My oldest is about to get her driver's license and we've found an old beater VW TDi to be her first car.
The paint on the car is garbage -- the clear coat is long gone from the hood, top, trunk and even the top of the doors. A rusty fender was just replaced, so it's only in primer.
We want to make this car look more presentable, but there's no way I'm spending good money on an old junker for a complete re-spay.
What sort of cheap/DIY-friendly restoration or repaint options should I look into? I have zero experience with auto paint so I'd love to hear your experiences with your own low-buck projects.
We bought a 220,000 mile Civic and the one owner kept up on it and recently had the rear bumper painted due to scratches prior to selling to me.
My 16 year old daughter backs over our garbage can before week #2 ends. Don't put in too much effort.
LOL. As a teen I was super rough on my own first beaters so i have low expectations here. My goal is to get it to the point where it looks OK-ish from 10 feet away so that she's not mortified to drive it.
Scuff and shoot with single stage tractor paint and a harbor freight or Wagner gun. 60 bucks a gallon. Will look infinitely better than the current situation.
Do you have or have access to a large air compressor? I painted my tractor with a $20 HF spray gun and rustoleum tractor paint. I was quite happy with it. The impression I got from the paint was that nobody is going to get an A+ paint job from it, but just about any doofus (me) could get a B paint job.
gearheadmb said:
Do you have or have access to a large air compressor? I painted my tractor with a $20 HF spray gun and rustoleum tractor paint. I was quite happy with it. The impression I got from the paint was that nobody is going to get an A+ paint job from it, but just about any doofus (me) could get a B paint job.
That's pretty much what I did a few years back when my daughter hit a deer in her Focus and I had to replace the fender and door. The only difference is that I used Duplicolor Paint Shop paint. It looked OK. Quite a bit of orange peel, but I'd never sprayed with a gun before. It was certainly good enough for a car that would have been totaled by any insurance company had I not fixed it myself.
You could even got a wagner power painter or a Plasti-dip sprayer and paint it if you don't have a large compressor.
Once upon a time, I wanted to paint my car... but this option was WAY over my budget:
Instead I did the Rustoleum and electric sprayer thing. Top tip - choose your color carefully.
Old Earl is long gone... adjusted for inflation that would be about $250 in today's money. Oh, and "any color" didn't include red, which was a $10 upcharge.
Real auto paint isn't actually that expensive. I've had really good luck with the NAPA single stage, it goes down well. A HF HVLP gun does the job well enough if set up properly. You will need a decent compressor but hey, then you have a decent compressor when you're done!
I'm of the opinion that the better the car looks - and the more effort the driver put into making it look that way - the better it will be treated. I don't believe in "beaters". There are inexpensive cars, but they should be treated like something that's got some value.
In my humble opinion, it takes a fair measure of skill to spray paint a car, whether you're using rattle cans or an HVLP gun. And not to argue with Keith, but the last time I went to my local paint guy for a quart mixed to match a sample, he wanted near $300. I think the ultimate low skill, low cost solution, is something like this:
https://horsepowersports.com/paint-your-car-with-a-roller-for-under-100/
Theres a REALLY good post on here about doing a rustoleum spray job. AWSX1686 dad wrote it (i think) cant remember his name.
Ultimately, scuff with 320, tape, wipe, mix rustoleum and mineral spirits 50/50 with a splash of hardener, shoot.
bludroptop said:
Once upon a time, I wanted to paint my car... but this option was WAY over my budget:
Instead I did the Rustoleum and electric sprayer thing. Top tip - choose your color carefully.
Old Earl is long gone... adjusted for inflation that would be about $250 in today's money. Oh, and "any color" didn't include red, which was a $10 upcharge.
And since paint was cheaper than masking , you needed to take anything off that you did not want painted ,
Worked real well on VW bugs that you were going to replace the window rubber anyway :)
1988RedT2 said:
In my humble opinion, it takes a fair measure of skill to spray paint a car, whether you're using rattle cans or an HVLP gun. And not to argue with Keith, but the last time I went to my local paint guy for a quart mixed to match a sample, he wanted near $300. I think the ultimate low skill, low cost solution, is something like this:
https://horsepowersports.com/paint-your-car-with-a-roller-for-under-100/
Single stage is less expensive than base/clear. I don't recall exactly what paint I used back in the day from Martin Seynour, but this seems about right. I'll have to go back and check - I'll update. That MS paint went down quite easily and smoothly, that was the first car I ever painted. I don't get along as well with clear.
https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/MS_QT99C ($90/qt).
I did find a receipt for the Omni single stage paint I used for the base coat. Total cost for everything, including the masking tape, cleaners, all chemicals - everything except the compressor and the paint gun - was $233 in 2008. That included a full gallon of paint, as I was starting with a stripped shell and painting everything from the fenders to the floorboards to the engine bay to behind the dash. I used some of those chemicals to paint at least two more cars. I will happily admit that was a long time ago, but my general point is that it's worth dropping by NAPA and price checking the single stage.
I do remember the triple stage paint I used on the Locost was very expensive by comparison, even before taking the cost of the clear into account. That was closer to $300/pint (those are the little ones, right? I grew up with metric) in 2007. Luckily, it had a very small amount of painted area.
NOHOME
MegaDork
8/25/23 7:28 p.m.
No easy low labor way to paint a car. It just sucks.
If it was a beater, I would go buy some tractor/implement paint and some "japanese hardener".
Scuff the paint to about a 230, then 320 grit using whatever method you have. Orbital is nice but foam blocks will work.
Spray with a cheap HF paint gun.
Still looking at 500 bucks if you need to buy a cheap pancake compressor.
Or buy a few cans of this new Turbo Spray paint and have at it.
JThw8
UltimaDork
8/25/23 8:41 p.m.
Rustoleum and a roller, both cars below were roller painted (foam roller) As they were banger rally cars I didnt even scuff the old paint, heck I dont even think I washed them. It held up find and looked ok. Satin colors are more forgiving.
As another poster mentioned the Duplicolor Paint shop paints are pretty forgiving as well. This one was sprayed with those out in the yard, no booth nothing special just a compressor and a cheap gun.
Thanks for your ideas -- I'm going to try the easiest and cheapest options first to see how they turn out.
californiamilleghia said:
bludroptop said:
Once upon a time, I wanted to paint my car... but this option was WAY over my budget:
Instead I did the Rustoleum and electric sprayer thing. Top tip - choose your color carefully.
Old Earl is long gone... adjusted for inflation that would be about $250 in today's money. Oh, and "any color" didn't include red, which was a $10 upcharge.
And since paint was cheaper than masking , you needed to take anything off that you did not want painted ,
Worked real well on VW bugs that you were going to replace the window rubber anyway :)
I had old Earl paint the sides of my Volvo in 1986 for $99.95 after I finished my steel flares. 
The painter was top notch and I had to pay full price since he had to do a lot of masking. The tan brown almost matches the original Dupont Imron Gold metallic paint.
I also painted a 3 tone Volvo 164 with about 20 cans of gold metallic spray paint on closeout sale pricing. It looked great until it all eventually turned green.
So far I've tried a couple of the ideas mentioned in this thread. I found the turbo cans to be amazing at putting down a high volume of pigment quickly, but tricky to get an even surface. The 5-in-1 cans are easier to get an even coat but doing so is slower and requires some technique and patience.
How shiny of a surface should I have before applying the clear coats? IE - can I clear over a 1500 grit wet sanded surface, or do I apply another pigment coat then clear over it first?
1500 seems way to light to paint on. Generally 200-400 ish is recommended (you want something for the paint to grab onto). You certainly don't want a super rough color coat (e.g. lots of orange peal), but remember the clear coat creates it's own layer, that will tend to flatten out (if it goes on properly of course). Don't worry about "shiny". When you put clear of a dull (e.g. sanded) coat, the clear is what provides the shine (like putting water on a painted surface). Worry about shine when the clear dries.
I am pretty sure on most 2 stage paint jobs, they don't even mess with the color coat (unless there is streak etc of course). They just blast on the clear while the base is within it's re-coat time (e.g. not fully hard) and deal with the flattening the clear (if they even do that)
In regards to spray cans, I've had good luck with 2k SprayMax cans for black. Pretty close to single stage in a can.
I've garage-sprayed a few cars, and they turned out great.. But it's a lot of effort. A lot. I think a minimum viable HVLP paint job is at least 80 hours of work. A friend and I have done a Miata in a long weekend, but that was two early 20s guys working 16+ hours a day.
On my last beater, I did tractor paint with a roller and it turned out pretty good for the $110 & <25 hours of work.
96 Miata bodywork
Depends on your range of "cheap" but maybe a DIY wrap could be a little less headache? Maybe not. Just another option.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0714PX26W/ref=twister_B07124B7TX?_encoding=UTF8&th=1
Edit: Just read the prior post with his bad experience with the wrap. With the prep the car needs, maybe paint is best?
In reply to Keith Tanner :
A pint is a glass of beer, pretty much everywhere. That should give you a sense of scale. We need a beer mug emoji for improved communications.
Back to paint, drop by the local auto paint supply place and ask about paint that was returned because the color was off. You might end up with exterminator bug guts green-yellow or fuchsia gold metal flake, but it will be real auto paint for cheap. Might as well make this fun!
