Ok, I thought it would be interesting to see how much everybody paid for their body/paint jobs on their cars. What did you pay and was it worth the money:Smarty: :Smarty: :bglasses:
I will be paying the cost of materials, because I will be doing the work myself (with help from my dad, who does it on the side for $$$). I hope it will be worth it in the end (I hope it won't be ugly).
I paid ~ $5,500 including new reaar quarters and install rocker panel rust work (slight) welding in patch around pass. door handle Strip Block sand Clearcoat / Basecoat paint That was with an agreement to have the work completed in 6 months - i.e. work on it when he had time. As it turned out, he was finished in 3 months I'd say my paint job was an 8 out of 10.....Looks absolutely great until you see a Meag-$$$$ paint job PLEASE TAKE THIS ADVICE - have ALL underhood mechanical work TOTALLY completed and SORTED OUT BEFORE you put it into the paint booth. I thought I did.....ou: No matter how well you clean the fenders and no mater how well you protect them (fender covers, foam, blankets....) yanking the heads etc. is still going to leave some damage....minor or ....o No:
ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 10 First, we are dealing with two different things. Body work and paint work. Key word is work. One must be at least equal to the other. Example: a 6 paint job requires at least a 6 body job. Work cost money unless you are doing it. Second is perception. I am not going to address anything below a 6. That is Maaco territory and we are not in competition with them. What we (the shop) think is a 6 will look much higher to our customers. Their perception is that it is an 8...at least for the first few months. Pro vs. customer perception. So lets look at 6, 8 and touch on 10. My opinion is a 10 will eventually be called a 9 by somebody and vise versa. Same with 7...6 or 8 depending on who is grading. In LoCal, I think we can attach a value to these numbers in thousands. That is to say a 6 = $6,000, 1 = $1k, etc. Therefore, if you bring us a car and want a 6 paint job then the body must be at least a 6. If the body is a 4, then we must do at least 2 ($2k) of body work before we do the 6 ($6k) of paint work. The cost would then be around $8k. It is not possible to do an 8 paint on say a 5 car. Try this and you will end up with a 3. Just my opinion and I hope this helps.
East Coast... David, here in Delaware, I paid $6500 fo basecoat/clearcoat (color changed from yellow to Orange) They hung a fender, aligned two doors and my new hood, other than that, no bodywork.
$8500 Plastic media blast all bolt on panels to bare metal, new quarters, lots of spot body work brought out by the bare metal strip, hang and align all body panels, paint all panels and tub inside and out with dual stage urethane (original color), color sand and buff, new speckle paint in the trunk area, install new weatherstripping on doors and trunk. Job is probably a 7 to 8 on Skips scale. SoCal prices strike again.
Len As I recall, Len, you found 'some guy' that is retired and working out of a home shop. Didn't you also get a bid from a top shelf, nationally known shop? I mean other than us.:bglasses:
Quite a turn of events that got me where I am now, the "guy" I delivered my car too was two days later wisked away to the hospital for heart surgery, but instead of me having to make arrangements for my car, he did, he had it towed to another local shop here in Carlsbad where a friend works and he called and told me that if I wasn't happy with the job, he would pay for it. So I agree, and so far couldn't be happier, car is sprayed and color sand is ongoing. It's a strange world. And yeah your right I got bids as low a $5800 and as high as $15300.
Payed around $7500 each for my two cars paint jobs. Darn GSX stripes took about 7 hrs. to lay out by hand alone....ou:
Just over $3k This included body work and paint. I tore the car down, removed interior, glass, etc. I sandblasted and POR-15'd the window glass channels myself. Had the front fenders and hood media blasted and primed by one shop. The rest was done by another local collision repair shop. The body work consisted of patching the lower rear of the front fenders and some metal welded into the rear quarters. Most body shops make their "real" dough on collision repair. I found a shop that does a fair amount of resto bodywork - there are usually a couple of "project" cars in this guy's shop. I told him to keep my car over the winter and use it as filler work to keep the cost down. He had the car for about 6 months to do maybe 6 or 8 days work, but I can't argue with the price.
Re: Just over $3k Don't forget the free space you had in the garage all winter without having to pay storage fees!
About 90 bucks all told. I did all the bodywork and paint, and I got a discount on the stuff because I bought it at my dad's store. It's my first bodywork, so it's not too great, but it's better than it was. Next time, though, I'll strip it to metal, primer it, then give it to someone else to do.
"What's up with the California prices ? EPA stuff? Or just the market?" - - All of those things, and more, a quality body man makes over $20hr out here, shop space lease rates are way up there... the list goes on. Probably the biggest driver though is that there are so many car buffs in this area, the shops are typically swamped. Some of the guys who came out and quoted my car told me it would be three months before they could start, and four to six months to complete. Some guys didn't bother to come out and quote at all, they wanted me to tow my car to them so they could quote it, these are shops that are less than 20 minutes from me. It's just a fact of life here.
