Some a hole must of been backing out of a parking spot and hit my car, his bumper dragged from tire to tire on the Versa leaving a series of nice, long scratches along with warping the metal on the doors in the few spots.

Stopped by Maaco and they told me its gonna cost $550 to repair, it needs a little bondo work to even out the warped metal and basically the whole side needs to be repainted.

I'm not worried about the body work because that looks pretty striaght forward to do but I am a little worried about them matching up the shade of the paint. The car is red so shading isnt that difficult to match compared with silver for example, but I still don't want half the car having a different shade of red then the other.

I went to a couple private body shops and got quoted about $1500 for the same repair Maaco is charging $550 for so common sense says there is a reason for it.

So anyone have experience with Maaco, and were you happy or unhappy with the result?

I used Maaco once, a long time ago. I had an older car that I had sprayed after I did the body work. It turned out pretty decent and the paint held for the 3 years I kept the car. From what I remember, the paint is a synthetic of some kind. I was told that it's all like a clear liquid that they just add any color to that they need. Not sure if it's all true or not, but worth checking out. Hopefully someone else will chime in with that answer too. If it is true, than I don't know if I'd have them paint only part of the car. Wish I could help, but more than likely I've just confused you more.

Once. And that was one too many times.

Maybe your Maaco will be different, but there does indeed seem to be proof to the adage "you get what you pay for".

Good luck with wherever you go.

From what I've heard/read, Maaco paint's main issue is lifespan. The paint can look great at first (especially if you take the time to prep the car well for them) but will age much more quickly than a non-budget paint job.

I'd consider using them to restore aging paint on an older car or maybe do minor bodywork, but that's about it.

Another reason Maaco is cheaper is that they won't do as thorough a job of prepping the area for paint as a full-fledged bodyshop would. With Maaco, you'll have to do that yourself before you hand it over.

Don't like the vibe from the answers in this thread. You guys think it would be ok to use Maaco to do the body work like bondo and align a few things and then have a more reputable body shop do the paint work?

The body work doesn't seem too bad, its the paint that I'm worried about... I see way too many cars where its obvious the door or somethign was repainted since the shading doesnt match and I would be super annoyed to see that every day.

So I take it you wouldn't want to report this to your insurance? They would probably have it done at a better "authorized" shop.

During Hurricane Charley back in 2004, every shingle that flew off my roof decided to hit my '98 S-10. My windshield and side windows where scratched and the hood and right side of my truck where scratched down to the metal. My insurance covered it, took it to a body shop at a Chevy dealership. Funny thing was, when I picked it up I noticed not only did I have new trim on the right side but new trim on the left side too. I asked the manager who was handling the job for me what was up. He brought out the painter and he explained that he was having trouble blending the new paint on the hood with the old paint on the left side. He kept blending and blending and before he knew it he was half way down the left side. He said, "Screw it, I'll just paint the whole truck!". I didn't complain. I got new windows, tint, paint, and trim for only $250 deductible.

Run away from cheap places like MAACO unless you personally know the guy(s) who will be working on your car. The reason they're cheaper than everyone else is they will do a cra++y job on your car. I had my previous car painted by a similar place, and it looked awful, and I paid for a "better" job instead of the lowest-cost one. If you absolutely have to do the 2 shop thing I would have the "good" shop do the prep work and Maaco do the paint, but I personally wouldn't have Maaco do any of it. Body work is expensive, and if you go the cheap route you never will be happy with it. I ended up having my car re-repainted, and the 2nd time around it cost 4X more than the first one, but the car looked 100X better. If you REALLY have to get it done as cheap as possible, you could look into a repair school, like a tech school that has a body shop program. It will take a lot longer, but you may not have to pay for more than the materials.Hope this helps.

Don't cheap out on body repair. The factory paintjob is higher quality than what most Maaco shops put out.

I use to love maaco when i had my 86 honda accord p.o.s.but after a year the shade is diff n the paint is poor quality....i would stay away from maaco if my car was damaged....n $550. seems a lil high 4 a maaco job.good luck.

I took my '64 Rambler to Earl Scheib, which is Maaco's main competitor. $1700 for removing all the dents from the body, including a basketball-sized dent in a quarter panel, and painting the whole car stem-to-stern, jambs and under hood/trunk included with a lifetime warrantied paint service.

The quality of the paint job that I received was good. Not as fantastic as a small private body shop, but then again the same job at said private body shop would have been at LEAST $5,000 and probably taken significantly longer due to backlogs.

Only you can answer the question as to whether or not the price/quality difference is worth it to you.