Hi all. I have a 91' 780 that is starting to look it's years. The clearcoat is gone in quite a few places and it is starting to really age the car. It has been outside the whole time that I have had it which has been close to 10 years now I think. Overall the car is in good condition. The body is straight and the engine runs great with 180k. I have kept it up well considering most people would not keep such an older car (which isn't a classic) up so well and the interior is good except for the typical stuff with the 780 (cracked wood on dash, etc.)

I just put a bunch of money in it last year with brakes, timing belt, seals, etc. and the transmission is OK. Would a low cost repaint be a good investment if I plan to keep the car? My only worry is that if I did repaint it that some of the trim pieces and wheels would stand out as looking worn compared to the paint. I guess I could always get the wheels re-done or just get new wheels alltogether.

Any tips or other Volvo owners experience would be much appreciated.



thanks,
Fee

If just the upper surfaces are poor, why not just paint them?

You can make the break at some trim or add a pin stripe.

You could also go two-tone.
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'96 855R,'64 PV544 driver, '67 P1800 basket case, '72 Yamaha Rd400, '68 Honda 350-4, '12 XC70, the first 5 are mine, heh, heh, 525,000 miles put on 10 bricks James A Sousa

Certainly my beloved '87 745 turbo M46 is no classic and I know I'll never recoup the dollars I've spent on it but what could be better than a car that's fun to drive and economical. Yep,I took it to Maaco and got their best paint job. Now that really makes no sense with 580,000 miles on the clock but it's my hobby! And, no, I'm not chasing Irv Gordon although I concur with his thinkng.

OK all the wisdom of paint aside lets talk about the car. It is not old car by collectors standards, not a Classic, but does have a real collectors value as far as Volvo's go. The 780 is a collectable car, not uber-rare, but quite limited production, and if you have a later low miles B230FT and not the V6 it can be more valuable. Low miles of 180k is even more attractive for a collector.
That being said it is my opinion that such a car should be worthy of a good professional re-paint and detail, much more than a 740/760 of the same year.
There are very different trim and body parts on the 780 that sets it apart from it's kin, in particular the body parts, fenders, glass, lights, trim pieces, and alumnimum hood, yes alumnimum hood which looks similar to the 760 hood but it is not the same.
If you attempt to remove the trim pieces and bend or break them these are no longer available. You need to know how to remove these in perfect condition or you will be hosed. Good luck finding them used, also.

As said there is wisdom in leaving it alone unless you can afford a good quality pro paint job. This is one car I would do it the right way. Remove everything, lights, glass, trim, prep and paint.
If you wanted to sell it the cost of the professional paint job will be recoverd, which would not be the case for any other 700 series car.

I personally have been stocking up on 780 parts.

I have a full set of trim, extra tail lights, drivers side marker light, interior wood set refinished, rear trunk lid plastic, decals, ect. everyone once in a while ill find one in the Death yard and ill go pull whatever rare parts are still left on it for pennies, then put it out there with the car.

I will be repainting mine myself, have all the tool's, though ill be doing the paint job as volvo originally did it and using the exact color they used.

OK all the wisdom of paint aside lets talk about the car. It is not old car by collectors standards, not a Classic, but does have a real collectors value as far as Volvo's go. The 780 is a collectable car, not uber-rare, but quite limited production, and if you have a later low miles B230FT and not the V6 it can be more valuable.
That being said it is my opinion that such a car should be worthy of a good professional re-paint and detail, much more than a 740/760 of the same year.
There are very different trim and body parts on the 780 that sets it apart from it's kin, in particular the body parts, fenders, glass, lights, trim pieces, and alumnimum hood, yes alumnimum hood which looks similar to the 760 hood but it is not the same.
If you attempt to remove the trim pieces and bend or break them these are no longer available. You need to know how to remove these in perfect condition or you will be hosed. Good luck finding them used, also.

As said there is wisdom in leaving it alone unless you can afford a good quality pro paint job. This is one car I would do it the right way. Remove everything, lights, glass, trim, prep and paint.
If you wanted to sell it the cost of the professional paint job will be recoverd, which would not be the case for any other 700 series car.

Seems to me the original paint is very high quality to start with and nothing short of a $3000 plus paint job is going to match it. I think as long as bare metal isn't exposed and/or rust, the paint is doing a fine protection job, even if clear coat peels away. If aesthetics are desired than a cheap paint job might be satisfying. My concern would be that once that OE paint is covered it won't polish up very nice again, and like you said the other parts will look worn.

I would consider the philosophical approach that the aging paint is the look of experience and survival. The car works great on the inside and that's most important. Plus it's lower maintenance, wash the car twice a year...

Clearcoat peeling away, like on hood, is ok. An idea, for example, consider going to junkyard for new hood, or *only* painting hood, but not whole car.

TR-3 Blue Magic is an excellent polish to revitalize Volvo paint.
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Thanks for the input 740_Dan and everyone else. The clearcoat on the car is not really peeling, but there are some blotches on different sections of the car where you can tell that the paint is wearing down. Not sure what you call this phenomena??

Anyway, I did have it waxed a couple months back and boy did it look nice when I picked it up from the detailer. What I might have done next time is to find a detailer that deals in restoration and can use a wax/sealent that will restore the paint to the best of their ability. I know you mentioned TR-3 and I will look into that. Thanks.

So what OLDER Volvo are we talking about? A '91 is certainly NOT an "older Volvo"!
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George Downs Bartlesville, Oklahoma

"So what OLDER Volvo are we talking about? A '91 is certainly NOT an "older Volvo"!"

Uhh, George, you do realize that the car in question is (almost) 22 years old?

Granted, it is not as old as an Amazon or 544, but the 240/740/940 are most definitely OLD Volvos at this point, having been out of production for going on 20 years.

Real Volvos don't have OHCs or struts!
(I know, I have a couple 2001 model "unreal Volvos".)
I've had 11 of the REAL ones and currently have 5.
Several of them need paint....
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George Downs Bartlesville, Oklahoma

Well not to burst your bubble but to most people outside of the small clique of Volvo fanatics, a 91 is an older car. That is close to antique status is in the car world and a car with close to 200k and over 20 years old is certainly an older vehicle.

FeeWay, I can identify with your desire to paint your car. My 88 240 DL wagon has a straight body, no (minimal) dents, and really it is a nice looking rig. I never liked gold cars but didn't let that stop me when I picked this car. But I've thought about painting it some classic Volvo color like that luscious turquoise or maybe even that pumpkin orange.

If I had the money I'd pay for a pro job, $3000-5000 I think is about the going rate around here. But I'd probably prep it myself, my husband has done a lot of prep for painting fancy boats, so I know what's involved. It takes forever and it's tedious. But you mihgt dicker on the price of the paint job if money is a concern, by offering to do the prep. On the otherhand, pros don't want just anybody doing their prep because it affects final product.

So like you, I've thought aswell to go to Maaco and get their premium paint job. But, and here's the point I'm finally getting to: for me, on the240 wagon, there is a lot of crappy cheap looking plastic cladding along the bottom and fake chrome trim pieces around the wheel wells. Those are coming off and not going back on. Somewhere on this site I saw a picture of a wagon painted white and the "trim" was replaced with black stripes. Maybe this could work on your rig?

Next smmer all that trim is coming off my car and being replaced with black stripes along the bottom, and an arc of black around the wheel wells about 2.5 inches deep that mimics the look of the XC wagons. I already paintd the hood flat black. I don't consider it sullying the classic nature of the rig. Just updating. It's a thing you learn about by playing with makeup.

Go with your heart. Tht's what these cars are about. I don't care how much logic and practicality these forums are couched in. Bottom line, it's about a love relationship with a machine.

How familiar are you with removing all those trim pieces you mentioned? How much work are you willing to do in addition to paying for the paint job?

Lets assume an Earl Schieb $4-600 special. To make it look pretty good you need to pull all the exterior trim yourself. Do not expect them to do ANY repairs either so you do want to fill any door dings or hood chips yourself ahead of time. Also, be aware that if you or a prior owner every used silicon-based polishes on the car, you need to use the appropriate stripper before taking it in (not hard or expensive).

All that being said, up here a lot of folks do not go through all this because the $400 paint job is a protective measure against the road salt.

I think it is worth it if you are willing to do everything listed above. This would give you a chance to polish up the trim...no idea if it is SS with a 780 or actually chromed.

To do the paint job at the price they do, most of those places lay it on thick in a single, or at most, two passes. The odds of some orange peel or sags is pretty good but for the most part, not that bad. Choice of colors rarely allow an exact match, but most places mix on site now so they can do a darned close match for non-metallics.

That was my biggest worry. If I did go to a place like Earl Schieb or whatever, I would not get the cheapy paint job for sure. Likely the nicest one they have but yeah, my worry is that a lot of the trim pieces are faded and as well as some small door dings and such as well as a indent on the hood where some teenagers at the neighborhood high school decided to have lunch near my car and one sat on the roof.

I guess most people would not really look at the paint job that critically, but to me it would look off if the trim pieces and bumpers, etc. looked faded but the paint looked new. Maybe it is best to go to a place that takes the time and does it right?

OK, I am not understanding what you mean by trim pieces then. All the Volvo's I am familiar with have chrome, SS, aluminum or blacked out chrome trim pieces. There is the rubber lower cladding on some but that is not not painted.

If you are talking about air damns and rear valances that are body colored, you need to have those painted at the same time.

There is a saying I learned from an auto body guy years ago I use it for everything from house painting to tile work to programming databases: "Prep slow so you can paint fast". Prep work in a decent paint job normally takes days while the painting is a matter of just a few hours...less if you do not sand between coats. A place that will do a good job is going to top $2K (probably more)in most markets...that is for a straight car with minimal filler required and no rust repair. We are only talking about basic fill, sand, mask, prime, 3 coats of color and two coats of clear. At that price it will be the exterior only so no sills or trunk interior.

How much do you love your car?

I meant to say that the kids sat on the hood, not the roof. It probably wouldn't had dented if they did that :)

I have some experience with older cars. I have an '87 240 and a '82 Toyota Supra.

My criteria for whether to repaint depends on the general condition of the car. If the interior is decent and the body doesn't have extensive rust, it makes sense to consider repainting - partial or whole.

I would take the car to a couple of GOOD body shops and get estimates on painting the horizontal surfaces and blending to the good paint on the sides. That should involve minimal masking and you may be able to afford having a good shop doing the work. You might be surprised at how well a good body shop can clean up a car by judicious paint and buffing. You may not be ready to spend $5,000 on a paint job, but you might be able to get something nice for much less if you blend new paint into the good old.

I had a rust hole repaired at the rear window gasket of my 244. The car was already in a AAA approved body shop to repair a broken rear window and window frame. They quoted $750 to repair and repaint that section - it was a hole the size of a quarter that extended under the gasket. My car is metallic silver. They blended the repair into the rest of the paint and you cannot tell where the patch is.

If the body and interior are nice, it makes the whole experience of having an older car so much more worthwhile. forget the blue book value if you would like to keep the car. I assume it's paid for. You will feel much better about keeping it mechanically tip top if the car is presentable.

There is NOTHING like fresh paint on an older car (done well). It makes all the difference. I think a crappy paint job on an old car looks worse than doing nothing. Do something nice, but you may not have to do a full repaint.