Hi all, I recently purchased my 4th Merc. A 2001 c320, I bought this car from a good good friend of my dads for 4,000 dollars. It was more or less a blind purchase as I did not see the car before I bought it. I knew the car had some rust at the bottom of the door but this was about it. A little bit of rust turned into rust on most of the edges of the car. The car looks to have been snottily resprayed at some point in its lifetime. Needless to say someone has done some bad painting to try and cover the rust. I am at a crossroad of what to do. The car is probably going to need to be resprayed. Does anyone have any idea how I should go about doing this and how much it would cost?

 

Your decision may depend on the cost of a complete respray.

It's no good over capitalising.

May be best to fix it yourself with a few cans of spray duco so it looks good from 20 yards & so keep the cops off your back.

 

That's unfortunate. Early build C Classes were known for rusting, heck I've even seen some nasty looking W220s. If you aren't familiar with bodywork leave it up to a shop, they're going to have remove all of the rust then go about doing the necessary body work and paint. It will cost you at least $1000 to have it done right but if you plan on keeping the car for a while then it's worth it. Sum this up to a lesson to either inspect the car thoroughly or have a mechanic do it BEFORE buying.

 

I vote either macco for $300 in a matte color.

Or rattle can a white and green polezi scheme. Please!

 

As has been said, early gen cars had very bad paint. I've had my 02 painted several times.
Have a good body shop give the car a thorough going over. You probably have much more rust than you think.
And then evaluate if it's worth it, and if so, how much you want to sink into the work, and have that done. Even then, it's probably going to come back, unless you're going to do wholesale metal replacement. Good luck.

 

Basic rust repair then wrap it in vinyl. No need to ever repaint it. If the acne continues to migrate continue to treat it, and simply replace the vinyl wrap on the affected panel. Cheapest and most effective way to go in the long run - if you decide to keep it.