I've seen a few videos where people paint their car using Rustoleum. I'm considering doing this for my '77 300D to try to save some money when the time comes that I need to paint it (Paint is scratched and beat up, there are some rust issues here and there). Has anyone done this? How'd it come out? Also, what colors do you guys recommend (Whether I'm painting it myself or not)? It's currently white with a blue interior.

Where are you located? If you're trying to save money but want a professional job go to Maaco. They have 3 tier pricing: lowest is like $300, medium is about $800, & highest is ~$1200. I had my car painted there about 4 or 5 years ago for ~$895. I got and still get compliments......although now most of the compliments are about my cosmetic mods than my paint

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1990 190E 3.0L

I would use an automotive enamel. Holdout and ultra violet resistance are far better. I have seen too many cases of non auto paint fade out.

Can still be had cheap enough in places. At least a few places to still order a cheap gallon of it. This is about as cheap as is really practical in my opinion with some chance of overall satisfaction.

Once you decide to go cheap on auto painting, no approach is free of pitfalls.

Maaco: lots of people talk about the $300 deal, I have read very few posts from people who actually had it done. Most get upsold to a bigger package when they roll up to the door. If you do go for the $300, based on what I read from people who did, expect the paint to look good for two years. And you will need to do all the taping off of trim if you don't want overspray.

Do the math. Even Maaco doesn't get its paint for free. There is no way you can cover the labour of prescuffing and masking and spraying, and get a decent amount of paint onto the car, for $300. Also if there are body blemishes on the car, you can be sure at that price they won't get fixed, and fresh paint on small dings looks stupid.

Rustoleum: good news, your car is white and white is always the easiest to work with and have it look good when said and done. If you have patience, time and a place to work, there is a lot on the Web on how to do it.

DIY spraying: I tried it this summer. Takes time and patience and with the new, water-based automotive paints, you have to work on your skills before you press the spray gun button and aim at your car as the new paints cannot be sanded between coats. If you make a mistake, you have to strip it off and start again. Unless you know someone in the trade, the cost of the paint, and moreso the clear, are very high -- plus the special reducer, other stuff.

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Mac
2002 e320 4matic estate│1985 300d│1980 300td
Previous: 1979 & 1982 & 1983 300sd │ 1982 240d

“Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

I've sprayed a lot of cars in a lot of different kinds of paint and all of them are doable.

The paint you can get online from Eastwood or Summit or others is generally Sherwin-Williams (sometimes labeled Duplicolor or other brand names) and is perfectly good stuff. The pre-thinned (ready-to-spray) is OK but you're paying a lot for thinner that way. Anyhow, it's urethane enamel and flows out nicely. And it CAN be sanded between coats if you let it sit for a day or so. You can either buff it as it comes out of the gun or use it as a base color coat and clear over it. The clear will hold it's gloss better.

I suggest you get an old hood or other large panel from a salvage yard (they'll sometimes give you one if it's bent and you promise to bring it back) and work out your skills on it. It's harder to spray on a vertical panel so that's the place to put your practice. You'll need lots of light and remember to spray just until it shines - more and it'll run. You'll get the feel for it.

I'd stick with the white. It's the most forgiving and will hide many sins. It's also generally the cheapest. The prep is the hard part - you can train a monkey to shoot paint.

MAACO is not a bad choice but as stated they cut the prices by limiting the amount of labor they put into it. You'll need to do your own prep and the better you do the better the results. When I have them shoot a car for me (they have a booth and I don't) I take it stripped as much as possible. When I'm in their lot I remove the last few items needed to make it road-worthy (tail lights, mirrors, etc.) and they always do the masking.

MAACO uses R&M (BASF) urethane paint (at least ours does) and it's excellent stuff. The main difference between the cheap job and the better grades is the amount of UV protection in the formula. For whatever reason the UV chemistry is pricey so they pass it along to you. If you're willing to keep the car waxed you can get decent service out of the cheaper paint. The highest priced MAACO job includes clear coat.

It's interesting to me that folks get all nervous and jerky over the act of applying the paint and look into rolling on Rustoleum, etc. because they think there's some Mojo to it. As stated, paint application is NOT the hard part. You can rent a compressor and gun if you don't have access to one and they generally work just fine if not the top of the line. I still spray with my old Binks #7 but the newer HVLPs work fine as well. You can DO this!

Dan

I painted a small Car Red with Rustoleum gloss paint with Spray Cans. It fades.

If you have a paint Spray it is better just to buy the real Auto Paint. However, get the type that cleans up or thins with regular Paint Thinner.
I painted a Pick-up Truck once and the Auto Paint I picked used a different and more expensive thinner. I did not know that when I bought the Paint and is was the first and only time I did that with a Spray Gun and Air Compressor.

On the Plus side; if you get the fast drying version of the Rustoleum Bugs and other stuff the Wind Blows has less time to adhere.

I forgot I also did part of a Friends car with a dark metallic charcoal Gray. That paint goes on thicker and has held up OK but still faded a little.

I the below pic I had a lot of rust holes along the area that the Bottom Trim attached to the Car door.
After the rust holes ere fixed I did not want to paint the whole Car so I decided to paint the lower part of the Door and Body with Fust-oleum Hammered type paint 7214 Gray.

So the Paint is kind of a Silver Metallic Gary. Painting it as you would use a normal spray paint does not bring out the Hammered Metal appearance. It just goes on like silver gray paint. Sorry for the shaded picture.
Please note that I am not finished with this job. I am eventually going to add a Black Stripe between the Blue and Gary paint and the shaded pic does not brine out the color well.

The Hammared Metal Paint dries fast and it also seems to be harder when it dries then the regular rust-oleum paint and it goes on thicker so it fills better.

Attached Thumbnails

 

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

As everyone chimes in . I've painted I think 7 cars, not counting circle track cars that didn't need to look good.

I use a binks 2k gun, tried a HVLP, and I've never really done a job I want to call good. Lacquer I can make nice only because of color sanding my mistakes out, but lacquer doesn't last.

Maaco here in our area of NC runs a half price sale usually every November through December because it's their slow season. For daily drivers they've done fine. I had them do the Metro verts about three years ago and they still look perfect. They're 'best' was on sale for $499, cost me another $150 extra on one of the cars because it had peeling clearcoat (extra prep).

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Eric, CPO, Submarines, retired.
Here's a sig line...
Mine: '68 Corvette LS1/4L65E, 83 240D, 2000 GMC 4x4, 08 FLSTC Anniv
Hers: '72 Corvette 454/4spd, '99 MB SLK, '93 Metro vert, 78 240D, '92 Silverado, '65 Fjord Rustang, '59 Fjord Fairlane, '17 Slingshot.

Most of the cost of a good paint job is in the prep. While this is where the real art and craft is for a concours-level job, basic prep is something within the reach of most DIYers, assuming that there is not a lot of filler work required. If your paint is essentially solid and your panels essentially straight, a good tack to consider is to do all the prep work yourself including removing trim and other pieces and have the paint shot by a professional.

Access to a real paint booth will all but eliminate the problem of dust, bugs and debris that are almost impossible to avoid in amateur make-shift booths or outside painting. In addition, you'll avoid the potential of complaining neighbors, especially in hyper-environmental areas (think CA), that can bring out the air quality storm troopers, jack-booted regulatory thugs and other government miscreants whose main purpose in life is hassling others with the potential for fines and other unpleasantness, just because they can. Just for the record, whatever you think you read I didn't say...

Most of the complaints from Maaco-level paint jobs comes from lack of proper preparation and poor masking. If you can get them to just shoot the paint, you can probably afford to get a better grade of two-stage automotive paint that you source yourself from a local supplier.

Also keeping the color the same covers a multitude of issues.

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Current Stable

• 380SL (diesel)
• Corvette C5
• Manx
• Baja Bug
• F350 Powerstroke
• Auburn Boattail Speedster replica

I'll chime in on this. I had a 92 full size blazer with the classic GM peeling paint from those years. I stripped it down to bare metal (alot of work) and then did the $50 roll-on rustoleum paint job over one weekend. If you are talking about the videos on the roll-on method...it actually does cover very well if you thin the paint enough. I wet-sanded in between each coat and did a black gloss color. I put on 7 coats total (alot of work). When I was done I did some final wet-sanding to get rid of any unevenness and then used a DA buffer with compound to really pull a nice shine out of it. I drove it for 2 years like that and it looked great compared to before. It is not a miracle paint like some of these websites make it out to be. I had a cheap car that I did not want to invest much into, so it worked perfect for that. It had a nice shine, and you could see your reflection in it. It looked far from perfect though, and I found it would dull very quickly (ie had to buff and polish every couple of months).

For a Benz, I wouldn't recommend going this route. For a beater pickup, I think it's a great option. Like some of these others have said, a Maaco paint job with some good preparation will look better than a rustoleum job. If you have a body shop friend that does work on the side that would be an even better option (what I am getting ready to do with the 87 300d).

Anyhow, hope that helps.

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97 S500 (90,000 miles) - wife's car
87 300D (298,000 miles and a replacement #14 head)
94 Suburban K2500 - need something to haul firewood
83 300SD (343,000 miles) (sold)