MX-3.com

I bought my MX3 a few months ago, and the owner who had it before me said it had a "new paint job". I knew that it wasnt spectacular, as no one would spend more than 1000$ on paint for a 12 yr old car unless it was a really nice project car...and this wasnt.

Well over those past few months, I have turned it into my small project, and have made some noticable improvements. The one thing that still irks me though is the paint. Originally Silver, the car was painted black. When it was painted, however, few, if any of the small dings on the car were fixed. The car was not preped very well as there are a few small bubbles/splotches on certain areas. The paint is also chipping around the door edges and there are scratches on the roof that reveal the paint. Luckily the car is devoid of ALL rust. There is only 1 small spot underneath the passenger side, and its only surface rust that I will be fixing this week.

The paint is dull and scratched in most places. The clear coat is non existant, and it makes washing the car quite a bit difficult. I go to school in upstate NY (near canada) and I dont want the paint to get that much worse over the winter...SO Ive decided to paint my car.

Any ever hear of the $50 paint job? Well if none of you have done it, I will be doing it on my car shortly. I started my test piece this weekend (snow plow for my ATV) and it should be ready within this week. So far the paint goes on really smooth and dries nice and hard. We will see how it turns out. Im doing a gloss black rustoleum over the paint on my car. I will be prepping with bondo first and sanding a bunch of the black paint that is on my car right now off.


What do you guys think? Worth my time? Do I need to strip off ALL the black paint on my car and bring it down to the silver that was on the car before? Rustoleum says it can cover anything (Tremclad is Canadian version) .

this should be interesting...

Well I hafta see how my test piece works out before I paint the car...mostly the shine and hardness of the paint. As for skill to do it? I have none! But Im learning alot as I go along w/ the test piece. Painting itself isnt too hard, Ive painted many a room in houses, but wetsanding is totally new to me...any pointers would be good, since I find it difficult to know how things are even while wetsanding and not wetsand too much/too little. Dont wanna make more work for myself if I dont have to!

post pics of finished piece

Hey, good luck with this! Are you using the roll-on paint method or rattle cans? I have seen people do both and surprisingly they can come out pretty good looking. good luck again and get some pics if you can.

Thanks for the support!

I am using the brush/roller method (brush for all the nooks/cranies the roller cant get) Put the third coat on the plow today, first coat with the roller as I wanted to try brushing first. The paint goes on 10x smoother with the roller, and self levels very quickly. I immediately saw a nice shine to it and it seems to be covering quite well. I had to do a bit of grinding on the plow, since the front was rusted to hell where the frame is welded behind it. Paint seems to cover up most of the small scratches that I didnt feel like sanding out, since its a plow and not a car, after the third coat. I put my first 2 coats on really think, and it hardly covered the bare metal, even though Im using black. After the 3rd coat, you can hardly see it, but Im thinking I might want a primer for where I Bondo on my car so I dont have to put 10 coats on. Doing another coat in the morning, then wetsand tomorrow night, Ill take some pics then to show you all.


Romeo

You need to D/A whole car to get rid of that black paint. After you do filler work you need to prime the spots and then preferrably seal whole car and paint it/clear coat it.

post pics, 50 dllrs paintjobs?

the cheapest ive done is 80 dllrs which is materials, fiberglass, bondo resin, primer paint and clear og and the tablespoon of pink pearl was like 2.50.

Damn! And I thought I was a tightass with $$$! LOL

Total spent about $30 Rustoleum Gloss Black.....original color Raspberry Metallic SE....All Rattle can....if u do it right it looks nice.

Yeah, it looks like you spent around $30 bucks dude...

Id rather drive my raspberry metallic than spray painting it.

I did my rear bumer in red again when i got bumped last year...

P220, P400 took it down pretty far...like being able to see plastic in alot of places..

on the workbench with 2 rattlecans of paint and a coat of clear it turned out looking better then the Spray job I did with the gravity-feed HPLV..

Mind i also put almost 2 cans of clear on it after sanding it @ 1000...

Still better than driving it around with that gay a-- Rasperry Metallic...and then add the famous clearcoat fadding to it.

I've used spray cans on both of mine... but it's just primer... I don't like gloss