Auto body repair & detailing: car paint, aerosol spray paint, spray cans

Question
can you use ordinary paint to paint cars

Answer
Hi Rikki,

It depends on what you mean by "ordinary paint". If you mean paint that you find at your local home center (Lowe's, Home Depot, Wal-Mart) then no. Typically that's latex based paint and it won't stick very well to metal and it would look absolutely terrible. Now if you mean aerosol spray paint then yes, you can paint your car with aerosol lacquer based or enamel based paints. However, painting a complete car with aerosols can be quite expensive and getting a good gloss is quite hard to do. I have seen cars painted with spray-cans several times and in every case I can tell.  If you have any other questions just let me know.

Gary