4/16    How much should I expect to pay to have a car painted?  How can I tell
        if a place will do a good job?
        \_ You need to get a recommendation from someone else otherwise you
           don't stand a chance of picking a good place from the phone book.
           Painting costs about $80/hour.  The last time I got hit, they
           charged the insurance company 4.5 hours to paint *2* side panels
           on my car.  For a non-insurance vanity job they will probably not
           fuck you over on the hours that hard but it ain't cheap.
           \_ I'm interested in buying a very specific model of used car, and
              If I don't have to concern myself with color/paint condition it
              will make the search much easier, so what should I expect to pay
              to completely repaint a normal-size car?
              \_ why don't you just call a few places, or are you scared of
                 talking to real people...
                 \_ Yes, I was hoping for anonymous motd advice.
                    \_ Guestimate: $2k to $3k.  Probably not worth it for
                       your used car plans.  My wife's car is a small hot
                       little 2 door.  The local place wanted $7k to touch it.
        \_ You get what you pay for.  Ask them about the procedure
           they're going to follow.  It should range from several
           hundred bucks for someone to clean the existing surface,
           mask off the unpainted exterior surfaces, and spray on some
           new paint, up to several thousand for someone to do it
           properly.  To do a proper job of it, they would need to
           remove all the trim, partially dismantle the car to get
           access to painted surfaces that are not external (open your
           door -- notice that the paint continues inside the sill and
           jamb, and think about how that will look if that surface is
           skipped while changing colors), strip the paint off down to
           bare metal, remove and replace any old bondo, sand it
           smooth, apply some number of coats of primer, some number
           of coats of colored paint, and some number of clearcoats.
           They will need to sand out irregularities in the finish
           between some coats.  The number of coats will depend on how
           you want it to look at the end.  A good painter should be
           able to help you find a good cost/benefit point for what
           you want to do (or help you understand why what you want is
           prohibitively expensive).
        \_ Related question:  A passenger smacked the edge of my car door
           into a wall and now there's a small nick in it that bugs me.
           there's also a tiny dent in the edge--is it difficult to fix
           this sort of thing?  -John
           \_ maybe with a significant change in lifestyle and some therapy,
              but it's a longshot.  usually uptight assholes who obsess about
              their cars tend to stay that way for life.  Or is that not what
              you meant?
              \_ No actually I meant that a nicked car door makes it less
                 intimidating when I bear down on militantly aggressive
                 twats who drive shitty cars with "visualize world peace"
                 stickers and who haven't showered in months.  Next? -John
                 \_ Thank you for proving my point.
                    \_ You had a point?  I asked how hard it is to fix
                       small dents, you responded with pointless insult.
                       Do us a favor, don't reproduce.  Moron.  -John
           \_ dump her.
              \_ The passenger was the boss.
                 \_ And that cheap fucker didn't offer to repair the damage?
                    \_ That's why I'm asking.  I want to know if it'll be
                       cheap to fix, so I can continue being a gracious host
                       and not tie said person to my hood like a cheap
                       hunting trophy as punishment.  -John
                       \_ those things are expensive to fix, most people
                          don't bother with it because it takes a lot
                          of effort and luck to get it right.  Having said
                          that, if you ask for paying the damange, you will
                          be look like a cheap asshole for some reason, even-
                          though everyone knows it's expensive to fix it.