European Paint & Body II

Why Should I Hire a Body Shop to Paint My Car?

When you need your vehicle painted, it doesn't make sense to paint it yourself. Painting is a difficult skill to master. The investment in professional equipment and years of experience make a world of difference. The biggest problem with trying to paint your vehicle yourself is that aerosol cans of spray paint lack hardener. This means that the paint needs a long time to cure and that it is difficult to get a solid and consistent coating. 

At European Paint & Body II in West Palm Beach, FL we often encounter customers who want to paint their vehicles themselves, but in the end they bring their cars back to us for a wide range of different reasons.

A spray-painted car is extremely difficult to clear coat. You can literally spend double the price of hiring a professional to paint your car on color-matched and high-quality spray paint alone. If you don't have a painter's bake booth to control the humidity and temperature, you only have a small window to paint the vehicle successfully. After that, the paint will look cloudy and worthless. When the clear coat looks hazy because the humidity is too high, painter's use the term "blooming" to describe it. You will have to start over at square one and sand down your vehicle to prepare for fresh coats at additional costs. 

The reality is that quality paint is expensive even if you have the air compressor and painting equipment. Professional painters have to filter the compressed air that goes through the paint gun because it is mixed with oil. If you try to purchase a spray nozzle for your compressor to apply professional paint yourself, it will be full of pockmarks and will flake right off from the oil. Painting is all about preparation. You have to mask off the areas that are not getting paint and ensure that the surfaces receiving paint are free of any residue. 

Using body filler, hammers, and dent pullers to straighten out any damage before you paint is an art form that takes years of experience. The learning curve to master auto body repairs and painting at a sufficient level to make it practical for painting your own vehicle is too steep. When you have a professional do the job, you also save yourself from exposure to toxic chemicals. Paint is full of carcinogens and irritants that are hazardous to your respiratory health and can even be absorbed through your skin. This is especially true with urethane-based paints that owe their durability to isocyanide. 

Even dust in the air is enough to ruin the finish of a home paint job. The trick of spraying down water in the garage before painting doesn't work and actually creates other problems with humidity control. For all of the foregoing reasons, let a professional paint your vehicle.

European Paint & Body II, 1694 Donna Road, West Palm Beach, FL, 33409 

Sources: YouTube and Consumer Reports