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Part 2 will be going up when I actually *get the car back* and take pictures.
Before leaving for Colorado for a ski trip this past weekend, my parents gave me the okay to take my car to Maaco to get it repainted. It's a 1989 240 GL sedan with that dark navy blue color, the paint on which had been fading quite severely on the roof, trunk deck, and starting on the hood. I also had two fairly noticeable dents on the right rear passenger door and just above the Volvo logo on the back, where some actors on a motorcycle had hit it (long story).
We told them just to repaint it, opting for the "Presidential" paint coat, and fix those two big dents. The double gold GL pinstripes (I assume they are there because it's a GL) on the edge of the sides were not to be put back on or duplicated; that was an extra $40 or so.
I would have really liked to get the entire outside of the car painted black for an extra $40, but they would not have repainted the door wells or underneath the hood or trunk. To get those places done would have been at least $40 each. My parents nixed that idea because they thought it would look stupid or something; I relucantly gave up that suggestion.
I did no prep work. This part of the whole experience bothered me the most; consistently on here you guys have strongly suggested that the car have nearly all of its prep work done by the owner. I would have liked to take *something* off the car, but I wasn't keen on driving it across town missing important things like lenses, and I didn't think my mom would like it too much if I started ripping stuff off in the Maaco parking lot. So, I dropped it off and really hoped for the best.
The car was ready yesterday, but we were still out of town, so we didn't go by Maaco until today.
From the highway on which Maaco was located I could already see an issue. My right turn signal lens (which I do hope to replace with the Volvo truck ones; yeah, I'm the one who keeps asking about them) appeared to have been quite blown out. I knew it had been cracked when we dropped it off, but apparently while they were prepping it using high-pressure air or something it had finished off the job. There was now a huge hole in the lens.
Let me jump ahead and address the resolution of this problem. We let the owner/boss guy know about the lens and he agreed to/accepted that he'd have to fix it. He began calling places for a "used" lens (he said that; no shyness about not using Cibie there!) but he wasn't able to locate one while we were there. We left the car so that there was no way they could shirk out of responsibility for everything relating to the paint job, yet. We'll call tomorrow, and hopefully I'll get it back.
The truth is, I really don't care that much about the lens. I want to place the order for the amber truck lenses tonight, and as soon as they get here they're replacing whatever is on there. Just as long as the light doesn't short out, I don't really care about the "old" turn signals.
Anyway, so after we pointed out the turn signal thing, we moved around the rest of the car. The hood and roof paint was good, but there were some fairly major issues (to me) with the trunk.
There were at least five spots of dirt in the paint. Similar places didn't exist in the hood and roof paint, but somehow the paint had not gone on smoothly at all on the trunk. I overlooked quite a few, so I'm happy, in retrospect, that my dad was there to spot them and refuse to let them slide.
Additionally, the badging was not in the right, former places. As soon as I walked around to the back, I noticed that there was something funny about the Volvo and 240 GL logos. I looked for a second, and I realized that each one had been dropped about half of an inch and was moved in about the same. Anyone who is not a Volvo fan could certainly care less, but the way it looked to me was really stupid and, most importantly, not original or authentic. One could tell work had been done (and not very well).
Now, I realize that the badges are just attached with some sort of automotive double-stick tape. Probably half of you guys have removed the badging altogether. However, I like it on mine, and I want it to look right. I want it to be in the correct places. Fortunately, I've got several pictures of the back of the car that show the badges fairly well, though it was not my intention to document their correct locations. I'll print them out and take them into Maaco when we get the rest of the trunk addressed.
Additionally, what kind of tape is used to attach the badges? I may have to end up relocating them myself, if Maaco doesn't do it right a second time (getting to that), so how do I get them off and what's the best way to get them back on right?
Back to the specks in the trunk paint, I believe that Maaco will repaint it. At least, it's my intention when I do go to pick up the car to set up a (free) appointment to get it fixed. The painter who I'm guessing did most of the painting didn't seem to eager to acquiese to a repainting, but he said something about wet sanding and buffing that I'm definitely not going to do. I think that's their job, in this case. At that time I'll try to get them to fix the badge problem.
When Maaco removes the badges on the back of a car, they only document which thing is roughly where. I've actually seen a car that had "240 DL" and "Volvo" flipped sides (I thought it was a rear-end accident, but probably just repainted), but fortunately Maaco didn't make that mistake (I would have FLIPPED, no pun intended). However, they aren't exactly precise, and so that's how the Volvo and 240 GL ended up several centimeters from where they were originally.
Ultimately, I was satisfied with the paint job. Though the fact that we had to bring up the broken lens was annoying, it was our fault for not getting a good one put on there. It was pretty cracked to begin with, and it's not really Maaco's fault for it breaking. I mean, they didn't run the car into a post, we presume.
Both "big" (under an inch across, at most) dents were fixed perfectly.
The trunk paint wasn't that great, but elsewhere everything looked good. The *only* overspray I noticed was a tiny bit on the very edge of the left taillight (like half a centimeter, at most) that would never normally be noticed. The paint was good elsewhere, and I didn't even miss the pinstripes. It appeared to be no different from the original paint as well, but I'm not sure if that was a good or a bad thing (remember, I wanted black).
The biggest complication in this whole event is that the end of my Spring Break is coming up very fast. I have to head back to college on Sunday, and Maaco doesn't work on the weekends. We took it Friday of last week, but even if we had taken it Tuesday afternoon, it likely wouldn't have been ready before we went out of town Saturday morning. Basically, we got it as soon as we could, but that still didn't allow a lot of time for the errors that did occur to be fixed.
I've said that I wouldn't mind leaving the car here if it means that Maaco can repaint it and get it all fixed correctly, but my parents seem pretty insistent on my taking it back this weekend. That's okay, because I don't think that the turn signal will be a problem now that it's been covered, and the trunk repainting can't be done until the paint has "cured," as it is. That's at least a few more days off.
So, what's my verdict? I can't quite speak definitively yet, as my car is not done, but I think it went fairly well. If the turn signal had been in good shape (or removed, heh), there wouldn't be that problem. The dirt in the trunk paint seems to be nothing more than an unfortunate incident, as there aren't any problems with the rest of the paint. As long as Maaco gets my turn signal *fairly* soon, and agrees to repaint the trunk, or at least do something about it (though let me know if you feel I'm not entitled to that request), then I'll be quite happy.
Again, I'll post again once I take "final" pictures. I took some the night before (in the dark with only a flash, doh) and I'll take some when it's done, but I wanted to post here since already a lot has happened.
Thoughts? Hopefully my experience can help someone make an informed decision in the future when they take their Brick to get it repainted.
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'89 244 GL--25/22 ipd sways, Alpine head, Eclipse front speakers
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