You get what you pay for. A $299 Maaco respray will have over spray, drips, runs, and it'll probably crack and peel in a couple years. A half decent strip/sand/spray/clear and pinstriping could come very close to costing more than the Jeep is worth.

 

Bedline it.

 

^ with bedline

or you could plastidip it, i did my zj 3 years ago matte black, it doesnt take a lot of time half a day and its pretty relaxed to do it (in a garag preferably ) .. i live in Canada with hard winters and a lot of salt and its holding really good if applied properly

a good professional paint job can take you over 5 k easy, up to u, if you wanna see how mine looks let me know ill post you a utube link

 

I took my ZJ in to Maaco to get a price for a paint job. I priced their top end paint with separate coats of color and clear. I told them that I would disassemble (remove trim, headlights, taillights, etc.) and that I wanted my cladding painted separately. They gave me a price of around $1400.

I looked at some of the paint jobs they have done and I could definitly see the difference between the cheap stuff and the better stuff. They did good work, but it is not a high end paint job.

While I think my Jeep is is worth more then $1400, what McCloud said was in the back of my head and I have not had it painted yet...

 

A couple people have monstalined theirs recently. If my paint was that bad, I'd seriously consider it. It's about as much as the bottom of the line Maaco job, and will outlast the rest of the Jeep. As it is now, the only flaw is a little bit of clear coat fading on one fender. I'm considering taking off the fender and having the shop redo it, but it's like $500. Not exactly the top of my priority list.

 

monstaliner or bed liner for sure. looks rugged and last

 

I'm am about to paint mine myself. My clear coat is gone and I have about 3-4 shades of green on the JY parts I have updated. We're going to sand the rig down and use an airgun to spray the paint. I figure I can do just a good of job as Maaco can and I can customize the job. I think I'll rhino line the kick panels and plastidip the body. Waiting for it to get hot and dry outside

 

Thanks for the responses. A long while back I did some research on cheap alternatives...came across this guy who wrote about painting his old Corvair for only $50. My only concern is the skill and labour required...I'm just awful when it comes to anything having to do with liquids. Gaskets, caulk, paint, I'll end up making a mess...though I guess I could try looking at it. Here's the link to it: http://www.rickwrench.com/index79master.htm?http://www.rickwrench.com/50dollarpaint.html

 

...came across this guy who wrote about painting his old Corvair for only $50. Here's the link to it: http://www.rickwrench.com/index79master.htm?http://www.rickwrench.com/50dollarpaint.html

This is very interesting. My ZJ needs a paint job, though nothing urgent and I've been tinkering with a few ideas. Might add this to the list, though matte black sounds really sexy :drool:

 

I painted my '89 Ram 150 with Rustoleum flat black using a compressor and a $60 gun from Home Depot. I got a lot of compliments on that truck. The key is in the prep work if you're doing your own, which isn't expensive, but it is labor intensive. You really have to want to do it.

 

I had my whole jeep painted and took it to a shop and got a real paint job. Multiple coats of paint and then clear coat after sanding down to bare metal for about $2500

 

fwiw, I'm debating giving my hood a dodge paint job. Prep work, bedliner and finish work, it shouldn't be more than about $25, but it's very labor intensive, and that's just the hood. You REALLY need to fully commit 100% before doing the entire vehicle. Like others said, plastidip is really up and coming, then there's other options like monstaliner, bedliner, and more. The prep work is the defining bit of how a paint job will end up

 

I have an extra hood for my jeep and am going to test run on that with a few paint options

 

Just finished painting my 1998 ZJ Limited with Black RaptorLiner.

 

The post you're replying to was dead over ten years ago and the OP hasn't logged in this year.