WHY ARE CANDY PAINT JOBS EXPENSIVE?

Candy paint jobs are expensive because they are difficult to do. It can take years of practice to get them to look right, and not many panel and paint shops will take on a candy paint job. You will need to find a shop that specializes in candy paint jobs and can show you examples it has done.

With candy paint, there are typically more coats of paint to be sprayed, and more products to buy. Candy is custom paint and cost reflects that in two ways: price per litre and the amount of product used. A normal car with a standard base coat would use three litres of colour and two to three litres of clear, which would amount to about three coats of base coat then two coats of clear. With candy, it’s three litres of base coat ground colour, then six litres of candy, then two to three litres of clear — that is, three coats of base, six coats of candy, and two to three coats of clear — so already you are using three times the amount of paint used on a non-candy-painted car. Unlike regular base coats, candy has no UV resistance, so provides no protection from the sun. If you were to use a regular clear coat — one that has low UV protection rating and is generally used on standard colours — on a candy paint job, over time, the sun would break down the colour and wash out the candy. All the UV protection comes from special clear coats with a high UV protection rating, and that dramatically affects the price. So, on a normal-coloured car you may spend between $700–$1000 on materials; on a candy paint job, you’ll be spending around $3K-plus on materials.