rust = strip car?

I have a fair bit of rust on my car. I wanted to get it painted one day, but I want the rust replaces with sheet metal. Should I strip out all of the interior and the engine bay and send it off to get painted? If I am unable to do this myself are there shops that would be willing to do this for me?

wheres the rust?

just below the rear quarter panel windows (behind driver side). On the roof under the black rubber stripping and a few other spots but those are the major areas i think.

if your paint is fine then just fix that rust and repaint that area.

not sure if you’re trying to do a color change but usually you dont have to strip the car down to the bare shell unless you’re trying to do so.

the paint is in HORRIBLE condition and comes off at the rub of your hand across the body. Also, its white but i want to go with pearl white.

I think if it was me, I’d try and find a respectable body-shop that where I’ve seen other imports being worked on. Then ask the guys at the shop what they would recommend. They might be okay with doing it for you, or they might have some other suggestions.

I would think if you’re going from White to Pearl white that you wouldn’t have to strip the engine bay or the whole interior. Some shops might not even want to paint the whole interior, or would charge a considerable amount more to do so. I would think taking the whole engine bay apart along with the whole interior would be a waste of time and money and you’d probably break something in the process. The furthest I’d go, would be maybe taking off some of the easiest large trim panels, maybe the carpet and seats. I would imagine the dash would be a pain in the ass to remove. Don’t go overboard unless you got plenty of time to kill and you’re doing it yourself. With today’s economy the price quotes you get just for a simple rust repair and basic paint job will probably blow your mind.

whats the point of stripping everything if you’re doing pearl white, which isn’t much different from regular white? Save the time and hassle; don’t do it.

thx for the feed back guys!

Let me explain why I wanted to strip everything out. The rust is bad on one side and I am getting spots on the roof and hood. I don’t know how bad the rust is, or if it has reached the interior etc. So my thinking was to just strip everything out, take care of ALL rust so i don’t have to worry about it again.

If I did strip it, it would be done with the previous owner who is a close friend of mine. He is a mechanic and has taken the car apart several times. I would strip it with him and two other mechanic friends of ours. Put it on a truck, have the body done. Put new carpet, new seats, new dashboard (its cracked). New steering wheel etc. Then I would put the type R engine in and lowering kit etc.

Anyway, I guess I will just take it to a shop and ask what they think would be the best route. If I could get away with not stripping it, that would be wonderful.

Take it to a shop for opinion, I bet it would be pricey for them to take care of it for ya, Idk thats my guess:stare:

i took my car to the shop an was estmated around $5000 in just body work. and that eas just the surface body rust. just ask yourself if the car is really worth it.

5000??!?!? wtf they tried to rape you

OP- if the rust is by the moonroof they might not do it with the moonroof on. depending if the do or dont will determin if you need to strip the interior. but if your talking about the rain gutters then you can just pop out the trim there. for the 1/4 windows remove the bottom trim by slidding it foward and see how far the rust goes. you might have to remove the window if its really bad.

yeah that was for both quarter panel repairs, the other surface rust, and stock paint. so i just decided to get another car.