Do you feel less of yourself whenever you see your car looking so dull and unattractive? There are many reasons you want to change your car color; it could be a sincere desire for something new, a love for some color combinations, or possibly the color makes you drowsy and you feel less motivated to drive with excitement.
For whatever reason why you want to change your car color, you should also consider the best and cheapest way to get it done. Therefore, in this article, you’ll find the cheapest way to change your car color without having to strain your bank account.
Cheapest Way To Change Car Color
Now, I assume you decided to change your car color changed but you want it in a cheaper way. Yes, you can get things done at a reasonable price, here’s how.
Method One: Priming and Sanding Your Car
Stay In A Ventilated Area
To prime your car, you are required to do it in a well-ventilated area. When you sand and paint, your car releases dust particles into the atmosphere, and most times paint fumes travel through the air, and inhaling it can be quite dangerous.
It will require you to stay in a ventilated area, maybe open the windows wide and work in a place where fresh air is highly accessible.
Cover The Parts You Don’t Want To Paint With Tapes
There is a painter’s tape available for this process. Get one and tape delicate parts of your car. Places like the headlight, taillights, mirrors, windshields, and every other part that doesn’t need to be touched with paint.
Add Primers To Places With Scratches Or Exposed Metals
If you have any exposed areas in your car, it is important you have them covered with primers. It could be a spray-on or a liquid primer, whichever one you settle for, ensure you use a primer and allow it to dry completely before you do any other things.
Use An Orbital Sander To Sand The Surface Of Your Car
Use 320-grit sandpaper attached to your orbit sander and rub it against your car’s surface. Turn on the sander and slowly move it across the car’s surface.
This is a long process and could eat up your time, but remember you’re trying to minimize cost by doing it yourself. It’s a must you sand to allow the paint to adhere better and have a smoother finish.
Use Acetone Or Mineral Spirit To Wipe The Surface Of Your Car
After sanding, there is probably dust all around. Dip your tack cloth into acetone solution or mineral spirit and wipe out any form of dust and dirt.
Method Two: Use Spray-On Paint
Get Enough Rust-Oleum Advanced Protective Enamel Spray
These sprays have a basic function, which is to “protect outdoor furniture from rust”. Aside from the well-known black rust-oleum enamel spray, it comes in other colors like gray, pink, red, white, orange, green, and yellow.
To ensure you have a professional view after you have sprayed, make sure the can you get has gloss labeled on it.
Add the Spray to Each Panel side one at a Time
Take the spray and apply it to each side of the car, depending on how big your car is, you’ll take a while spraying each side professionally.
When you want to spray, ensure the spray can is 6 inches or 15cm away from the car and use back-and-forth strokes.
This spray may cause you more harm internally, ensure you wear a respirator and have some gloves if possible to avoid getting excessively exposed.
Use Acetone to Polish Off any Overspray
Except you’re super perfect, there would be glitches in your spraying. Use the acetone and a clean rag to wipe out every paint stain before it dries off.
This is a process you need to do carefully so as to not damage the areas that are properly painted but if it happens, there’s no reason to get scared. Just spray it again.
Finally, leave the car to dry for 24 hours. These are ways to get your car painted on a low budget or if you would want to go further instead of using Rust-Oleum protective enamel spray, you could as well use brush-on paints.
Is Changing Your Car Color Expensive?
Changing car color is like a menu list with different food choices with varieties of price tags. A car color change varies from $300 to an average cost of about $10,000 if you want your car to look much more professional.
You can choose to be economical with this but regardless of how economical you choose to be, it’s still quite expensive to give your car a new look and a new color.
Why Do You Want To Change Your Car Color?
There are many notable reasons why you want your car to look different. Human taste is not minimal, we have a high affinity for satisfaction yet there are different reasons for different people, in case you’re not so sure about why you want to change your car color, here’s why.
1. To Keep Your Car’s Beauty
Out of the many reasons why people change the color of their car, one of the most notable reasons is because we want to keep our car looking as beautiful as when we bought it. The human taste shifts with time, what you like today might change tomorrow.
It’s normal; you wouldn’t need a prophet to cast out this desire in you because it is what makes you human, “an affinity for more”.
Since human taste is liable to change, the car you bought a few months ago probably looks unattractive to you now and you need a new color to keep you attracted to your car. This could be your reason.
2. To Keep The Value Of Your Car Intact
When your car color doesn’t look so nice, it reduces in value. To you maybe you’re not really bothered about a car looking so attractive, what you need is to get in the car, drive to your workplace and get back home but due to how economical you’re, you want to ensure your car stays an investment, so you can resell your car at a reasonable price.
To resell will also require your car to look like a freshly born baby, sparkling with innocence. A car with scratches or large and small dots will sell for less.
Maybe you are more about reselling at a profiting price, and then repainting your car, for this reason, isn’t bad. This could be your reason.
Things To Know Before Changing Your Car Color
Here are a few things you should consider before changing your car color:
Is Changing Your Car Color Worth It?
Not every walking car in the street has a value of up to $50,000. Maybe you drive a car with little or no value according to the market price, because it’s an old model or people didn’t find so much interest in it.
You need to consider how expensive it’s to repaint a car with little or no value. Even if you bought your car with ten thousand dollars, would you be okay spending hundreds of dollars on a car when you know it still doesn’t affect the reselling value?
Before making moves to change your car color, be sure it’s worth it.
Confirm The Cost
For your car to look good, it will require you to repaint both the exterior and the interior of the car. Painting the exterior alone doesn’t mold the car into that perfect taste you desire in your heart; you would need to touch the trunk, underneath the car, under the hood, and the interiors.
Now you know if you want a good-looking car after a respray, you need to touch all sides to have that perfect shade. Touching all sides is a lot of dollars as the paint doesn’t sell for a penny.
Should You Change the Color Or Respray It?
Spraying with the same color is sure less-expensive compared to having your car take a new look entirely. If you have the funds and you’re ready to have your car look just like the ones that caught your attention in movies, it’s a good one.
It’s cheaper for the same color because you wouldn’t need to touch every piece of metal. If you want to go down with a new color, be my guest.
You Need The Law Backings
“What the heck!” this could be the word whispering out of your mind right now and you wonder why you need to notify the DMV before getting yourself a new color, well, I didn’t write the laws.
Though there isn’t a standard law that legislates this but don’t you feel informing the DMV puts you on the good books? This is because, depending on your location, you may be required to change the vehicle color on your registration too.
In your ownership papers, your car color could be black and after a respray, you have a red car, it could at first lead to trouble at sight. You sure want to avoid time-wasting officers who are hell-bent on squeezing out the time you’re hoping to achieve more with.
It is quite important to inform your DMV and also inform your insurance company.
Should I Do Cheap When Changing My Car Color?
You could be the young guy building assets and wouldn’t want to be excessive with your spending or maybe you have the funds but want to be economical or you don’t have enough to spend, doing cheap doesn’t kill. Especially when it involves changing your car color.
Doing cheap doesn’t mean you wouldn’t spend some dollars, it only means you are able to cut out some unnecessary costs and still maintain a sparkling-looking car with a new color. There are ways to cut down costs and it isn’t bad if you choose to do this.
What Color Is Cheapest To Paint A Car?
The cheapest colors are the regular colors you can find around, the black, gray, and white are cheaper compared to specific colors like blue, red, pink, and many others. If you want to do cheap, you could as well go for the standard colors that are available.
Conclusion
Hoping to get a befitting change In car color at an affordable price isn’t bad, do it if you can but if you have more resources to avoid the hassle of bearing some responsibilities yourself and would want it all done by professionals, you could always get that as well. Either way, get the car painted for cheap if you want to.