Repaint: Electric Blue Pearl!
 

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So my old 2007 RX8's paint job was chipped, scratched, and fried after upwards of a decade baking under the ever-present tropical Hawaiian sun (I always had to take carefully-angled pictures of it to avoid all the blemishes showing or catching the light the wrong way), and I've always had an affinity for blue cars anyway. So I bit the bullet and got my 8 repainted.
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I went to Maaco, but before you jump all over my ass over it, this wasn't their cheap shitty $300 spray-over shenanigans - I went with the full package, including full sanding and repair of all the dings on the body, doors, and hood, I had them paint the interior door jams as well so it wouldn't look half-assed. The roof paint had become so fried it had several little bitty rust-spots right down to the metal, so I had them completely strip down the roof to bare metal and start from scratch. I also had them remove my crappy ghetto-ass job of attaching my front-lip and rear valences and re-attach them with proper methods, and paint them solid blue, along with the eyelids. The whole deal ran about $5,000 - minus a 25% military discount, so roughly $3,700 or so. The entire job has a 4-year warranty as well.
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Here it is in the shop, post-body-work and getting painted...
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And here it is right after getting home from the shop (I haven't re-installed the grill mesh yet because I don't wanna risk scratching the new paint until it cures some more).
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FYI - I do plan to put some sort of mesh in the recessed areas of the lower rear bumper, on either side of the rotary symbol, since it currently looks a bit plain. Also, I de-badged it beforehand, and may re-affix the sort of cursive-style "RX-8" logo in the rear center or elsewhere. That hood looks so nice now, I almost don't want to replace it with that carbon fiber SEIBON TS-II Style model I've been drooling over!
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That blue and green go good with each other.

Ricetastic but nice paint job.

Posted From RX8Club.com Android App

Too much blue for my taste, but the quality of paint work looks decent. Then again Maaco isn't known for using the top quality auto paints such as PPG, Dupont, etc.. Only time will tell how well it'll hold up against the weather in your climate. Especially since you mentioned the sun ruined your paint before. But as long as you take care of it I think it'll work out for you.

Thanks!



If you Google Image search for "blue car green wheels" you'll see hundreds upon hundreds of cars, all different kinds of cars, with this color scheme - I don't know that it's "Race Inspired Cosmetic Effects," but admittedly it probably doesn't help that it's a Japanese car I guess. It is a bit loud, but I don't think it looks distasteful. And if it is a bit RICEy, I'll just have to upgrade the power, suspension, etc. so the actual "Race" part is legit, and it's not just "Race Inspired Cosmetic" stuff... Which I do plan to do :)

Also, would it help if the wheels were white or gold rally-style? I wouldn't be opposed to that idea (I do think gold would look a bit more "grown up" I guess), although it'll be a bit till I can afford that. This guy's gold rims look subtle enough to be tasteful, I think. This guy too.



I agree that it does look very plain right now with no emblems, and the back looks kind of featureless (like there's just too much unbroken blue and it's almost overwhelming), but that will be remedied eventually, and tastefully - I was just kinda screwing around with the green highlights when the car was still black, because the paint was pretty shot anyway; but no more randomly painted highlights on my multi-thousand-dollar paint job.

The paint is completely warrantied for four years, so they seem to be pretty confident in its quality - I mean it's not DuPont or whatever, but it's also not their cheap low-grade stuff that you spray once over on a car you're just trying to sell and need to look decent for a few months; I told them I specifically wanted the most UV-resistant stuff. If it cracks or discolors prematurely, I'll just take it back in. I don't even know if I'll have the car for another four years honestly; I might upgrade to a 2011 or 2012 Series II when this one passes the 10-year mark, I don't like dealing with old high-mileage cars when multiple things start wearing out in rapid succession.

Not knocking it man. The paint job looks well done actually. The 4 year warranty sounds like a good deal, as long as you use a good quality wax I think you'll get by.

wow looks much better nice job

Looks nice. Hope it stands up to the sun.

Did the guys at Maaco get enthusiastic for a customer who wanted quality work, not just an Earl Scheib job?

Ken

Yes, that would be an understatement lol... I submitted my detailed request for a quote on their web site at around 4pm on Monday when they were about to close, but less than 20 minutes later Ryan, the owner of the shop, personally called me to set up an appointment the next day. When I got there the guys were all over my car, all excited over getting to do a high-quality full-body job on a sports car instead of another dirt-cheap hack-job door/bumper-repair on a rusty old van or beat-up family sedan that no one cares about and will still look like crap afterwards.

They kept texting me pictures of the progress day to day, and when I picked it up they asked me to take some good shots when I got home for them to throw up on their Facebook page and Instagram account (yes, they evidently have a company Instagram account). I think a lot of the guys who work there hate having to do cheap low-grade budget jobs all the time and probably feel like their talents go to waste; I think they were really happy to have an opportunity to really apply their trade skills to something that would look great and turn heads afterwards.

FYI, everyone at work this morning loves the color, but no one is all that fond of the lime-green rims on the blue - I think it's just too bright of a green and it sort of "washes out" the overall color color, so I may have them powder-coated white. The next step has to be performance-related though, I've spent enough on superficial aspects; I'm thinking about a Cobb AP in the next month or two, along with replacing that stupid cone-filter "hot-air-intake system" with my stock airbox as soon as my accordian tube arrives from London. Should bump me up a couple of ponies.

Can't go wrong with white wheels on a blue car. Do it. :icon_tup:

Posted From RX8Club.com Android App

looks like the front bumper wasn't taken off as the lower plastic liner has overspray on it, and you can see where they masked the oil coolers. The in booth picture shows the rear bumper, and door handles are still attached. It saddens me that you paid this much and something as standard body panels prepped and painted off the car wasn't performed, this basic 'red flag' questions the rest of their work.

You are a brave man to drive around with those wheels! At least the island isolates the number of retinas that have to be exposed to it.

Yeah I think some white rims are in order. I'm not that fond of the green with the blue either; they're just the wrong shade, too neon. As soon as I can find a place that does powdercoating.

As far as the front/rear bumper being removed, that would have been several hundred dollars more in labor, and I was already spending a thousand dollars more that I thought I was going to because evidently paint shops don't include labor in their pricing schemes (never really been to a paint shop before) and I didn't realize how much body work it needed to look good.

Now if this car was not a daily-driver approaching a decade old, and it was never going to leave an indoor showroom floor then sure, I'd pay hundreds or thousands more to have the entire car dismantled and painstakingly detailed. I love my 8, but I'm just not willing to pay that much to paint an aging daily-driver salvage-title car that only costed $8k to begin with just so I can leave it out in the parking lot all day every day and let the birds crap all over it. I'll throw a little matte black on the blue sides of the oil coolers and it'll be fine, no one will ever even know from looking at it. The paint job overall is smooth and even, and I'm happy with it.

Unfortunately I forgot that painting my car would result in the loss of my stupid little safety inspection sticker that Hawaii makes you stick on the rear bumper of your car, which got me pulled over yesterday. I got off with a warning and a promise to go get it re-inspected, but then the safety inspection place wouldn't pass the car with the tail lights that the previous owner had decided to "smoke," but sprayed on about 5 too many coats of tint spray so they were practically black (like in the pics above), so I had to hit up a buddy and swap out my tail lights for stock unpainted ones for the inspection. Also had to jam my license plate into my front grill for 20 minutes so I could have both front/rear plates. So much unexpected grief. Oh well, everything's good now. Just gotta worry about those rims, I think the mere sight of them attracts the police.

Ya those wheels certainly don't keep you under the radar. I actually love the color and the rims as they are. Looks dope. White wheels might look good also. I agree with you given the circumstances, my 8 is also old approaching the age where such details like the bumper removed for paint aren't needed. Thought I would mention that as a lot of members here keep their cars show room finish. Usually shops remove them anyway as its sometimes more work to paint and prep with it on. A set of coilovers on this and it would be rolling......

Also how do you like the mesh grill removed? I thought about this but am not sure, looks good on yours but can't commit to it on mine.

What's that piping around the edges of your fenders? That's not OEM.

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Actually, I kind of liked it - it looks a little more rugged and aggressive, sort of like the later-model Mitsubishi EVO's, but you'd have to chop out the stupid foam stuff that sits behind the grill for it to look good... This is the first pic I snapped, before I sprayed the foam matte black to help hide it behind my grill mesh...
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And yeah that piping seems to be aftermarket, I never really noticed it till now... Must be another thing the previous owner installed....
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I snapped a few new pics today with the grill re-installed and the stock tail lights, in better lighting while it wasn't raining...
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Much, MUCH less of a cop-magnet now. By the way I just ordered a set of 18x9.5 +45 Konig Lace rims, so everyone on here (and everyone at my work too) can stop bitching about it now :)
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stock tails and grill look so much better. wish you were local I would grab these wheels from you now that you will replace them.

Haha yeah, I'm actually taking my new Konig Lace rims to the exact same place that my RX8's previous owner had these green ones powder-coated (I know because they have a picture of one of these exact rims in their customer gallery lol), to have them powder-coated silver - I personally hate black rims, I don't see the point in spending thousands on rims that you can't even see; just buy a goddamn set of hub caps and spray-paint them, it looks the same: Invisible, except for maybe under super-bright lighting. But whatever, everybody's got their preferences and taste.

But yeah, these 18" x 9.5" Axis Halo's don't rub and would work great for any RX8 at stock height, and probably with a bit of lowering too. Anybody interested, PM me. Or I'll just hock them on craigslist.

Looks like there's a defect in the paint right above the left exhaust shroud

Not a fan of the green, but the blue is gorgeous!

Yeah the line where the shroud actually attaches to the bumper? That's an imperfection in the shroud, that was my bad; that shroud got messed up when I backed into a parking spot and the shroud and bumper cleared the curb, but there was a sort of concrete square jutting up out of the grass right behind the curb with one of those little man-hole cover things on it, I think there was an electric or natural gas meter inside it or something. Bumped into it and chipped off some of the green paint and mildly deformed the upped edge of the shroud :( As can be seen from the pictures, it's a lot more visible from an isometric angle than from a straight-on view of the rear end. The car isn't perfect and has its blemishes, but I still love it. I think I'm still going to call it Domino even though it's not black anymore.

Also, my 18" x 9.5" Konig Lace rims are in the mail; when they get here, they're getting powder-coated bright metallic silver (I hate darkly-colored rims, unless they have a bring lip to make their size visible) and put on with the 25mm Garage Line spacers I ordered a few days ago.

Next time I'll teach you to paint cars and you will paint yourself.
$400 paint/primer etc+ 100 compressor + 30 spray guns 20 sandpaper.
700 for materials and tools.
I begun painting about a year ago, no big deal.
If you want top results, you use a few coats of clear and then polish it.

I'd need a place to paint right..? Do you rent a painting booth or something? I hate living in an apartment, it's so limiting. :(

back yard.
Booth is good, but outside is OK. Paint and clear coat dry in 10 min.
You cannot do it outside of apartment.