I wanna paint my 3rd gen

Hey everyone my rig needs paint soon! The paint is flaking off on the roof, hood, and on both back quarter panels where I am finding bondo (unfortunately she must have been in an accident in the late 90s early 2000s that was not disclosed to me) anyway not a big deal since the truck was given to me by my aunt after giving her some issues so I only have probably a thousand or so into her. This it currently my daily driver and I would like if she was a little more presentable BUT I really don’t wanna spend a lot on her since it’s still a 26 year old truck. I was thinking of sanding the old paint down redoing the bondo and starting with self etching rust oleum auto primer and then maybe a gloss black or gloss cement gray rust oleum as base color and then then clear coat. But if y’all think there’s a better option then rattle can for cheap I’m all ears, also I have the cheap harbor freight pneumatic sprayer if that would be a better then rattle can. Also I’ve heard of people who have their car painted by students at schools for the price of paint, is that a thing?
Let me know what y’all think!

 

Ya prep, spray, you can do it outdoors, then the real tough part is wet sanding annd buffing afterwards.

 

I researched this paint thing for my 02 Runner a few years ago before i sold it. My humble opinion is take it to Maaco, it’s not going to be perfect but will look a lot better for maybe $1000.00.

 

That’s actually a pretty good idea, never thought of that, but now I live in north Idaho, 3.5 hour drive from Canada to put it in prospective. lol

 

The thing with a Maaco paint job is if it starts to look bad after 5 or so years you do it again. Well worth the money in my opinion.

 

I’m in the process of painting our 3rd gen myself…
Ill let you know how it turns out

 

Actually, if you do the prep work yourself really well Mako actually throws on a decent coat of paint. The paint job doesn't cost much.
It's when they have to get into any kind of body work that the price goes up.