Repair Process
Car respray cost in Australia ranges from a few hundred dollars for a single bumper to well over $10,000 for a full colour change. That spread is why searching for a price so often leaves people more confused than when they started. A respray is not one job but a scale of jobs, and two quotes for what sounds like the same work can sit thousands of dollars apart depending on what each shop actually plans to do to your car.
This guide sets out typical 2026 price ranges for every scope of work, from a single panel through to a full respray. Then it does what most cost guides skip: it opens up a professional respray quote line by line, from the repairer’s side of the counter, so you can see where the money goes and compare quotes with confidence.
Short version: most paint damage does not need a full respray, and most drivers end up paying for one to three panels rather than the whole car.
The ranges below are drawn from 2025 and 2026 price guides published by Australian repairers and marketplaces, including Airtasker’s national car respray cost data, which puts the median full respray at around $6,500. Treat them as a guide to the size of the job, not a quote for your car.
The biggest jump in the table is between panel work and the full car. That gap is the most useful thing to understand before you ask for a quote, because a lot of damage people assume needs a full respray can be fixed properly at panel level.
A headline price tells you very little. What tells you whether a quote is fair is the work listed underneath it. A properly itemised quote from a professional repairer is built from the same handful of components every time, and once you know them you can compare two quotes on what they actually include.
Before anything is priced, the estimator identifies the paint code, maps the damaged area and works out how far the colour needs to be blended. At AMA Collision this stage also includes measuring paint film thickness. That reading matters more than most people realise: a panel that has been resprayed before may already carry extra layers, and if the film is too thick the old paint has to be stripped back before new paint goes on. A shop that skips this step can quote lower, then run into the problem halfway through the job.
Door handles, mouldings, badges, lights and trims should come off the panel rather than be masked over. Removing them is what stops tell-tale paint edges around fittings, and it is billed as labour. A quote with no remove-and-refit labour is usually a quote that plans to tape around everything.
Preparation is the largest line item on most resprays, and the one that decides how long the finish lasts. It covers sanding back, repairing chips and imperfections, feather-edging, priming, blocking and masking. Cutting preparation is the easiest way to lower a price and the most common reason a respray starts peeling within a few years.
This is the time spent applying base coat and clear coat to each panel, plus any adjoining panels the colour is blended into. Expect blend panels to appear on most metallic and pearl repairs. They are the reason a one-panel job can involve three.
Paint, clear coat, primers, hardeners and consumables are usually charged in proportion to the paint labour, so they rise with the number of panels and the complexity of the finish. Professional shops use the primer, base coat and clear coat from one manufacturer as a matched system, which is a big part of why a professional car respray holds up in Australian conditions where a cheaper mix of products may not.
Some clips and mouldings cannot be reused once removed, so they appear as parts. If a bumper carries parking sensors, radar or a camera, refitting it can call for a scan and ADAS calibration to confirm the driver assistance systems still read the road correctly. That is a genuine cost, and it is better to see it on the quote than discover it afterwards.
Two quotes that look thousands apart often turn out to describe different jobs. Line them up against this list and the gap usually explains itself.
Solid colours are the cheapest to reproduce. Metallic, pearlescent and matte finishes cost more in materials and far more in labour, because they are applied in extra layers and are harder to match. Airtasker’s data shows how wide the material gap is: solid paint runs around $45 to $80 a litre, metallic $100 to $260, pearlescent $160 to $420 and matte $150 to $450, before any labour is added.
Rust, dents, failed clear coat or a previous poor-quality respray all add preparation hours before any colour is sprayed. If a panel has a dent under the damaged paint, the metalwork has to be corrected first. Where the paint is still intact, paintless dent removal can sometimes fix the shape without any refinishing at all.
Your car’s paint has aged since it left the factory, so matching it means measuring the colour as it is now and blending into neighbouring panels so the eye never finds a hard edge. More blending means more panels on the quote.
A closed-door respray covers the exterior panels only and leaves door jambs, the engine bay and the inside of the boot as they are. For a same-colour respray that is usually all you need. A colour change has to be open-door, because the old colour would show every time you opened a door, and the extra removal and masking work can add thousands to the price.
More surface area means more preparation, more paint and more booth time. A large SUV or dual cab ute costs noticeably more to respray than a small hatch in the same colour.
For most drivers, the better-value answer is a targeted repair. A full respray makes sense when paint has failed across most of the car, when you want a colour change, or for a restoration. Localised damage such as a scraped bumper, a keyed door or a faded bonnet is almost always fixed more cost-effectively by refinishing only the affected panels. Australia’s sun is particularly hard on horizontal panels, and RACV notes that the heat, sunlight and dust of our climate take a real toll on paintwork. That is why roofs, bonnets and boot lids are usually the first panels to need refinishing.
If you are not sure whether your damage needs paint at all, our guide to car respray vs touch-up walks through where that line sits, and our car scratch repair guide explains how to tell how deep a scratch goes.
A cheap respray and a good respray can look identical on the day you collect the car. The difference shows up over the following summers, as peeling clear coat, fading, or a panel that sits a shade off its neighbours. Under Australian Consumer Law, any repair service must be delivered with due care and skill, but a written workmanship warranty is what gives you practical protection if the finish fails.
Before you accept a quote, check for:
At AMA Collision, paint and refinishing work is carried out by I-CAR trained technicians using system-matched paints, spectrophotometer colour matching and down-draft bake booths, and the workmanship is backed by a lifetime warranty.
The fastest way to a reliable number is to show a repairer the damage. Take clear photos in daylight from a few angles, including one close-up and one from a couple of metres back so the whole panel is visible. Note your paint code if you can find it, usually on the compliance plate or the driver’s door jamb, and mention anything that has been repaired before. With 130+ repair centres across Australia and New Zealand, AMA Collision can review your photos and point you to your nearest centre for an in-person look if the job needs one.
A full same-colour respray typically costs $1,800 to $8,000, depending on the size of the car and how much preparation it needs. Quality work with thorough preparation usually sits from around $6,000 upwards. Colour changes and premium finishes cost more again, commonly $8,000 to $12,000 or beyond.
Most bumper resprays cost between $300 and $950. Plastic bumpers need flexible additives and adhesion primers so the paint does not crack, and bumpers fitted with parking sensors or radar may also need a calibration check after they are refitted.
Yes, but you need to update your registration details with your state or territory roads authority. In Victoria, for example, VicRoads asks you to call them if a change of colour is the only modification. Other states use their own forms, so check with your local authority before the work starts.
Comprehensive policies generally cover refinishing when it is part of repairing damage from an insured event, such as a collision or a hailstorm. Wear and tear, including sun-faded paint, clear coat failure and years of stone chips, is usually treated as maintenance and not covered. If the repair quote is close to your excess, paying privately can sometimes make more sense than claiming.
It depends on what the car is worth to you and how far the paint has gone. When clear coat has failed on the roof and bonnet but the sides are sound, refinishing just those panels is often far better value than a full respray. A full respray is easiest to justify when you plan to keep the car for years, or when its value or sentimental worth is well above the cost of the work.
Car respray cost comes down to scope, preparation and paint type far more than any flat rate. Most drivers need one to three panels refinished, not the whole car, and the quote that looks cheapest is often the one that leaves out preparation, blending or a proper warranty.
For an accurate price on your car, send a few photos through our online assessment and one of our estimators will tell you what the job actually needs. You can also find your nearest centre on our locations page and drop in for a look.
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