How much to respray my car? It’s one of the questions we get asked most — and the honest answer is: it depends. A respray can be anything from a few hundred pounds to several thousand, and the difference is almost all in the prep and the finish you’re after.

So let’s break it down properly: what actually drives the cost of a respray, the difference between a cheap job and a proper one, and roughly what to expect — from a workshop that sprays cars for a living.

What actually drives the cost of a respray

The paint itself is a small part of the bill. What you're really paying for is time and prep — the hours spent stripping, repairing, sanding and masking before a drop of colour goes on. A proper respray is 80% preparation.

The big cost factors are: how much of the car you're spraying (a single panel vs the whole thing), the condition of the existing paint and bodywork, the colour and finish (solid, metallic, pearl or custom), and whether trim, glass and badges come off for a proper job rather than being masked around.

Full respray vs partial: which do you need?

You don't always need the whole car done. If the damage or fade is limited to one or two panels, a partial respray — blended into the surrounding panels so the colour matches — is far more cost-effective.

A full respray makes sense when the paint is tired all over, you're changing colour, or you're restoring a car properly. It costs more because every panel gets the full treatment, but the result is a uniform, factory-fresh finish.

Why the cheap respray is rarely a bargain

You'll see eye-catching whole-car respray prices online. The catch is almost always the prep: spraying over old paint without proper flatting, masking instead of removing trim, and skipping the repair of chips and dents underneath. It looks fine on collection and starts letting go within a year.

A proper respray costs more because the graft is done where you can't see it — stripping back, repairing, priming and flatting so the colour lies flat and lasts. That's the difference between a quick tart-up and paintwork that still looks right in five years.

Here's a rough guide to help you picture where the cost lands — every car is different, so this is for scale, not a quote:

Job	What it covers	Rough bracket
Single panel	One door, wing or bumper, colour-matched and blended	Lower
Multiple panels	A few panels after damage or fade	Mid
Full respray (same colour)	Every panel stripped, prepped and sprayed	Higher
Colour change	Full respray including door shuts, jambs and edges	Highest
Custom finish	Candy, pearl, flake or bespoke work	Bespoke

So what should you budget?

As a rough steer: a small single-panel respray typically starts in the low hundreds, a multi-panel job runs into several hundred, and a proper full respray is usually four figures — more for a colour change or custom finish, because of the extra work in the shuts, edges and detail.

The honest answer is we'll only quote properly once we've seen the car, because condition changes everything. What we won't do is win the job with a cheap number and cut the prep to hit it.

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