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Speaking of Maaco, I'm curious as to how much the roller technique is saving us. It'd be grateful to get feedback from those of you who have contacted the Maacos and Earl Scheibs, especially those who had really bad clear coat peel. Roughly how much have those paint companies quoted you to sand away the peel and paint your car? When I see their quotes of around $200, I'm thinkin that's probably just to throw paint over a body and nothing else. Thanks guys!

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My tale of the McLaren Mustang is probably representative of a lot of people...

Once upon a time (2001) there was a basket case of a McLaren Mustang.



I did the bodywork, replaced the front nose, repaired a destroyed cowl, installed a new hood, etc.



And so I went proudly to Maaco and a number of other paint shops.... and they all came in with the very same estimate to give it a final sanding and spraying it : $ 3500 (US). I was living in Pennsylvania at the time.

And so the car sat in the driveway because my budget just couldn't cover that kind of hit.

Here is a link with pics and text dealing with the initial restoration to give you an idea of what stage the car was at when I got it and fixed it up initially...

http://www.itsottawa.com/McLaren/howitstarted/

Well... $ 3500 bucks was way out of my budget. I was hoping for about $1000. So I gave up on my hope to get the car painted like so many other people do...

But I loved the car and there was always the hope that I might somehow scrape up $3500 in the future. So I just parked the car.

But fate stepped in and I had to move to Canada. Naturally I took my little unfinished project along with me.

And once I was settled in to the new house I went around to three local Ottawa paint shops ( including yet another Maaco ). And again the magic dollar figure of $ 3500 (CDN) kept popping up. I was broken hearted and so the car was tucked away in my garage and left to sit.

When I first stumbled on this thread my hopes were raised. I had NOTHING TO LOSE trying out the Rustoleum/Tremclad. In midstream of the process I switched over to Brightside paint...

Here is the car at the end of its coats of Brightside... prior to polishing and waxing :







And you can visit the following picture gallery to check out the videos and pictures I took of the car after all the parts were reinstalled and the paint was polished and waxed...





Click here for the full gallery and videos :

http://www.itsottawa.com/McLaren/

Overall... my total cost in the end was $ 200

Marq

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