What's body work going for these days?

On shops that require periodic payments on large jobs, which are most, I always say to make the payment in person and have the guy doing the work actually show you the car and explain how much has been done and what's left to do. If you paid $1,500 into it and so far he's pulled the side molding off than maybe you want to hold off on paying out anymore at that moment. If you can catch a swindle going down early enough than you can stop it before it gets too out of hand. Plus if you're dealing with a good shop it gives you and the guy doing the work some common knowledge to go from moving forward. If he shows you what he's dealing with you may have a better understanding when he says that certain areas are worse than expected since you saw it first hand. It helps prevent the customer from feeling like he's being screwed when he sees first hand the massive amounts of work being done.

We had a mechanic who needed to swap a power steering pulley and a starter solenoid and after 3 months of excuses and $600 the car kept throwing belts and had a leaking pump that had replaced a brand new one we had already installed. If we had gone to check on the progress the car would have been brought some place else pretty early on.

 

A little rot can turn into a big problem really quick. From experience, things like that usually look a lot worse once you're down to bare metal. A small patch can turn in to a whole panel. You might consider trying to learn how to do this stuff yourself, it takes time and patience, but it's a whole lot cheaper if you can do it well.

 

If any one from the north side of pittsburgh wants to chime in let me know cuz I know a body shop but need someone else's opinion on it as I can not simply ask up front about it. The shops name is "City Collision Repair" and the sister shop "City Collision Repair 2".

 

Your right on that. I just don't know that many body shops. I'm just not looking for a restoration. I may look into doing some of the work myself. But I think I should gets some quotes first.

 

I recently paid over 3000k for a one color car (white), body looks flawless except for the chips we put in, to be fixed when car is running. I only have one complaint. When you say it will be done in three months but takes over a year, well not happy. I would rather find a small shop that schedules cars in. You don't take yours in until they can start now and work continuous until it's done. It's not like they are waiting for me to bring a fender or something. I'm a contractor and every gov. contract has a damage clause. You don't finish in time you pay 3000K a day until you do. Some can be more. I don't want to rush a paint job but how good can it be if you have to wait 2 years or more. It's used before you get to see it! lol

 

I guess I got a pretty good deal. I had my Skylark painted several years ago and it was a little over 5k. This included removing the trim, soda blasting it to bare metal, then painting and reassembling everything. My car was pretty straight with only a small amount of rust in one rear quater and a rocker panel otherwise it was rust free. I also got lucky in that the shop owner had a young man who did most of the work and he was very enthusiastic about working on my car so the quality of the paint job is a reflection on him and his work. He was definitely proud of the car when completed.