The Brick's going to get painted before my Christmas vacation is over, and I'm a bit worried about everything. The only place of which we know to take it is Maaco, and I was just reading about other Brickboarders' experiences with Maaco.

To sum up what I know, I need to do prep work. The problem is that I have absolutely no car skills--I broke part of the power window switch when I tried to fix it (just fixed in a shop a few days ago, for those of you who remember me asking for help a while back).

I'm not sure if we have a power sander or anything else that is used in prepping a car--I don't even know what the process entails. Even if we did, I don't think my parents would be particularly happy to see me outside cluelessly messing around with the car, wearing a mask sanding off the paint and pulling off parts I think would otherwise get painted over by Maaco. They'd prefer I leave it to the "experts" (which don't always seem to come through, from the posts I read).

I wish there were other alternatives, but we're going to end up taking it to Maaco and letting them do (almost) all the prep and paitning work (I'm not even sure if my parents realize that prep needs to be done first).

Is there anything that I, a not-mechanically inclined teenager who wants the best for his Brick), can do before handing it all off to Maaco? We're probably not changing the color (black would be sweet, though), and we're going to choose to do the second or third level job, I think called "Presidential" and "Supreme" (NOT the cheap-o budget one).