SXN

what kind of blue? how about "R34 Skyline Blue" like the poll says, its the very specific stock blue of the skyline.

97blackSE

iTrader: (1)

what about a really nice silver with a blue flake
Not like sterling mist..Im talking about an almost chrome sort of paint with a blue flake..

THAT would look SICK

bonzelite

iTrader: (2)

someone on here earlier said blue had been played out. so i offered alternative blues. i voted for the GTR blue, btw. i love that color. it is similar to the WRX blue. or vice versa, actually. i think subie copied nissan.

lots of the ideas on here are great. it depends what the artist does with it after the car is painted that really makes a difference. like that guy with the phugly yellow maxima show car getting some attention on here recently: craftsmanship is top-notch but his choice of that giant wing and hideous 26-inch chrome spinners is utterly tasteless.

Capital15

iTrader: (45)

I would go with the copper color. Have not seen any Max's with it. 5th or 4th gen.

SXN

yea clee said blue was played out, but what's to say that clee is the all knowing paint god? it doesnt matter really, he asked about a specific blue, thats all i meant. also...whats wrong with 26 inch chrome spinners? also, i really dont think subie copied nissan with their blue

bonzelite

iTrader: (2)

you seriously like the gigantic chrome beasts?

the subie blue looks notoriously like the R34 blue. i believe subie came out with that after the debut of the R34. they may not have copied it, but it is a timing thing that would make me assume that is true even if it is not. perhaps a hardcore WRX fan on here can fill us in.

SXN

um, maybe on an escalade or suburban, but in general, no i dont like spinners (its called a joke)

the subie rally blue is different from the nissan blue, its darker

bonzelite

iTrader: (2)

sometimes it is difficult to tell on chat forums or email what the person really means because we only have typed sentences and smily faces. and some people on here truly like tasteless chrome pimped out crap. so maybe you were one of those people. but i will assume you are not. i will leave a smily face to mean that it is all good and everything is fine.

SXN

tasteless chrome pimped out crap? hmmm anyway, its all good. But now we need to solve this color issue

bonzelite

iTrader: (2)

i've seen foetray's car. i think we all have by now, geez. i just posted yet again to his thread. that car will not go away. that is the inspiration for the remark, btw!

i like his color, actually. it is "kandy yellow." were his car to have cool wheels, like something you would see on a Skyline like LMGT1s, Longchamps, Works, Marquis Promodas or SSRs, etc, it would suddenly change.

the thing is with a complete 100% total custom color job, if you get door dings or even a slight dent or whatever, you must strip the entire body panel, perhaps the whole car, and start over! so you must not really drive the car. and paint jobs today, even for a "decent" one, are thousands of dollars, often exceeding the value of the car itself. i bet his paint job was 3 or 4 thousand at *least*. i would not be surprised if it was 9 thousand, as the entire car had to be stripped to the bare skeleton.

bonzelite

iTrader: (2)

i will add that i just painted my S14 with a nissan factory color and that alone, being a 4-part process, was $550 -just for the paint.

SXN

just for the paint job, or just for the paint as in, the actual material was 550 bucks?

bonzelite

iTrader: (2)

material only -the paint in the jars. no labor. no artistry. no execution. just the raw material. the rest was another 2 thousand (sanding, prepping, removal of lights and rubber and plastic molding, etc). and that was only because i got it done through a close friend. would have been another 4 thousand the non-friendly way.

and i did a color change from the existing original the "masked" way including door jambs and trunk -not the complete way. complete way requires full or near-full disassembly of car including removal of the engine and all engine bay hoses and everything. that kind of paint job is thousands more. in short, if you were really building a money show car, you could easily spend twelve thousand on just the paint job.

i did not know any of this until recently.

SXN

*cringe* why would a paint job be 4.5k

wope

iTrader: (1)

i went with midnight blue (2003 ferrari pozzi blue) on my 4th gen and love it.. however i think it is harder than black, even, to keep clean.

SXN

how could it be harder to keep clean than black? looks very nice though

wope

iTrader: (1)

i dunno.. i've had a black car before and it was easier to keep clean imo

SXN

well ive never had a midnight blue car (or ferrari blue) but i know my black is sure hard to keep clean

Shadow

iTrader: (15)

For a full color change, $4500 is not terrible. Can be done cheaper, but for a car to have a proper color change it's going to cost. For the job to be done right, they have to sand the car down, remove everything, doors, hood, trunklid, part of the interior, bumpers, mirrors, door latches and all that. And if they're doing it right, they have to remove all the rubber trim, or else you'll have tape marks there. Then they sand the whole car down, and then start painting. At the $30 an hour or so most shops charge, it works out to $4-5K for labor and materials. This varies a lot depending on location though as well as color choice. Some paint costs a lot more than others.

Torgus

iTrader: (10)

get this guy's color http://www.cardomain.com/id/american_power

midnight blue/pearl paint is nice.

SXN

i know some paint jobs cost a lot more, but generally, i didnt think the doors, trunk, etc needed to be removed. why would parts of the interior need to be taken off? the paint job he described didnt seem like it would have been 4,500

wope

iTrader: (1)

you dont HAVE to remove all of that.. only if you want to get every little spot

SXN

aha, but then how would you perfectly protect the interior from paint?

Shadow

iTrader: (15)

Rereading his post, you're right. A masked off paintjob usually doesn't cost $4500. But I don't know paint shop prices in his area, so...

And if you're going for a complete color change, then the doors, and all that need to be removed to do the work right. On my car, when we changed the color from the original green to the Lexus blue, everything was taken off. The doors, hood, and trunklid were taken off and sprayed separately. If you don't take them off, you can't get the paintgun into the little nooks and crannies like the hinges and so on. Same with the hood and trunklid, you won't be able to perfectly mask everything off and get the paintgun in there right. And we pulled the interior out and carpet up so that the few inches behind the carpet would be sprayed too. Same with the latches, mirrors, door handles and all that, that way there are no tape lines around them. Headlights, taillights, were all pulled and it was sprayed. The fuel filler door was removed and painted separately. You can't tell the car was ever green.

I've seen full color changes for under $2K where they tape everything off and you can tell. There's usually some overspray here and there on the trim. And you can see like seams and lines around the trim from the tape. And sometimes, the paint isn't even like inside the doorjambs and the like because they didn't remove it and couldn't lay the paint down evenly. Like wope says, you don't "have" to remove it all, but it's a better result if they do.

Shadow

iTrader: (15)

Big protective sheets taped down over everything in the interior.

SXN

thanks for the explaination Shadow, i was refering specifically to his paint job, but now i understand automotive painting a lot better in general

SXN

red fifth gen..hmmmmm

bonzelite

iTrader: (2)

as for my S14, it was mostly taped off with many trim components removed, like rubber, rocker molding, lights, etc. you *can* tell it was taped off at close scrutiny, but it is one helluva job. i was not about to sink 4 or 5 grand or more into a fu*CKing paint job. i'm not that sick into it. for the purpose of the car, as a billboard at trade shows with no open hood or doors, it will function beyond well enough. it will not win any awards though. unless someday i tear it all down and finish it. generally, it is awesome. i am happy.

unless you have lots of disposable cash and/or time, go with a tape-off job. after the paint sets for about 2 weeks under the sun, they take the car back and touch up the missed places to really hide the tape job. they buff it out and go over the whole car again by eye and find the imperfections. just don't pop the hood at car shows. i mean, they painted a lot, actually, in there, but the firewall stands out. a dead giveaway.

bonzelite

iTrader: (2)

a bit more: they did do the door jambs and whole trunklid in and out, inner perimeter of trunk, under the hood, perimeter of engine bay including strut towers, metal piece in front of the radiator, inside the gas door. in short, looking at the car even closely you cannot tell it was resprayed in any way. 2500 bucks. driveaway with buffing and touch-up in two weeks.

SXN

exactly my point, 4,500 bucks for a solid color paint job is more than i expected

bonzelite

iTrader: (2)

this is the sobering reality: if you want a paint job that is not maaco or earl schieb, which, to me, is utterly a waste of money as they literally will paint over dents and dirt, you must have the entire body sanded and straightended. even if you keep the same color of the car, you will spend at least 2 to 3 grand at any good paint shop.

as for me, i had a 4-part paint with pearl in it, with a color changeover, and it was more expensive to buy just the materials from the get go. add more labor for the multi-sprays, and the price skyrockets. i was lucky and fortunate to have a friend do it for me -he hooked me up as i have given his father lots of work in the past. but this is the rare exception.

for a pearl or any other custom or multi-part paint process, with sanding and prepping, masking, jambing, etc, you will expect to see 3 to 4 grand for color changeover, 2 to 3 grand for same-color. and these are middle of the road estimates. it will vary according to region. remember, too, i am in LA. if you live in wisconsin or manitoba, it may be a little cheaper. but i don't really know. some of the really good paint shops are expensive no matter where you are, as people come to them from miles around because they know they are good.

SXN

san francisco, big area so i dont get some major discount on paint jobs or anything. i just want another coat of black. I got the front and rear bumpers re-sprayed by the factory under warantee, because they did a crap job to begin with. Then under sprayed the front, so it didnt stick well and is having issues, and they sprayed the back way too thick, so after someone tapped my bumper, it bubbled, cracked etc. I need new paint just to be shiney and pretty again as well as not spend that much. there is no easy way about it (paint and rims... seems like you always get the quality you pay for)

bonzelite

iTrader: (2)

since the car has been resprayed and has bubbling issues, you gotta sand that body down. from point-a to point-b in your case is at least a couple of thousand dollars away.

do not even remotely entertain going to maaco or earl schieb. just don't do it. i went there looking initially and what i needed was beyond the scope of what they can even do. what you need is beyond the scope that, too. the paint job is only as good as the prep job and they don't prep anything whatsoever. i'm not saying you were going that route, btw, but i say it to anyone else thinking about a cheap alternative. i mean, this is your maxima we're talking about.

|Bijan|

iTrader: (12)

Jason Sadler Green

SXN

yea, my friend got a maaco job for his 65 mustang after he did all the prep work, sanded and primed the whole car. it really didnt look that good, and its garaged all the time. It turned out better than most because he did an awesome prep job, and removed everything (wipers, bumpers, emblems, grill) FOR them...he didnt want to risk them messing up his nice car.

arlan

iTrader: (1)

leave it black

Stephen Max

iTrader: (59)

Black is beautiful.

SXN

a new coat of black might be nice though

shavedmax

iTrader: (6)

the cooper would be nice if someone hadn't used it already. blue is nice, , too many 4 th gens with it, but i dont think any 5th gens have it. ultimately it's what makes you happy. i think the black is nice, but in a show scenario the brighter color gets the most attention

ryand.white

i'm going with staying black and adding some silver flecks to it. that would catch some eyes. It'll look amazing when the light hits it right too!