Grady,

You PMed me with your phone number. I called you the same night and it wasn't a late night call. I got your voice mail and left you a message.

By the time you got back to me I had been to the first Maaco. I looked over the equipment they used and two of their "Signature" paint jobs that were waiting to be picked up and they looked pretty damn good.

I made up my mind to go to another Maaco and do the same thing and call you IF I decided (guessed, really) that you might do a better job.

The second Maaco seemed to be better run than the first AND they offered to do the same job as the first Maaco for $400 less.

They are 7 miles from my house. You are well over 50 miles. I can watch Maaco every step of the way and have the car back in three days.

(By the way... I PMed and heard back from 2 guys you did work for and they were VERY, VERY happy with the work you did).

Anyway, it just came down to my getting the job done faster and for less money and no hassle of driving some distance to drop it off and pick up. It ain't a personal thing.

We'll just have to wait and see about the, er, lubricant aspect of Maaco. I've read a lot of the Maaco complaints. Here's what I think:

They are franchises and some do better work than others. Most of the complaints I saw came from their cheapo $300 paint jobs. I didn't see any gripes at all about the "Signature Series" paint jobs. Not one!

The majority of Internet posts about large companies (not just automotive, but UPS, Apple computers etc.) generally seem to be negative.

This is because people tend not to post things like, "They do a good job and I'm satisfied with them." People bitch when something goes wrong. It's human nature. When they get what they pay for, they generaly have no comment.

Maaco franchises have been around for a long time now. They are only as good as the people that run them. I would think that if all Maacos sucked, they would have all gone out of business by now. Word of mouth is big, huge in this age of the Internet.

I'm getting the best level paint job Maaco does at a considerable discount from what they normally charge.

No, it won't be a showroom job, and it probably won't be as good a job as you would have done. But I don't expect that for what I'm paying.

I do think the extra $50 I promised to pay the manager will help. Maybe it won't, but I think it will.

i live 7 miles from the place that's doing the work. I'll be there all three days for at least a little while while it's being done.

I'll insist on meeting and talking to the prep guy and the shooter the day I drop it off. I'll probably offer them a $25 "tip" each if they take their time and do a nice job.

I shouldn't have to pay $50 to the service manager to keep an overall eye on the job, and another $50 to the guys that do the actual work but so what? I think it will be worrth it and Ill still get out of there for welll under $900.

I'm gonna go over it real closely when the job is done. If I see something I don't like, I'm going to insist it be made right and nobody will get an extra dime from me if theres even one small problem.

In other words, I'm going to be an "involved" customer/consumer or what some would call a pain in the ass.

But I bet I get a better job done than if I were a passive, no questions asked type of customer.

Remember, this is the car the old lady drives to work. I'm betting it comes out pretty damn nice.

Time will tell, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens. I'm willing to take the chance with Maaco.

And for the people who say, "Yeah, you wait, (pick your time factor) 6 months (or a year, or two years or whatever) from now you'll be unhappy," well, I have no way of knowing that AND NEITHER DO THEY!

They don't know the franchise I'm going to, nor do they know the the service manager, the prep guy or the shooter.

I got the specs on the paint, it's Sherwin Williams (I forget the designation) but I looked it up and a lot of paint and body guys say stuff like, "The Sherwin Williams xxx xxx is good paint. They have come a long way in auto paint and it's good quality."

Only one guy said it tends to "dry hard" and is a little prone to chipping. But that was the ONLY negative I saw about the paint. Most said it was as good as the big boys, Dupont and PPG but just cost less as SW continues to try to compete with the others.

Maybe this is a bit of a crap shoot. So what? What isn't a crap shoot when you got to someone you don't know to get something done.

I've done my homework and am as satisfied as I can be things will turn out OK.