.
2. Bodywork ain't their forte.
3. Only use their 2 step paint and clear. Most in this area use Dupont Chroma.
4. Bodywork ain't their forte.
5. If you are getting your car painted. Pull everything you possibly can, and do all the masking you can. Get to the shop a couple hours before they open. Pull the lights and anything left, and mask.
6. Bodywork ain't their forte.
7. get estimates from a couple of MAACOs. Then go to the one you want to do the work. They have lots of haggle room. In Jan and Feb you will get the best prices.

If it'* just the paint, you might want to take a shot at it yourself. Companies like Paintscratch (plenty of others,too) have great matching factory touch-up paint. If you do a scratch and it doesn't match well because of UV burn etc, you can send them a photo and the paint. They will take a shot at tweaking it.

Your only downside is you won't do a perfect job. Your upsides are you'll learn about painting. If it'* not great you'll only be out a little money and time, and can then turn to someone to do it for you. There'* an even money chance, even if it'* not perfect, you'll do a better job than a MAACO.

Some folks here have done some complicated shadetree jobs that came out great.

make sure you tell them exactly what you want. Also brought up remove everything you can. My friends car was repainted there and the just sprayed over all the emblem and badges. there was over spray all over the place and it had started to peel off in about 3 months. remember you get what you pay for.

i went to macco and got a presidental paint job for $380 and i also paid $150 for something called a value prep that was supposed to consist of sanding and removing all scratchehes on car and sanding down old paint and priming car to get it ready for new paint... now here is the bad news. my car was fine i mean no rust no holes no cracking or chipping paint. just scratches.. i paid macco to do all of the above work and that was 3 months ago.. when i got the car back all scratches were were still there bet more noticable now because the paint was new and the scratches just sucked up the white paint and looked blue... now over the last 3 months that i had the paint job my car now shows hundreds of rust dots that look like freckles all over the car, and there is three spots were the paint just chipped off completley while i was washing the car.. and the chips are the size of dimes.... . i personally know they did not use any type of primer or adhesive for the paint to stick tpo and they probally did not rmove the old paint either............ MACCO SUCKS>>>..... sorry about that i had to let it out.....

I think it is a very good thing that we get word when one of our members gets such a bad paint job result as you experienced. I have no reason to defend Maaco at all, and I think your experience falls within the expectations people in this thread have warned about.

Mostly that work done by any given Maaco at any particular time is unpredictable. Some people get an excellent paint job and others get a horrible paint job.

The number one piece of information I think we should get from this thread is that individual Maaco'* have widely varying results. (As do pretty much all auto-painting companies.) I think the number one thing we can do to protect ourselves is to do a *LOT* of research on the individual Maaco (or any paint shop) that you are considering painting your car. Seek out LOTS of references, look for reviews of shops online, check the BBB, and look at previous work they've done.

As mostly always, word-of-mouth is the best information source here.

I hope there'* some type of warranty on your paint job. If they really didn't prime the car, that is very easy to prove with a little wet-sanding. If you can show that you didn't get what you paid for and they care at all about their reputation and integrity, they ought to professionally re-do your car.

It sounds like the paint has shrunk, it can do that is not mixed properly, thus showing the sad scrathes left behind. I am a bodyshop manager it happens even to me guys. But macco is a low line shop and again you get what you pay for...

yikes, I will avoid macco at all costs.

i cant reply to this fully right now since im at work, but EVERYTHING you just side is a grose misconseption of what needs to be done to paint a ca

but i will agreewith you that macco does suck, the problem is macco knows that most people are ignornt to what needs to be done to paint a car, so they use that to there advantage to rip them off

you CAN get a good paint job from macco, but you they will nickle and dime you for every little step, at which point it might be CHEAPER to go to a good bodychop (like a dealer shop)