If you do some of the grinding and prep work yourself, you could get a paintjob for a few hundred bucks. But if someone is going to do it for you, it would be looking more like a thousand. Most paint that changes color is really expensive, and some of it is three stage. The really good paintjobs with that kind of thing are more in the neighborhood of $3000+.

The key is to get the old paint leveled and ground off so that the new paint adheres. You should really take it down to the metal, or almost to teh metal, but that is a MAJOR project. If you don't mind having paintwork done every few years, you can go to Maaco and have your pre-prepped car shot with new paint for a cheap price. The problem with this is that they don't do prepwork unless you pay. And when you pay for prep work, you pay a lot.

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Chris Herbst, near Chicago.