Help With Painting my 1999 Q45t

[TRUEST]

Guys, the color of my car is gray.

It has some minor scratches which is kinda visible and I just can't live with that. It really bothers me. The car itselt as you all know is Majestic and I like to keep it that way blemish free.

I went to maaco to try to have em paint it up for me but the line was just too long and I have 0 patience.

my question, is there anywhere I can get the perfect paint match for my car and then paint it up MY SELF???

I'm not trying to repaint the whole car Im only interested in covering up the scratches and some of the minor peels.

[driverdriver]

You don't want a maaco paint job. You will be repainting within a year. They use cheap paint. Let me put it to you this way, a buddy of mine is in the used car business and he uses Maaco every once in awhile to paint body panels that need work on used cars that he sells. When the car comes back from them, it looks pristine, however within a year the paint "wears" off. Find an independent body shop that is preferred by insurance companies in your area. They will do a much better job and they will actually use the manufacturers paint.

[elwesso]

Take it to a body shop and they should be able to assess what needs to be done... I doubt a lot of work needs to be done...

Youd be surprised what some tools and a can of touchup paint in the hands of a pro will yield!!!

Joe will be able to give you touchup paint... Give him your color code (on the plate on the firewall)...

[Jeff Williams]

ABSOLUTELY, do not use a shop like Maaco, or Earl Shibes!

Your car came with the finest paint Infiniti could buy (That is why my car still looks new - except for a few scratches & dings - after 11 years).

a cheapo paint touch-up looks worse than the scratches.

A pro can touch up the paint, and use a buffer, and clear coat, to cover most any scratches.

I would go to a high dollar used car dealer, like Lexus, or Mercedees, and ask the used car manager who he uses.

[rsiwicki]

A friend of mine had his 1997 car wet sanded and then resprayed with clearcoat. It came out beautiful and its been over a year since it was done. My understanding is that they wet sanded the car taking down only the first layer or two of clear coat leaving the original paint untouched and then resprayed the car with a couple of layers of clear coating. Many times this is done when a body shop leaves an "orange peel" effect on the paint surface and to get rid of the fine little bumps they wet sand the car. This might be an option....

[cweberj30t]

You would be amazed at what a good detailer can do with a wet sander. I would go that route first befor painting over the whole car. If you try to do spots, it will never match up and will look even worse than it did to begin with.

[Jeff Williams]

Read this article, about wet sanding and polishing a finish:

http://www.customclassictrucks...aint/

[AZhitman]

A Q45 (or any car worth keeping) should NEVER be repainted unless it's a last resort.

I don't care HOW much you spend, a repaint will always be evident (unless they remove ALL rubber, glass, chrome, etc).

Then you're spending more than the car is worth.

I agree - find the Infiniti dealership's touch-up guys and get an estimate to airbrush all chips, colorsand and buff. Then offer them an extra $100 to do a GOOD job. Then take it home and apply 5Star, Zaino or Lex and be the envy of the neighborhood.

[BadQ45t]

Well Infiniti does nice paint jobs, but my old 84' had a pretty poor factory paint job. After 3 years of parking out at Luke AFB and Arizona State by the Stadium, coupled with all the gravel and crap flying around on the freeways in PHX, I HAD to get it re-painted. Of course the 3k worht of damage to the rear from the drunk that hit me coming out of Sky Harbor made it all alot cheaper for me.

Long story short, the guy that did it was on 25th Ave, cannot remember his name anymore as this was in 1991, but he took a month to fix the rear-end damage and re-paint the entire car. I paid him an extra $900 in 1991 and you cannot tell this car was re-painted. In todays dollars this is a 6-8k worth of work (he got over 3k from Farmer's too for the rear end damage).

I agree that if you have exhausted every other avenue than think about how long you will keep that car and that will determine if you pay $399 or 2k for a paint job.

[MattB]

I don't care HOW much you spend, a repaint will always be evident (unless they remove ALL rubber, glass, chrome, etc).

I disagree. My G20 was vandalized just over a year ago and the roof and quarter panels had to be repainted. I took it to a CertifiedFirst body shop and the work is not noticable. Even techs at another body shop had to ask if it was worked on. A good repaint can look good.

[Tgvince]

2000 grit sand paper can go a long way to removing minor scratches. Just make sure you use a soft sanding block as to not leave finger marks. Im getting ready to do some of this on my Q as there are some water spots that wont polish out. BECAREFUL: even with 2k paper you can cut thru the clear very quickly. My recomendation for polishes and wax is at http://www.griotsgarage.com Ive used them all...now only Griots products touch any of my cars.

Terry

[TRUEST]

I just got off the phone with infiinti not too long ago and they said touch up paint is given to infiniti owners for free as long as I'm not trying to repaint the entire car.

so after all, this is not gono cost me a DIME.

[AZhitman]

Hmmmm.

Have you ever tried to use touch-up paint?

If you don't know what you're doing, you'll make it look worse than it already does. Drop the small cash and pay a pro, their airbrushing techniques are impressive.

p.s. Matt, they may not have painted the ENTIRE panels (right up to the trim). Often, when doing a large panel, a good shop can blend into the good paint without having to shoot in difficult areas (like where rubber or chrome meets paint). Either way, it's cool that yours turned out well - most repaints are evident to the skilled eye.