Detailing your MR2 To Respray or Not [Archive] - Toyota MR2 Message Board

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MANDALAY04-18-2007, 05:14 AM:confused:

Just bought a very good 1999 version. Beams engine going into it.
I bought this car as it was the very best l saw for sale for over 12 months of looking , and v5 are so very rare.
Problem is its an unusual color, OYSTER. NO SWIRL MARKS SCRATCHES WHAT SO EVER .
Debating to do a total respray to ferrari Grigio Alloy ( silver blue metalic ).
Question has any one done a total respray l mean stripped totally engine windows off .
Will it be as good as the factory or will l be cursing latter. canadam04-18-2007, 05:28 AMI'd say you'll probably curse yourself in the future :) Mister2.204-18-2007, 09:21 AMIt will be as good as factory if you pay the money to do it right. I would say though, keep it the stock color unless you really can't live with it. 5FistsoftheNorthStar04-18-2007, 09:23 AMDo you mean "Oyster" as in the color Pearl White? Cause thats a nice color, especially if its stock. reflexx04-18-2007, 09:58 AM:confused:

Just bought a very good 1999 version. Beams engine going into it.
I bought this car as it was the very best l saw for sale for over 12 months of looking , and v5 are so very rare.
Problem is its an unusual color, OYSTER. NO SWIRL MARKS SCRATCHES WHAT SO EVER .
Debating to do a total respray to ferrari Grigio Alloy ( silver blue metalic ).
Question has any one done a total respray l mean stripped totally engine windows off .
Will it be as good as the factory or will l be cursing latter.

I did a full respray, twice on the same car - to metallic purple, then to blue/violet chameleon :) check out my build log here:

http://www.astrocore.com/mr2/

would be happy to answer any questions.

-D MANDALAY04-18-2007, 05:36 PMIt will be as good as factory if you pay the money to do it right. I would say though, keep it the stock color unless you really can't live with it.

Quote is approx $7,000 USD to get it to my standard.
Using Mercedes ceramic clear coat , 4 coates
Oyster is an old mans colour Mister2.204-18-2007, 05:45 PMWhat do you mean by Oyster? White? reflexx04-18-2007, 06:09 PMQuote is approx $7,000 USD to get it to my standard.
Using Mercedes ceramic clear coat , 4 coates
Oyster is an old mans colour

that sounds lke way too much. don't let them trick you by quoting fancy paints like "mercedes ceramic clear 4 coats". PPG and house of kolor are the top of the line and the materials for painting a whole car in PPG/HOK is less than $1k no matter how you slice it, even with like 8 coats of clear, so it doesn't justify a 4K$ premium. We have a top notch body shop next door that will paint a car for $2-3k inside and out, save yourself a lot of money by taking out the interior and trim pieces yourself and just bring it to them in a nearly ready to prime state. "color change" really only means properly spraying the door sills, inside engine bay, etc, etc. nobody REALLY paints EVERY factory painted part, like the inside of the doors (behind the door panels), etc, and it'll never be exactly like factory, the factory dips the pieces in a bath, it doesn't spray. even if you're the Jesus of painting you can't get the spray to go on perfect everywhere since perfect application requires a 90 degree angle between the gun and the surface, and some places like the door handles (even if you remove the handle itself) simply cannot be painted that way because of their concave shape.

In summary strip the car down yourself, fill/sand any dents (this is where half the bill goes if you let them do it), then go to a good reputable shop that paints cars all day (NOT one of the fancy ripoff shops that only does a job here and there, you want a shop where the painters have gun time all day, every day.... one of the best paint jobs i ever got was from a Toyota painter that did work for me under the table), you should make it out of there less than 3K$. MANDALAY04-19-2007, 10:13 AMthat sounds lke way too much. don't let them trick you by quoting fancy paints like "mercedes ceramic clear 4 coats". PPG and house of kolor are the top of the line and the materials for painting a whole car in PPG/HOK is less than $1k no matter how you slice it, even with like 8 coats of clear, so it doesn't justify a 4K$ premium. We have a top notch body shop next door that will paint a car for $2-3k inside and out, save yourself a lot of money by taking out the interior and trim pieces yourself and just bring it to them in a nearly ready to prime state. "color change" really only means properly spraying the door sills, inside engine bay, etc, etc. nobody REALLY paints EVERY factory painted part, like the inside of the doors (behind the door panels), etc, and it'll never be exactly like factory, the factory dips the pieces in a bath, it doesn't spray. even if you're the Jesus of painting you can't get the spray to go on perfect everywhere since perfect application requires a 90 degree angle between the gun and the surface, and some places like the door handles (even if you remove the handle itself) simply cannot be painted that way because of their concave shape.

In summary strip the car down yourself, fill/sand any dents (this is where half the bill goes if you let them do it), then go to a good reputable shop that paints cars all day (NOT one of the fancy ripoff shops that only does a job here and there, you want a shop where the painters have gun time all day, every day.... one of the best paint jobs i ever got was from a Toyota painter that did work for me under the table), you should make it out of there less than 3K$.

Yeh man l know thats dear, but l'm wanting the car totally stripped and sprayed everywhere . Has anyone ever done this ? If the car was damaged i wouldnt be writing this thread. l would just do it , but because its in excellent condition is the only thing stopping me. l dont know anyone who has done this and for that matter any model car , so as to get their opinions . How long its stays new, will it be more prone to rusting , happy etc.
Thank you for your comments !!!!!!!! much appreciated:) reflexx04-19-2007, 10:19 AMi told you i did this already - my car is a full color change, inside and out. i also told you there are some parts you simply can't get paint to, because the body is welded together so you can't take it fully apart, and there are lots of areas INSIDE panels that you simply can't even stick your hand to much less a paint gun. not everything is a nice smooth sheet, there are lots of pieces of metal brazed and welded on top of other pieces and you can't get between them.... take apart your car and you'll see what i'm talking about. Why do you want those areas painted anyway? Like to waste money? Nobody will ever see them, ever.... and even if you try to paint them since they're at weird angles you can't sand them and paint won't stick and it'lkl just be a nasty peeling mess, much worse than how it is now.

i think maybe because you haven't done anything like this before you throw words around like "sprayed everywhere" so lightly. think about what it is you're talking exactly...

-D MANDALAY04-19-2007, 10:23 AMi told you i did this already - my car is a full color change, inside and out. i also told you there are some parts you simply can't get paint to, because the body is welded together so you can't take it fully apart, and there are lots of areas INSIDE panels that you simply can't even stick your hand to much less a paint gun. not everything is a nice smooth sheet, there are lots of pieces of metal brazed and welded on top of other pieces and you can't get between them.... take apart your car and you'll see what i'm talking about.

-D

Did you rub your car back to metal ? and if so how about things like the bonnet ( hood ) , did you just spray over the original colour or did you rub that back ? reflexx04-19-2007, 10:27 AMi sanded down everything, under the hood, the entire innards of the frunk were stripped, the entire engine bay was stripped with no engine in it - i'm talking, removing all the fuel lines, every single bolt attached anywhere was removed. here i will post some pix. By the way you don't want to strip "to metal", things immediately start to rust and spray-on primer doesn't stick perfectly either, you want to sand the base down till there's barely any paint there but not bare metal showing, then use that as a stable base to paint on.

http://www.astrocore.com/mr2/stripped1.jpg
http://www.astrocore.com/mr2/stripped2.jpg
http://www.astrocore.com/mr2/stripped4.jpg
http://www.astrocore.com/mr2/scoops4.jpg
http://www.astrocore.com/mr2/frunk1.jpg
http://www.astrocore.com/gallery/albums/mr2/normal_paint5.jpg MANDALAY04-19-2007, 10:33 AMCool !!!! At the end after taking every thing out and putting it back in was the car tight ( that is feel solid as original or squeaking parts )
PS mad color !!!! Wont be doing stereo this time spent over $40,000 on my last car BMW Iasca champion.
Thanks reflexx04-19-2007, 11:18 AMyes, the car was solid, partially because i replaced all the bolts with new bolts, and partially because i used a thick sound dampening foam under the carpet to help the stereo sound good. Actually carpet pad for home carpet (good quality carpet pad though!) works way better than the expensive dynamat and other ripoff products. Then i used a nice thick/plush high quality home carpet, required a lot of work to get it to mold but it's like vegging out on the bedroom floor barefoot :) Also there aren't any old seats or seatbelts or any junk like that, everything is solid bolted with thick aluminum or steel mounting brackets. The color was "ok", we have since repainted it again to a electric blue kandy over black base, with a violet ghost pearl shimmer effect on top that can be seen from certain angles.

kinda like this http://www.astrocore.com/allusr/electricblue2x2.jpg

-d MR2TRD104-19-2007, 12:24 PMDon't you get alot of trash in your paint from painting in an open garage? reflexx04-19-2007, 01:27 PMi use a positive pressure system - i have a massive industrial squirrel fan blower in the doorway into the house which sucks in clean, filtered air that's been through my HVAC, then on the mouth of the fan is a big HEPA filter. the garage door is closed while painting, and a tiny crack is left, so all the air is constantly being replentished with clean, dust free air from the fan, and no outside air can get in due to the pressure gradient. Mister2.204-19-2007, 03:42 PMDon't try to paint your car yourself unless you have experience or are willing to waste a lot of time or have a pretty crappy job at the end of the day.

Reflexx may have some experience, I don't know but I bet $10,000 if he does not I would be able to walk up to that car and notice just how bad the final job really is. No offense Reflexx, I don't know how good your job really turned out though.

Anyone with a good eye or experience painting cars will know just how easy it is to spot a pretty bad job when most of the rest of the population would take a quick glance at a car and think nothing of it. So, to conclude... if you have the money to spend get it painted by a pro. Shop around and look for a good deal, but don't go for the cheapest. Ask to see example work, photos or anything you can. Ask up front about the warranty and what it covers and for how long. HTH reflexx04-20-2007, 12:35 AMReflexx may have some experience, I don't know but I bet $10,000 if he does not I would be able to walk up to that car and notice just how bad the final job really is. No offense Reflexx, I don't know how good your job really turned out though.



what are you trying to say here, that my paint job is crappy? your sentence doesn't even make sense. no experience painting = crappy paint job? thank you, captain obvious, nobody recommended spraying it yourself without a clue, i do recall recommending though doing the PREP yourself like removing the trim and other stuff, since you can easily do that and save yourself from having the paint shop bill you $75 an hour to do that. As for my paint you should come check it out in person, not even most high end paint shops can paint multilayer kandy/chameleon pearls like I have it.

-D Mister2.204-20-2007, 03:19 AMWhere did I say your paint job was crappy? Doing the prep work like removing the trim and such is fine, doing prep work like sanding things is not.

You also recommended him to fill and sand dents, I do not. Let the body shop do this or you may end up with a higher than normal bill when they have to spend extra time to fix your work. The most noticeable spots after the paint has dried will be where those dents were filled and sanded if it's not done properly. Some shops won't touch your car if you've done body work yourself, either. reflexx04-20-2007, 09:01 AMfixing dents yourself isn't that hard, if you pay a lot of attention to detail, sand with a block, repeatedly check the spot under different light for surface height differences, paint some black spray paint on it to test, etc. it's something you can get right if you take some time on it. however the actual spraying is a different story where you need quite a bit of prior practice. anyway, if the body is in great shape like you said, the only thing i'd recommend is stripping it down yourself.

-D MANDALAY04-20-2007, 11:01 AMfixing dents yourself isn't that hard, if you pay a lot of attention to detail, sand with a block, repeatedly check the spot under different light for surface height differences, paint some black spray paint on it to test, etc. it's something you can get right if you take some time on it. however the actual spraying is a different story where you need quite a bit of prior practice. anyway, if the body is in great shape like you said, the only thing i'd recommend is stripping it down yourself.

-D

true body is like brand new. Am going to strip it down before l give it to the body shop. reflexx04-20-2007, 02:19 PMfew tips

1) get a BIG PACK of ziplock bags and label EVERYTHING. There are so many different bolts in the car.. impossible to remember what goes where

2) dash - you'll have to drop the steering column to get this out. there are 4 bolts under the column after you remove/drop the airbag connector, then put a jackstand under the column to support it.

3) are you going to tow it to the paint shop? after you strip it down all the way it really won't be too driveable. seats will be gone, steering column dropped, etc, etc. something to consider.

4) a tip to remove the sound insulation that's tarred all over the floor pans... get a bag of dry ice and leave it on each chunk of it, freezes it up and makes it brittle where you can just chip it off with a hammer. a lot easier than trying to pry it up

5) the front bumper is a real bastard, youll have to take off the headlight covers (those have to come off anyway to be painted) and probably take the headlights out in order to get to some of the bolts that hold it on. all the clips for the front and rear bumper will probably break when you take them out, they're not really reusable, and they're not cheap from toyota. either shop around for replacement ones or go ahead and place an order for a bunch of them from toyota. same thing goes for the yellow clips all over the interior, when you take them out 50% of the time they will break off. these clips are like 2$ each! ouch MR2TRD104-20-2007, 02:57 PMI'd like to see 'after buff' pics. A good painter's paint comes out almost perfect without any sanding or spraying. My car wasn't colorsanded or buffed after paint and it was flawless when new. After daily driving..its another story. reflexx04-23-2007, 09:19 AMevery high end paint job is sanded and buffed. also how well the paint goes on depends on the type of paint. if you're doing kandy stuff, you need more reducer after you mix in the powder to keep the flecks flowing through the gun and as you know reducer = runny, which means if you spray heavy enough to be a 'wet' coat, it will drip and look like ass, since you can't sand out kandy drips whatsoever. Therefore you have to spray overly light/dry/'rough' look + many coats and then sand the roughness out. kandy is a real pain, if you apply it even slightly more heavily in areas trying to get coverage, it will be a different color there, whereas with normal colors you can just spray till you have full coverage. as far as "a good painter's paint..." sure if you're spraying some premixed regular single color urethane over primer, it will look pretty good straight off the gun... Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2026 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.