As with ANY paint job it's ALL in the prep. I used to think the same thing about Maaco, but I learned that every shop is different.

I did all the body work, prep, primer, etc myself. I took it to Maaco to have them do the final blocking. the shop manager took my car under his wing and wouldn't let ANYONE else int eh shop drive the car. At one point every person in the shop had their hands in the sanding of the car. The body guy walked around the car and found imperfections that I had missed and would've obvious once the paint was sprayed.

At the time this shop had a 74 corvette, a 71 Chevy truck, a 67 Mustang, and a 66 Mustang being done.....along with a 55 Chevy 2dr HT that had just been painted in single stage yellow and white. It was near perfect.

Seeing their work and how well they took care of my car I decided to let them shoot it with BC/CC. It turned out great. Better than I anticipated. I still need to do a final cut and polish of the clear, but it looks great. See signature below. I took the car to them with black primer where the dark blue is and grey primer where the pewter is.

It all depends on the shop. I paid $1200 for the final prep, minimal body work, and paint. It's comparable to a LOT of 3500-4000 paint jobs I've seen.