Over time, your vehicle gets marks, dings, and scratches that cause unsightly paintwork. A great way to get it back to its pristine-looking condition is respraying a car. After which, you can add an extra bodywork design to make it even more stunning.
But is respraying a vehicle worth it after all? Find out the answer to this common car repainting question below.
How Does a Car Spray Painting Work?
For a DIY car spray painting job, you need a spray paint gun, a compressor, and a mixing bucket to mix the paint with hardener and thinner. Wear protective clothing and use a mouth cap. Spray paint your car from the top downwards, applying crosswise.
How Much to Respray a Car?
Without assessing your vehicle, it’s impossible to provide an exact price for a car repainting job. If you’re quoted $2000 by an auto paint shop and the other $800, you can conclude that the cheaper offer has subpar paint finish.
What Are the Factors to Consider?
Changing the colour of your vehicle is a major decision. There are several factors you have to consider such as whether to choose a different colour or the same original car paint. Another important consideration is the cost of car spray painting. You might be wondering if a do-it-yourself (DIY) will save you more than hiring a professional to repaint or respray your car.
The cost of respraying a car varies depending on different factors such as the following:
- Preparation Time: Auto body shops remove the old paint and fix any damage such as dents, scratches, pits, gouges, holes, and rust spots. The more time required to prepare your vehicle for repainting, the higher the service cost. The auto body specialist will assess the damages of your vehicle and can quote you a price for repainting after considering other factors.
- Colour: It would cost you more to change the colour of your car because the preparation takes longer than retaining the same colour.
- Car Size: The bigger your car surface is the costlier the painting job.
- Types of Paint: There are different types of vehicle paint chemical make-ups and finishes that also affect pricing (see below).
Auto Car Paint Chemical Make-Ups
The different chemical make-ups of car paints include the following:
- Water-based Paint: This spray paint is eco-friendly. It’s commonly used to spray paint vehicles that involves a tricky mixing process and application of lacquer protection.
- Nitro-cellulose Paint: This paint is recommended in touching up or repainting classic cars because it won’t lose the original car’s look. Because this paint is highly toxic, wearing the right protective equipment is a must.
- Urethane: This paint option is longer-lasting because it’s highly resistant to chipping and fading for 10 years or more. Urethane car paint dries quickly. While urethane is more expensive than enamel paint, it doesn’t tend to run like the former.
- Acrylic Enamel: Painting a car with acrylic enamel creates a touch, hard shell over the vehicle. Acrylic enamel car painting is not recommended for DIY because it involves a “baking” process that only professionals have the right equipment and expertise to do.
- Acrylic Lacquer: It is the easiest car paint to apply. Lacquer has a high gloss paint but fades quickly. Also, this car paint is prohibited to use in many states because of its impact to the environment.
- Acrylic Urethane: This paint lasts a long time but needs to be used as soon as possible because it dries quickly.
Types of Auto Paint Finishes
Make your car like new by choosing the best type of paint finish. The different types of vehicle paint finishes include the following:
- Solid Paint: This least expensive paint is also easier to repair than other paint finishes.
- Metallic Paint: Do you prefer an eye-catching sparkling car? If yes, choose metallic car paint to cover scratches and dings. It catches the sunlight to give your car a dazzling shine.
- Pearlescent Paint: This car paint provides a subtly colourful paint in different angles, making your vehicle look dazzling.
- Matte Paint: This paint is the latest craze you might want to consider for your car.
Is Respraying Your Car Worth It?
Respraying your car is a good investment because it adds resale value to your vehicle. Also, you can obtain a higher trade-in value. Most of all, you’ll enjoy bragging about a like-new car without spending much more than buying a new car. Hence, the benefits outweigh the cost of repainting a car.
Takeaway
Repainting or respraying a vehicle is worth it in so many ways. Hiring a professional to do the job gives you assurance of excellent results. Achieve a like-new car you can use for many years and enjoy a higher resale value for your vehicle.
