Re-Paint vs Value

[Riff Raff]

OK I'll start. In my opinion any change of color will devalue any car unless the job is done very well and all concealed and semi-concealed areas are painted.

It's a little like most cosmetic home improvements. For every custom change that some future buyer might like a larger number of future buyers will hate.

x2. Agreed. Besides, re-painting any vehicle other than its native color renders the owner 7 years of bad luck. Bad "car"-ma.

[circmand]

Only if it is a high quality custom job and not enough to cover the cost of the paint job. There are not so few VXes outt here that anyone who wants one cant find one if they want it.

[WormGod]

Having painted for many years, it's a double edged sword. When you think about it, you paint the car the way "YOU" want it. Whether it's a single color all-over or a custom multi job, it's still YOU. When you try to sell it, you are trying to sell a piece of YOU. Your taste. In a manner of speaking anyways, heh.

And there are ways to do it wrong. 99.9% do. Unless it's the SAME factory paint code (simply just a repaint of the original color), you have jams, interior, undercarriage, and the engine bay to consider. Say you have a white vehicle and you paint it black, and these areas are NOT painted.... OH YEAH, it sticks out and NOBODY wants that. I have done TRUE all-overs before, and people pay a healthy price tag for them. Complete strip down. Best and only way to go IMHO, but time consuming and pricey. The more that you have to mask off, the worse the outcome if you ask me.

Your car though. If you plan on keeping it, I say go to town. But, there is always a buyer for everything, so don't be discouraged either. Just might take some time to find a buyer when you go to let her go. Just some food for thought.

FWIW, I was speaking with a shop a couple years back (eesh, was it that long now) that only does restorations and customs. Having a resto/custom background, we got into detail about what I wanted to get a very near price. Essentially, I wanted full strip down. We are talking a dime away from rotisserie. Paint the ENTIRE thing, Chevy Orange. Problem is, this kind of work is hard to estimate. Without mentioning what price we came up with, let;s just say, it exceeded even the price tag on the window when I bought it. I half expected that but it was nice to know in case I ever hit the lottery or Bill Gates decided to adopt me, heh.

[circmand]

Did a total restore on it. Before I found a guy doing it as a hobby I got a $10,000 paint job estimate for a body that had no dents just scratches and wear marks that was going to be stripped and painted. Of course he volunteered to take it off my hands and sell me a friggen MG for $10,000 he had for sale.

[nfpgasmask]

I'm going to post a reply here because I have plans for both my VX and Trooper.

For my VX, I plan on getting a full repaint. I will be going with the original factory black paint code. So, for the "experts" on this forum, what do you guys suggest when I start looking for a shop to do this work?

I have a load of dents and dings and deep scratches that will need to be repaired before the paint goes on. I have very bad thoughts about a shop removing all my claddings and glass, and I am thinking that since I will be going with the same color, would it be a "bad idea" to just have them mask the windows and cladding??? Or will it look like crap?

As for my Trooper, I think a complete repaint would be very easy. I can strip the interior down to nothing but the dash in about 30 minutes. The exterior can also be stripped very quickly. So I think I will eventually just get a cheap spray job on the Trooper as well.

As for changing the color, I would say that all depends on if you plan to keep the vehicle "forever". I spray painted my Trooper, and dumped a bunch of money into it for the motor swap. If I tried to sell it right now I might get $3000 for it if I am lucky and I have way more than that in it. But I don't care, because I plan on keeping it "forever".

Bart