The make-over has begun

The winter make-over for my Viola Metallic 996 Cab has begun, I am using Michaelangelo's Auto Salon http://www.autoclean.ca/ at Lansdowne and Bloor area in mid/west Toronto after getting an off-list referral from Rennlist member Coop, I paid a visit to their shop a couple of months ago to see the place and was sufficiently satisfied to decide on relying on their expertise for this make-over. Had the car flad-bed towed to their shop a week ago, Mike the owner was away, however partner Rhonda was kind enough to allow the car towed there on a Saturday and we spent a couple of hours chatting about what needed to be done, BTW Rhonda is also very knowledgeable with the technical aspects of the repairs and was a pleasure to have the discussion with. The make-over will include front end repaiting mainly for the hood and bumper but also a very small amount of paint chips on both fenders surrounding the headlights needed to be taken care of, PDR a fair number of little dents around the car, and a full car polish to bring back the shine as the car is covered with swirl marks from lack of paint care by the original owner I purchased the car from. All 4 rims will be refinished as well by the shop. When I checked in a week later they have scuffed and filled the fenders, the pictures show the guide coat which will be block sanded off to ensure perfect flatness, the bumper has been cleaned up very nicely and ready for final sanding before painting, the hood was a total transformation since it had a LOT of small dents and a few small protrusions from below, likely from the hood being closed on something a bit too tall in the frunk, they spent a day taking out all the dents rather than using body-filler, this is a step a less expensive shop will not spend the time on since "time is money", however both Mike and I wanted the job to be done right and PDR is the right way to approach this. A depression on the cab cover metal plate was pulled up using glue-pull proecss and looked a lot better now and will be cleaned up with touch-up paint. The PDR technician also removed all the door ding type dents on the side of the car as can be seen in a couple of the side shots of the car. Mike also mentioned that while he had the color mix formula for my rare factory color, he wasn't satisfied enough when he did a spray-out card to check color match to the rest of the car, so he took the gas door off to send it to PPG for them to obtain a perfect match, I appreciate this extra effort because it would be a real shame to go through all the trouble and expense only to find the re-painted area did not exactly match the original paint on the rest of the car. I am very satisfied so far with the prep work done at Michaelangelo's Auto Salon, and will follow up with additional images of the finished product as I get the chance to take them at the shop.

Seems like they are good at what they do...

How much is this going to cost?

Not sure yet. I was given a ball-park figure with the basic front end work, however the total is TBD at this time because of the PDR and other work here and there, I'm counting on a "package deal" from the shop since it is the slow time of the year, and might even get them to do the 3M Clear Bra as well once the paint has cured for some time. Yes some of you may think I am in for a world of hurt, however the car was already put away for storage when I found out about this shop so they didn't get a chance to assess the car in person until I finally dropped the car off with them last Saturday so it's not fair to them to ask for a firm price sight-unseen a couple of months ago. So far I have been comfortable in my interactions with the owners and not expecting any unreasonable amount at the end.

$4000?

I sure hope not! The basic front end job is substaintially less than $4K, a regular franchized bodyshop (NOT Macco) near my house which I've used twice for my DD in not-at-fault claims quoted me $1.3K to refinish the bumper and hood as long as I took care of the PDR for the hood myself beforehand, and I don't believe they were going to feather/blend the fenders to ensure seamless color transition between the new and the old paint as Michaelangelo's would. The cost for the front end work with Michaelangelo's will be more than $1.3k but wont' be anywhere close to $4k, the PDR work on the hood will also factor into the final cost, I just don't know what that will be yet, keep in mind there's a number of things I have asked them to do which will make a very non-standard pricing for this make-over at the end.

Are they only do polishing and detailing? What about whole car paint job?

They can certainly do whole car paint job, they have a full-size downdraft spray booth in the facility which can bake the freshly applied paint as well, there is also a paint mix room with different color pigments to mix just about any colors right there. Hopefully I can get some shots of my car in the booth as it is being painted. Have a look at their website in the beginning of my original post, they have several capabilities, currently they have a Harly Davison F-150 in there that got keyed badly, the red Porsche turbo in my pix, a yellow 911 for front chassis repair work as the frunk floor had rotted out from rust, a mid 1970' vintage Grand Prix for a full restoration, and a few other project cars, so they are capable of more than just detailing and polishing!

Checked their website, very simple one, even no any project pix. Did you compare they to European Auto Body? I have heard tons of great reviews and they serve high end cars only.

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Quote: True, which was the reason I paid a trip to Michaelangelo's shop a couple of months ago to see the facility and spoke to Mike directly, and was sufficiently satisfied with their knoweldge, equipment, and capability before I decided to use their shop for the work on my car. I wasn't aware of European Auto Body before, the images of their website certainly show some very impressive equipment and facility, I'm sure they are very capable of making the necessary repair to the true exotic cars like the ones shown in their gallery, however this also means the overhead cost of these expensive equipment must be recuperated somehow, which is fine for insurance claims but their cost may be higher than I can justify for out of pocket work such as what I am going through now. (Not to knock any "high-end" shops) Many years ago I had been told of a high-end body shop so I insisted with my insurance company to go there for a not-at-fault claim repair which included rocker panel repair and repaint on a 2 month new car, the paint work was good and I never experienced any other issues on the repair when I sold the car 6 years later. HOWEVER there was a fine mist of super fine overspray all over the horizontal surfaces of the car that I only noticed a few days after getting the car back when I was washing and drying the car, I was able to prove this is overspray by scraping the rear window with a razor blade and collected the black metallic paint identical to my car. The bodyshop supervisor quickly admitted to me that the new spray booth in their brand new facility was not quite working properly and he will have my car polished to remove the overspray, this was acceptable to me. Imagine my dismay when the owner of this shop flipped out on me when I brought the car in a few days later for the polishing appointment, he exclaimed that his shop could not have been responsible for this overspray, and asked me how many times have I waxed the car, to which I told him 3 times in the two months since I bought the car brand new, he said: "Well that is the problem!" and literally yelled at me that he will not polish my car to rid of the overspray, mean time the bodyshop supervisor didn't know what to do or say as he knew their spray booth did cause the overspray problem but he chose not to go agaist his boss's decision. Needless to say I left there with my car vowed never to return to this "High End" shop with Ferrari, Lambo, and vintage muscle cars on their show room floor. I also had a great time chuckling to myself when driving by the location a couple of years later when I noticed they are not there anymore, hopefully they had to close shop due to their poor attitude and practice. To add insult to injury, my insurance company said they are not going to support me by withholding payment to the shop until the overspray was taken care of becuse I had used a shop of my choice rather than one of their preferred shops..... I no longer remember the name of this outfit but they were on south side of Steeles Ave near Highway 27, which is very close to this European Auto Body, I hope they are not one of the same outfit......., although I'm highly suspecious given the proximity and nature of the service! So, these days I will do my own homework to confirm a shop is one that I would deal with, and so far I am happy with what I've seen with Michaelangelo's.

Thanks for the story and experience. I would like to see your finish project since I'm planning to do some paint job as well. Did Mike tell you when ur car will be ready?

Mike and I didn't set a timeline or deadline since it's winter months now and I'm in no rush to get the car back, plus there is still rim-refinishing, polishing, maybe even interior detailing and (possibly) 3M Clear Bra to be done. Feel free to stop by at their shop if you have the opportunity during the weekdays.

The name of the "high-end" shop I had my run-in with came to me last night, it was "Prestige" something, so I Googled "Prestige Auto Collision" and came up with this link http://maps.google.ca/maps/place?hl=...97068129592713 with the address of 11 Goodmark Place, well European Autobody has the address of 14 Goodmark Place http://216.128.18.50/EuropeanAutoBod...ctUs/index.asp Mmmmm, quite a coincidence!! It's hard not to draw the conclusion the two may well be the same folks, so maybe Prestige didn't close shop but rather moved further into the industrial complex to lower their lease/rent cost.........., and if they are the same folks then I sure as heck hope they have changed their very poor behaviours and attitudes since when I had my major run-in with them!

Stopped by Michaelangelos today, pleasantly found they had painted the hood and fenders yesterday, too bad I could not be there but I can't expect them to hold off painting the car just because I wanted to take pix of it being painted, however they did take a few pix for me. The paint job looked sharp even before any touching up and buffing The color looks great, and appears to match as perfectly as I can tell from different angle and lighting shining on the area, the extra effort to match the paint had paid off, PPG now has this color code formula in their world-wide system. The left side is the new paint, the right side is the original paint. Some PDR work still required as the new paint revealed a few minor depressions not noticeable before when the paint was very dull. The next few images showed just how dull the original paint was compared to the new paint: A red Turbo had just had its left rear fender repainted: There are a few other cars they are working on, I've only taken pix of the project cars rather than the normal insurance repair type work: Fianlly a couple of exterior shots of Michaelangelos' shop Still some work left on this make-over, including painting the bumper, touching up the painting, polishing, sealing/waxing, rim repair etc., looking forward to get this car back in my garage!!

WOW, it looks really good. I may stop by sometime next week and check this beauty. Great job so far.

Better be quick, they were trying to get the car done for tomorrow but I don't think that's possible since the bumper hasn't been painted yet as of mid-day today and they haven't started polishing the car either, as well I've asked them to repair the rims so that will add at least another day or two. It wouldn't surprise me, even with the other pieces of work they have, that my car might be ready for pick up by end of next week. I still have to decide if I would like them to arrange the 3M Clear Bra installed now or just take the car back to really let the paint cure for a couple of months before getting it and 35% tint done at a shop I've used before in the west end.

My car have had 3M clear for over 4 years, and now I just want to renew it.

The fresh paint looks great but im a bit skeptical about the old paint buffing out as nice. Ive detailed paint for years and question the thickness of that clear coat to have the abilities to smooth out. Those swirl marks seem rather deep in the pictures and wet sanding may be the only way to get it right... fingers crossed. It will look amazing all cleaned up and polished.

Wow! I have never seen that color before - pretty. They are doing a great job with the car

Very interested to see how the polish of the old comes up vs new paint. suspect it will be very impressive.

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Quote: I'm not concerned with that, the lighting magnified the apparent severity of the swirls, none of them can even be felt with fingernail, they are all superficial. I haven't done paint polishing to this level myself, but understand the process enough (probably just to be dangerous ) that I wouldn't have bought the car if I had been concerned these swirls could not be safely polished out, as well the shop has made no mentiones that they are concerned the swirls can't be polished out. Will post pix when the job is done.

If they are not to deep, you will find they can be buffed out, its more art than science, so if they have a good guy they may amaze you. I am still interested to see if you can tell, and hope you can't see the difference in encouragement for us all thinking about a panel or two and not the whole car.

Got word this afternoon that they are doing the first stage of polishing today, then the final polish and wax on Monday, they are refinishing the rims as well, and the car will be ready for pick up by mid next week. Although I would prefer a clear day after the roads have mostly dried out first before I have the car picked up, unfortunatley there is snow forecasted in the next few days.......

Got the car back today, I am very satisfied with the work performed by Michelangelos Auto Salon, the paint color match was as perfect as can be from what I have now seen under sodium arc lamp, flourscent, overcast sky, sunny sky, I simply cannot tell the difference. Tha paint polish has also removed the swirl marks all over the car before and restored the shine the paint was capable of, a full interior shampoo/cleaning was also performed to make this a very complete job when I picked up the car. Just to show a few "before" pix of what the car looked like when I purchased it last Aug with badly swirled paint throughout the car, many small dents on the hood, badly scraped front bumper which also had indentation from the license plate mounting holder being pressed against the bumper itself: A few recap shots of the passenger side fender & door before painting, after painting, and after polishing: Finally a few, OK, quite a few shots of the final polishing and the finished product: This experience has realy shown me how important it is to have a good shop such as Michelangelos who's willing to work with the client to achieve a high standards of finished product, the small premium is worthwhile to achieve a quality work as compared to the typical paint/collision shop.

It looks like a brand new car!

Great Job, GOOD looking car!!

WOW looks great and like a new car. cant even tell whats new paint and old paint in the pictures. they did a great job

Thanks guys, yes it looks great in person too, can't wait to get the Clear Bra on it and the road to be clear of salt to put her back on the road again. OT question, I am seeing all pix through external URL as I included here in smaller size than I had posted with the "Click this bar to view the full image" above each image, this started last Friday or so, is this a new vBulletin implementation/setting by the site owner here? Or do I need to change some settings? Some forums using vBulletin software have a setting in the User Control Panel for this but I don't see it in my User CP page here? TIA if there are any tips.

To me it looks like the repaired areas have a slightly more intense purple hue

I'm actually surprised that they painted individual panels rather than blending the color back into the doors. It looks like they did a nice job though.

The shop and I would want to preserve as much of the original paint as possible which will also reduce cost to me, blending would have been desireable if the paint color wasn't as well matched, however in this case the color was perfectly matched based on what I can see under several different lighting conditions. It didn't hurt that PPG also got involved, I'm sure their sophisticated equipment in analyzing the original paint on the gas door played a key part into coming up with the exact color formula to match the original paint, and the paint code formula is now in PPG's world-wide database. If there were any apparent differences in color between the fender and the door, it is most likely due to the combination of how easily this color changes hues from different angle and how close I was with the camera and the car, the angular difference from the camera to the different parts of the car in relationship to the light source will be different enough to cause slightly different reflections. As I mentioned, in person I just can't tell the difference looking between the fender and door on each side no matter how hard I tried! Given the color-shifting nature of this paint, I must say I am 110% satisfied with the match.

It looks like they did an amazing job. How much did it cost you? I'm also in the GTA area and wouldn't mind keeping their contact for future purposes.

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Quote: I had a chance to go back to the the shop where I had the overspray and then major attitude issue from the shop manager many years ago, wasn't too surprised it is exactly where European Auto Body is today. I have no idea if the same folks still operate the outfit, but I am not going to take my chances going back there again, especially when the shop seems to be a very Italian marques outfit, not so sure a Stuggart vehicle will be treated with respect there!