O/T Was I unreasonable? Gave painter 1 week to finish

Yes you ended up with a lot for 2K,but the job is not"finished".You didn't ask for a "discount".You had a"contract"for a"completed job",with a time frame.A person who is in business has obligations,like being professional enough to make proper time estimates(yes unforeseen things happen,honesty would have resolved those)and scheduling.The issue,is not whether you missed a car show or not.It's not a "HOBBY"for the shop that failed to complete the job,in the promised time frame.I think you were more than reasonable in your patience,waiting 10 weeks,when you were promised 3 to 4 weeks.Consider the other 2k you would have spent as payment for your inconvenience,for an imcomplete job.Hopefully there isn't any other problems,lurking under that paint job,because there won't be anybody standing behind their work.That includes,whoever you get to finish the job.Needless to say,i also now know,where not to take an"upholstery job". Yes,you have a 2k paint job,but it's not a "deal"if it peels off 2 months from now,with no warranty!!!

 

shop I had in San Antonio, the painters would let a green (fresh) paint job sit for a week before they even touched it..Personally, I have always "farmed out" most of my paint and upholstery work..It can be a real crap shoot getting it done in a timely manner and on budget..you show all this patience and when it gets unbearable I'm always worried If I bug them too much (threaten to kick some ass) they will hurry up to shut me up and do a crappy job...Oh well, my wife is going to upholstery classes right now....

 

Upholstery guys suck....they are as bad as painters....ask anyone...

BTW... this is the most traditional deadline built '39 Chevy c-dan I've EVER seen. Surely I Jest....LOL

 

Id say you got a heck of a deal. We charge 1500 to lay out flames and if he stripped it all down to bare steel then im sure there was a few hours of body and prep work. Scuff and paint at our shop starts at 5000 and goes up from there, cuz materials arent cheap. As for the time depends on how much work and also employment. I know at our shop it is tough to keep workers because nobody these days seems to want to sand cars just paint so they quit. Thats just my 2 cents. Be happy you got your car back with only paying 2000.

 

I took a car to a shop it took 3 weeks just to get an estimateout of him, even then I didnt get a true estimate.what I got was if you come by and work on the car yourself we will just charge for any time the shop spent on the car. I thought it was a good deal so a year later and countless hours and weekends as I watched cars come and go thru the shop as I worked on my car alone. I would ask when are you going to get on my car steady? answers where always tommorrow. well long and short of it. other then shooting the primerI did 90 percent of the work. I too had a goal and a show I wanted to attend. so I finally went to pull the car out of the shop and they had it blocked so I coundt get it out! finally I got it out and took it home. I had someone else shoot the paint (black) came out real nice won a few best of paint at some shows. I setteld on 500 bucks for the guy to shoot the primer coats and a few other things he did. I payed for and bought all materails. if I hadnet pulled the car it may have still been there. I am now very scared of taking my cars to body shops. that was a very bad experince!

 

The problem is, people often don't know themselves....or if they do, they are afraid to just admit how they are. If you are slow, and you realize it, say so. or if you notice something is getting behind schedule, just say so.

If you begin to get unhappy with someone, start getting it out in a respectful way...."I know you have a lot of work, that you intend to get to this, but when I can't see progress I start to get impatient, and I don't know exactly what to do."

It is amazing (from experience) what can be resolved by making it CLEAR that you are giving the other party FULL respect, and then making clear EXACTLY how you are feeling!!! All kinds of problems can be resolved with this: Simple acknowledgement of the other party, AND THEN acknowledgement of yourself and your position....all said out loud in a calm voice. That'll do it about every time!!!

I'll send you my bill. LOL

 

I really don't give a shit whether it is a painter or a concrete finisher if you give a time line you stick to that time line. If you run into problems you contact the customer and explain what going on, under bid, more work then expected, the car fell in half when I opened the fucking door. I do welding and fab work and if I give a date due or time frame for a job I stick to it even if it means working my ass off, and if I see that it can't be done in time then I make a call and tell the customer that we need to change the time frame. Shit happens, but I always get it done before the second deadline. All I am saying is that if you as a bisiness man give a dead line you should stick to it. I do have one question though. When I worked for a small custom shop we went through painter after painter that missed deadlines that they had set. Single color paint jobs on 2 tanks and 2 fenders less the 10 square feet cost of $1500-2000 2-3 week turn around time as set by the painter not us and routinely the job would take 3+ months. WTF? I don't understand how a person can be that bad at sticking to a time frame that they set for themselves. We went through 5 painters in the 9 years I worked there (which tells you that we gave every one of them more then one chance to make good) each one charged more then the last untill #6, $800 for a single color, better paint work then any of the others and not one time in the last year I worked there did he miss a deadline even one totally unreasonable time line of 4 days for a complete color change. He agreed to it, he did it. His custom work took longer and he told us it did, but when he told us it would be done it was. Intregrity, do paint fumes destroy it?

 

they dont call it PAINT JAIL for nothing.

 

"...and if I see that it can't be done in time then I make a call and tell the customer that we need to change the time frame."

Exactly. Well put.

 

I have been doin paint and body for 19 years, and I still have not found the magic wand that allows me to know what is under the old paint before i get into it. I have painted over 1000 cars and i would be happy to pay $4000 to have someone else do a nice job like that one. In my opinion the painter got screwed and I would ba ashamed of myself if i stuck it to a builder that put that kinda effort into my car just because he underestimated the amount of time it would take to get it done.

 

Earl , you hit it on the nail head and said it well. Actually yellows may be more expensive than reds because they take as much as 50 % or more material to do the job.
It's a common practice for commercial shops to take on jobs like this under priced , expecting to get the advertisement in the long run. They are generally a lot slower getting the job done but the results can be rewarding for both parties.
You got a very good deal, but the shop owner should have explained that to you if that was his motive when gave you that price. You also need not forget , that he not only paid for the materials that went into your paint job, but was also out the cost of a place to work , electricity and water to wet sand with.
You have to remember that true craftsmen are not always the best at communicating with people. I just hope you two guys were not freinds.

 

Like i already said,he wanted it finished,not discounted.That was the shop owners decision.Also to be fair,the labour rates and wages,and costs are very inflated where you are these days. McDonalds have to pay $17/hr in Edmonton and points north(oilpatch,tarsands country) in order to get employees.Drive a rockwagon in the tarsands $40/hr.Keeping employees in jobs like body prep,has other issues in your area.

 

Anyone who puts demands on a bodyshop to get a car painted in a certain amount of time is a fool.
Anyone who doesn't understand WHY, has NO clue to what it takes to paint.
A regualr body shop is not going to put a custom job forst on it's priority list. Collision work pays so much more, and the customers are usually pretty happy with the results.
Custom paint customers are usually a pain in the ass, have no clue, and want WAY more than they are paying for. They usually only listen to what they want to listen to, as well...I can say to a customer "I'll TRY to get this done in a couple weeks" and they hear an iron clad time frame.
Custom painters usually ARE artists, not good businessmen. You don't make lots of money doing custom work exclusively.

 

As for the price issue, well that will vary for area to area. I read people on this post paying 1000.00s for supplies. Not here, maybe 500.00 to 600.00. (Just to add a price line, I just bought a gallon of primer, & paint. A gallon of reducer, and 2 qts of hardner for 269.00 - urethane) And since he had a shop, some of what he used either on this car or the next with be left overs from another car. But this question is mute anyway because he set the price.

Getting a rod painted is always a crap shoot when it comes to a timeline. Most bodymen will take insurance jobs in ahead or during, because thats where their bread and butter is. That means fittting the rod in somewhere in between. And if buisness is good, then the rod will set for quite awhile. We have all heard this same story a hundred times I'm sure. Taking a car to a body shop, and a year later carting it home in boxes.

But if everyone will just take a deep breath and read before posting, you'll see that the body man set the timeline. The bodyman set the price. And that Gotrust here had to assemble the car himself to reach the deadline, the painter set. I know a bit more to the story, and can add that the painter talked Gotrust into the yellow and flames as well. Gotrust was orignally thinking flatblack and go. It was the painter that kept adding to the work load.

We're never going to agree, as I said prices are different all over the country. Different people think differently about time and what is acceptable. For some it's just a hobby anyway, and for others like me it is much more than that.

My thoughts? The painter bid the job, has a short attention span, and just wants the car gone. I side with Gotrust.

 

The painter gave the estimate. If it was taking him already 2 1/2 times his time estimate I'd be thinking he really didn't know what he was doing and I'd still be afraid to let him finish.

 

Yeah I wondered about that also. I really have no idea. Now this car is certainly not HAMB material but I had it painted (two tone) for $1500. It also needed bodywork. (not rust related work). He filled in the hood emblem, it had a nice crease in the gate and slews of parking lot dings.

Took him about a month.



Just curious about the wide range in material costs.

 

If he gave you a written estimate for $4k, then he'll have you in small claims for the other $2k....I would. In Texas, you can't just NOT pay someone an agreed upon amount just like you can't stop payment on a check or cancel a credit card payment because you don't like the job...it's called theft.

So, even at $4k you got a "deal". Yellow flame job like the one on your car can be $8k easily so the guy probably mis-estimated the job and just worked on it in spare time cause he was losing money the whole way.

Hope you don't need another job done in the area cause your name is probably as muddy as his is now.

 

you got a good deal and all the parts back. I paid $4500.00 with
out flames and still had a lot of clean up work.

Acechev55

 

Bottom line is-GotRust and most of us may have no idea what's involved in painting a car-but the painters do. So when they give a price and time we figure they're accounting for what they might find and it will take less time if they don't find it and have to fix things. We rely on their knowledge, and integrity to give a proper estimate-and it should be an estimate, not a fixed price with an agreed amount of leeway built in. If you are a small business person and not willing to look at the business side of what you do you won't be in business long.

That being said,even though it took too long and wasn't done, the painter did work on the car and should be fairly compensated for the work and materials that were used.

And maybe, next time one of us needs a job by a set time we should consider-like the big boys-a completion date penalty. In other words,I need my car done by XX and for every day it's not, you will pay me $XX. Wouldn't that be an incentive?

 

My brain hurts.

That is all.

 

THANKS Terry !

 

Your joking right?? What painter/shop in their right mind would agree to something like that? Stuff happens, employees leave, get hurt, equipment breaks, unexpected delays, you get the picture. We're talking mom and pop type small businesses not huge construction type companies and the like.

 

The painter is the one that said let's call it quits. He didn't want to finish and he didn't ask for any more money. The could have had the rest of the money by just buffing the thing out and saying it didn't need any more. I just wanted it finished and he didn't want to do that. If my name is muddy now because I ask him to live up to the contract he made at the price he made then so be it.

 

Skipstich, I have been looking for a name for that car and I think you just found it - DEADLINE.

Thanks Bud

 

When I started painting cars I charged $300 (250 labor & 50 materials) Yes I am old and still painting cars. To help explain material cost today you can look at what insurance companys pay on collision jobs. Now they never over pay on anything. They pay $20 for every 1 paint hour on the estimate. Typical time to paint a front end and blend both doors 16 hours. Thats 20x16=$320 in paint materials. All over times run as much as 60 hours. Thats 20x60= $1200 materials. I choose to buy top of the line materials on the jobs I do. Insurance companys expect shops to use top of the line materials.

Now on the flip side of that I can buy primers and clears for about 1/3 the cost of the good stuff from the aftermarket suppliers. $1200 for all top products or $400 for the economy brands. Same amounts of paint...just lowerprice and quaility.

Hope I helped clarify material cost differences. Steve

 

GR

I haven't read the entire thread but it seems to me that more than double the time estimated to finsish a job is pretty unreasonable.

That said unless you had been doggin' him right along then the letter was a little extreme. let me say it another way if the one week letter was the first he heard of you're being disatisfied then one week and witnessed and all that crap was too much.

On the otherhand if he already knew that you were dissatisfied and was still blowin' you off then you done good in my book.

As far as the legal end of it just make sure you show up at small claims court with witnesses and documentation. If it comes to that. the only way to win in small claims court is to have all your ducks in a row.

 

It helps and I've now simply gotten curious. $20 an hour. Is that a material only estimate? Complete material/labor estimate?

How much of a difference do you find in the better and cheaper materials. (sorry, sorry, sorry for taking this off-topic but I see nowhere else for it to go and maybe some of us can actually learn something here).

 

that's material only

i think labor in my area is around $38/hr now. i could be off there, it's been a while since I've checked...