I have a very particular idea for a red and silver stripe on my dark silver '06 MINI. It would pay homage to a stripe that my dad has on his vintage AC Bristol, which runs the length of the car and then flares out around the grille. The stripe on the MINI would be a custom application regardless of whether I had made out of vinyl stickers or had it actually painted on the car. I'm wondering if I'm the only person nutty enough to actually consider paying a body shop $3,000.00 to paint a stripe on a MINI. Does anyone else have experience with painted custom graphics of any kind? Or are all the stripes and other decorations out there generally vinyl stickers? advice?

 

Most of the stuff you see out there is done in vinyl. It's cheap, easy to apply, and reversible if you get sick of it. We have good custom vinyl work vendors here on NAM. I personally use Aesthetic Creations for my custom vinyl work but check the vendor directory, there are several others as well.

 

Vinyl is great for getting a certain look, inexpensive and like ML said reversible. However, vinyl seemed to scratch very easy (in my case) so be sure to address that with whomever you decide to use. Probably depends on what color you get. I had gloss black and scratched it right away. May be even some graphics shop that can help in your area. Either way a custom strip is a good way to you'ify your Mini.

 

Getting back OT, I think the $3k is pretty excessive. Even if you include both bumpers, I don't see this as more than 12 hours work. At my last shop, we ghost flamed both sides and the hood of a PT Cruiser for $1500, and that wasn't giving any price breaks. If you're talking about a center stripe, there isn't any color blending to be done, just sand, lay on the colors and clearcoat the panels. There isn't much disassembly to be done on the MINI, either.

 

A buddy of mine used to work at a body shop that did custom flames and such. That being said $3,000 is way overpriced for two solid color stripes. think closer to 1200-1500 range if you can't get the guy to give you a deal.

But if you want special stripes such as checkered (painted), color fade (light to dark), flames (within the stripes) or a special chameleon (color changing in different light) paint then your price will certainly go closer to the $3,000 mark.

Be sure to get at least three more quotes from other shops before you decide but 3k just seems too high to me.

Personally I would go with the vinyl, so that as (another person said) you can always take it off if you grow tired of them or if the person who wants to buy it in the future doesn't like stripes.