What's body work going for these days?

No offense to any of the hardcore guys on here but I'm not doing my own body work. I'd rather have a professional do it. So how much is some minor rust repair and paint repair going to cost? 2000.00-3000.00???

 

Local body shop cost me 1000 Dollars to paint a door black that i screwed up on a customers car 84 chevy Truck

 

Wagon painted for 10k (Re: body work going for)

Dear Sabotage_666,

(With a handle like that . . . why even bother painting the car? :laugh: )

Uh seriously, when my 65 Buick Special wagon suffered a case of "illegal contact" from a German sports sedan I had to chip in about $10,000 to convert the accident repairs into repainting the car and some moderate restoration. I had the tailgate refurbished, had clips replaced when the trim was put back on, etc.

This was an upscale repair shop that works on everything from exotic sports cars to model-Ts, but perhaps that will give you an idea of what you are looking at.

Cheers, Edouard :beer

 

Around here it's $80-$120 an hour for labor. The materials cost extra. The paint costs extra. Anything not known about in advance costs extra. If they do work around glass than the glass costs extra as they can't guarantee that they wont break it.

 

I had off duty body shop guys and friends in the know do the body work on the Riv. Overall that part of the process cost 4K in time and materials and I had a pretty clean / straight car to work with. My body shop charged 2K for the paint work. I put the car back together myself. All I can say is you will get the job you pay for.

 

For all of my body work im sitting at 3500 and that doesnt include the paint or materials.

 

Most full car paint jobs cost between $3500 and $7000 depending on how much work you need/want. You may not want to do body work but my question is can you aford to have someone else do it for you.

On what little info you gave, don't be suprizzed at something aproching $10-15k:dollar: :dollar: :dollar:

 

My shop charges $60 per flagged hour. (time card clock in when working on the car) Everything we do I document with pictures and email them to the customer. I am not interested in a job where short cuts are taken to get it painted. Because as soon as I do the job falls apart and I get the blame. (I have several examples too) So with that said the procedure to do a paint job complete consists of detrimming the car, stripping to bare metal, repairing all the damages or rust, primer, block sanding, sealer/paint/clear. I paint most of the cars I do completely dismantled then reassemble. There is an easy 100-125 hours in a car that needs little to no repairs. Rust and damage can send it over 500-600 hours. Add another 50-75 hours for pulling the body off and sand blasting the frame. Oh wait if you want a Barrett-Jackson level job add another 500-1000 hours. Backyard shops around here I hear take several years to get anything done. Sometimes even 10-20 years Ive heard it all. The longest a car has sat here is 2 years. Mostly because the owner was getting a divorce and could keep money at the car till later. Parts shortages and shipping costs all play into a job too. The average job eats $1500-3500 in materials..... Picking a color that is $300 a quart for instance and you need 4-6 qts per job on a complete if its a color change.

Best line here

See the thread about $15K and 6 years for what? People get hosed all the time so be carefull who you get to work on your car.

 

Or 300 hours if you dont know what youre doing, as was the case with my first paint job.

You get what you pay for! Absolutely avoid people who ask for cash advances as the job progresses.

 

Sorry about the vague description, I am 100% sure that the car does NOT need any panel replacement or floor work. Theres just a little rot in 3 to 4 places and i do mean little. The paint is what really needs help, lol it was a good selling point to. The paint is all scratched up, some down to the primer some not, but not down to the metal at all. does this help any? Oh and i want to keep it factory color but i don't want the vinyl top on it anymore.

Lets make one thing crystal clear, I am not looking for a show car. I am not paying someone to take the body off of the frame (which by the way the frame still has all the original paint) and I'm pretty sure i can take off all the trim and panels by myself. I just want something 1/2 decent with real metal. NOT A SHOW CAR.

 

I would not agree with this statement... My shop works from a deposit account. Over the many years of doing collision work and restorations we have adopted a system that we can work with. Many checks paid along the way into the company account in advance. Generally we are not talking huge checks here as I don't like holding other peoples moneyou: . When we start a job we get a deposit for labor and one towards a portion of materials. I do not charge my customers a mark-up on parts, they get the original receipt and I keep a copy for our records. As the project/labor goes along invoices are sent to show the funds left in the job account. Smaller checks = problems are avoided because communication is kept current. I am a smaller shop and I can not restore anyone's car for them. Over the years I have stored customer cars in my shop while I waited for them to find money to buy parts or pay for previously agreed to labor... As anyone can imagine if you are paid once a month, and when all your bills are due including employee payroll, the customer says you will have to wait for payment but to keep going on his car . That does not make for a good relationshipou: .
If a possible customer can not put down 10-15% would you want to get involved with them.
The most important thing you need to do is have what ever works for you and the shop in writing. Weekly communication is "VERY" important on both sides. We usually try to have prearranged milestones for invoicing/payments. This works as I said for us, our shop stays fairly full. I am trying to be done with the bigger jobs as new regulation,insurance, and materials keeps going up I am the one that seems to get the monetary squeeze . This takes a lot of the fun out of what I do. Just so people understand I am not out to get rich my shop rate is 40-45 per clocked hour. All said and done I make less per hour than when I worked in a collision center for someone else. But I can do a nice quality repair not pumped out repetitive production work:spank: .
Mikes rate is still on the low side for the country. Especially when compared to the Quality of work he does:beer .
A car I have in here know is being done at 1/3rd the rate the customer was quoted in LA California:shock:

 

Show car or not the car will reflect what youve done to it.

 

I have a close friend here in Wichita who does great work. Dave is the first to say, "My work is is a reflection of me and my shop, not what you "told" me you wanted. We don't send work out there that is not a true reflection of the best work we can do." Dave's shop is not cheap, rates and work sound a lot like what Mike does.

If you want "cheap or less expensive" (and we all can understand that and for one reason or another needed wanted the same) just look for another shop who does not mind that being "his standard" for others to judge his work. Many of them out there... just understand short cuts are that...SHORT CUTS...

 

And for a full 6 months it will look ok:Brow:

 

^^^^^^^Best comment^^^^^^^

 

Ok thats fair. 10%-15% very reasonable. I was talking more along the lines of 75% to 100% of the agreed price far before the job is done. I can understand there are startup costs, and sometimes the buyer needs to show some commitment too.

Ive gotten caught in jobs like that where the guy keeps asking to "help him out" and before you know youre paid off with no progress.

 

I ask for a weeks costs up front on start. Then as the job progress's I get more. I bill each month normally and all the charges have been substantiated by pictures in emails. Its all about getting the car done as fast as possible with the greatest care in the details. I could never bring myself to charge for what I cant prove I did either.

 

I guess I am lucky in that I am dropping my body shell off tomorrow to a shop who is only charging me $35 per hour. I will need some rust repair, patching etc., but is not major.