I finally have some money saved away to have my car painted. I'm a 19 year old college student and the car is my daily driver (keep this in mind when reading on).

My car had 4 layers of crap paint on it when I got it. Since then I have sanded/stripped it down to bare metal and have been driving it around with primer for about a year. The fenders and hood are new so there will be no rust/ dents there.

My doors are probably about 95% straight with no rust and just a couple tiny dents. I do need to get them aligned a little better though.

My quarters are nasty. Both have the usual rust along the bottom behind the wheel and one side got hit pretty bad.

What do you guys think I should do? Should I try and find a shop that will do the body work in little section at a time? Should I have someone weld in patch panels where the rust spots are, or spend big bucks on new quarters?

I have about $3000 to spend on paint and body work. I'm not expecting a show quality paint job just something better than what I have now.

It's hard to find a body shop that will do rust repair work. For the front quarters, I would try to find used original GM pieces that are in good shape. The repro parts are usually wavy and need to be skimmed with body filler. You could do the front quarters yourself, if you can find decent parts. For the rear quarters, it's tough to say without seeing them whether you should replace them or patch them. Because cars rust from the inside out, there's usually more rust than you can see from the outside.

Front quarters/ rear quarters wha??? Do you mean fenders by front quarters?

Quarter panel = fender