If you are considering why "Should I learn how to paint my car?", you may or may not have looked at all the reasons why and why not you should learn "how to paint your car." So, if not, here is what I will share with you that comes from years of experience as a do-it-yourself kind of guy, who also can show you how and why to paint your car.

1) You will save money.

I don't know about you, but my guess is that you simply would rather learn how to paint your own car, and invest a little elbow grease (but please keep it off the paint and off your car), and save a ton of money, or even just a few hundred dollars. Of course, you can take your car to the inexpensive painting shops, and for a few hundred bucks they will slap some paint on your car, and it will look OKAY, Mabye very good if you get someone who really cares about the job they are doing. But I've heard some horror stories as well. You get what you pay for. And maybe it will look a lot worse than you thought it would if you get somebody with a hangover that day.

You can always do the body work yourself, and have a budget shop doing the spraying, after you do all the masking, and after you say your prayers..... this has been known to produce good results.

Depending on whether you do an entire car, or just parts, there is considerable money to be saved by doing the paint work on your car by yourself over a day or two. If you are doing a fair amount of repair work before you paint, you will save a TON of money. Repair and body work is the most expensive part of painting, and to have someone do this on your car for you, will be very expensive. Please note, my manual and DVD explain car body work as well as painting your car.

2) It is better for the environment.

Not obvious right away, but if you follow my instructions for SMART clean up, you will know exactly what happens to the waste paint, solvents and chemicals. How many companies really care about the environment as much as you do? How many will take the simple steps to minimize environmental impact as you can? BY painting your self, you can do EXACTLY what it takes (easy) to minimize environmental impact, as opposed to a big corporate $$$$ commercial company that cares more about the bottom line than you do as you paint your car and try to keep the earth clean.

3) Its fun!

I have been writing books an brain and behavior science for twenty-five years, even before I started showing people how to paint your car-- and there is one thing I have really learned--- there is nothing more enjoyable than creating something yourself, and then looking at what you have accomplished. It is the greatest pleasure, and something you can predictably do over and over. As you learn how to paint your car, your brain will instantly reward you as expand your skills and knowledge- not only about paint and car work, but in understanding how to do something efficiently, effortlessly (to a degree!), and enjoyably. You can then apply this same method that you used to paint your car, to any other kind of project you have.

I have been a teacher for THIRTY FIVE YEARS. There is a fun and efficient and proper way to teach and learn, and there are a million bad ways that are overly complicated, no fun, and simply bad technique. In the world of "how to paint your car", there are plenty of REALLY BAD methods and sites out there. I have taken my 35 years of a teacher and applied it to this: how to paint your car. I have eliminated all of the anal retentive qualities seen so frequently elsewhere, and given you the pure essentials, and you can paint your car without getting buried in irrelevant dweeby facts. We are painting a car here, not doing brain surgery!!

4) It is not difficult.

Well, looking at other sites that try to show you how to paint your car, you would never know this. My own teacher (who did not teach how to paint your car to anyone except his closest friends), regularly repaired and painted the MOST EXPENSIVE CARS MADE-- Ferraris, Lambos, Lotuses, as well as inexpensive daily drivers. As a teacher, I know there is a very fine line between showing someone the essentials to painting a car, and showing either too little or too much. I know you will find exactly the right BALANCE to learn how to paint your car HERE-- and that's why I've posted so many TESTIMONIALS.

Further, you don't need a paint booth-- you can paint in your garage, a car port, even in a driveway or parking lot. In fact, painting outside is better than painting in an enclosed area in some respects for a DIY home painter since it increases the amount of fresh air in the painting zone-- better for your health. (Granted, you don't want things floating into your paint!)

So there you have it!  Okay now-- learn how to paint your car and ENJOY yourself, and ENJOY your fixed up car!- Neil

Also of great interest:

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THE REAL POOP ON PAINTING YOUR CAR

The reason I learned how to do car painting is because I owned a rare collector car that would have cost me $3000-$4000  minimum to have the body work and paint done- and it needed it. AND, I could not afford this.

So, I contacted one of my friends, perhaps the best expert on fiberglass repair and body painting anywhere, Mr. Vic Cooper in Denver. He regularly repairs and repaints the most expensive, the most exotic passenger and race cars, from Lotuses to Lambos to hot rods. He taught me how to do this over a long period of time. Since I am a writer and film maker (and he and other experts I knew are not), I translated everything I learned from him into a form that people could easily learn from right off the web. I further got regular advice from an exceptionally good paint shop in Denver that specializes in automotive refinishing.

I spent months learning what works, and what doesn't work- and when I was done I had done my first car, my white Lotus that you see on the book cover. It turned out perfectly. And the method I used can be applied to any vehicle, fancy or plain, big or small, boat or car, truck, bike, or motorcycle.

There are tons of BAD books and DVDs that look good on the surface, but in practical use were complicated and had stuff in there that was unnecessary. I wanted to make material available that WORKED as advertised, and was not overly complicated or poorly written.

You may find yourself in a similar position looking at painting your vehicle- but without having done this previously, or have done it making many mistakes and not having things turn out so good. You may not know anyone who knows how to do this, or has the time to show you.

I will show you, because it is my business teaching people- and I've been a teacher for 35 years.

If you decide it is best to paint your car yourself, you will need a spray gun, a compressor, the paint, some miscellaneous small tools, sandpaper, and a certain amount of patience. You can do it in a car port, garage, paint booth, or even in your driveway- you decide what is best for you.

You can borrow or rent the gun and compressor and save money that way, and pay about $100 for the paint and sandpaper, and if you read the instructions you can come up with a decent paint job on most cars. You will also need odds and ends which you may or may not have, light solvents, gloves, an air respirator, and other small items necessary for painting.

Or, you can spend about $250 on the gun and compressor, own it permanently and do lots of things with it for the rest of your life- like paint your house, air clean stuff, run other tools with it, etc.

If you have a special car or a collector car, plan on spending a lot of time sanding and re-sanding, and fine sanding, and polishing, and correcting your mistakes, and doing body work.

If you don't have an extra $3000 sitting around, this may be your only choice- AND you can do it, and come up with an absolutely gorgeous job. I will show you how, and my methods come from THE BEST EXPERTS possible.

If you just have an old car and would rather do it yourself than spend $300 or $400 at the budget shops for a mediocre job that they will do, you can do it quickly and end up with a finish as good if not better than such shops, and spend a minimum amount of time doing it- although you will still need the materials and equipment you don't already own, and a place to do it.

You can get the download or DVD (it is dirt cheap), or just read through the basics on this page  and get a good idea of what you will need to do.

Okay....you decide. No bull here. The best painting adventure to you!