wow, thats just about my balance sheet exactly........i get my insurance about 75 a month cheaper, but other wise, you could be my accountant...oh yeah, we dont get 100 per hour though i think im gonna open a pizza stand, lol skull
Yeah, I just got the $130 bill for a fire inspection. It's funny every time I turn around there's someone wanting more. You can also add uniforms in there and shop rags. Man the list just keeps getting longer. It makes it hard to compete with someone doing it out of their house or a storage facility. They don't have the overhead.
I think the majority of people out there really have no idea what goes into getting a car ready for paint, let alone what it takes to run a legit business.
Dude, if you can find anybody in the Phoenix metro area(huge) that has a professional shop that will work at less than 75.00 an hour, you either don't want to leave your car there, or they don't speak english as a primary language(see above)! Absolutely no offense intended, but I have been just about every where in this country at one point, and in some areas it is a lot cheaper to open and run a business. In my previous professional life I was responsible for running 175 retail stores throughout the country, and I can tell you first hand there is a huge disparety in the basic costs to run businesses in different parts of the country. While 75.00 an hour might sound luxurious in West Virginia, in Phoenix it's a basic rate at best. By the same token, it's not a livable rate in NYC or L.A.
our fire permit is 850.00, as it includes the combined haz mat fees. get to pay 386.00 for the building and safety inspection. 250 for buerau of auto repair permit, as you say every time the economy gets a little slow, here come the permit collectors, lol. i pay more in permits and inusrance, than i fantisized about making when i was a kid startin out, lol i guess that's why they call it a job
You're getting close with the numbers for a small town ( Rural ) shop. Move into a larger metropolitan or suburban area and you can triple some of these overhead expenses. Property taxes on a similarly sized property can be over $ 22k per year. Our city auto repair license is $1800.00 , dont forget the state license and all the little misc $100.00 to $500.00 fees they dream up . Now talk about the investment in equipment. You can easily tie upwards of $50k on compressors, spraybooths, mix rooms, and other misc items. Now how about operating capital you will need at least one months sales th make things work. Oh dont forget building upkeep . The shop and office needs to be cleaned regularly . Another employee or two. A word to the wise, never get in a competition to do the job for the cheapest price, Its like getting into a wrist cutting contest to see who can bleed to death the fastest.
This is why I work for someone else full time and do my own thing in the garage! People keep asking me why I don't open a shop full time?, and my standard reply is "DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I WOULD HAVE TO CHARGE TO AFFORD THAT?" I only do motor cycles and small parts out of the house, and my customers still pay for quality. Just not as much! That doesn't mean I'm free from those stupid "why are you charging so much? You're working out of your garage!" statements. Like because I'm working out of the house, I don't know what I'm doing. All shops have to start somewhere.
Almost....never does a job come into a shop "Ready for Paint" Ready for paint, meaning, wipe it down, mask it, tack it, paint it, wet sand and polish. Most likely, a "Ready for Paint" car will need atleast, sealing, sanding, priming and block sanding and get ready for the steps of paint. Materials age extremely expensive, overhead where I'm at is out of control as well as regulations...all of which add a cost of just a paint job. Doing just the paint yourself, will cost you easily $500 in materials minimum, and you go up from there. You will quickly learn after doing a paint job on your own why pros get what they get. Keep this point in mind, most of the time, not all the time but most of the time, "YOU" will over look issues "YOU" did, but would hang the shop for the same mistakes. I do vehicle lettering, grsaphics, pinstriping......some glass etching. When I give a price I get, especially now in this economy, why so much, it's only lettering or a stripe etc. Try to explain it to a customer just isn't worth the time. I have had a few customers stop by while working and they watch for a half hour or so and sometimes see no real progress yet see me working my ass off, then they have experienced a little of what goes into doing something, they leave with a slight education. It is not practical to educate customers, but now and again someone actually sees what goes into doing your job, hopefully, that word gets out. I'm old school, not just a keyboard jockey, I actually learned my trade and 90% of my competition are keyboard jockeys and have no clue how to a good job, and unfortunately for me, customers don't know either, they figure the guy is in business, he must know, he's a professional, nothing could be further from the truth...unfortunately. I find I have to cut corners today to get work to stay alive, there will always be somebody cheaper, I go as low as I can go, cut as many corners as I can and don't go any further because either I'm asking for trouble with too many short cuts or too cheap, I'm not making money....neither option is good.
I did body work professionally for over 13 years, Now I have a good union job and just dabble a little on the side, do Just the jobs I want , when I want. The stress levels are much lower now. I understand people want to save a buck but I can't buy materials for what some people want their car painted for. I have a guy that is stiching my interior (I paid $1000 for materials) and he wanted me to do a complete paintjob including all bodywork on his VW roadster pickup. This thing is like a sack of walnuts, and he wanted it all, color change and painted inside and outside, and wanted me to buy the materials, and he's only been doing upholstery for about a year now, WTF?
Zman, I hope you didn't take that as an insult directed at you, that is not how that was intended. i just wanted to get to the realities of the business world here.
I am of the belief that in todays ever "government controlled" enviornment, it is only a matter of time until it iwill be very difficult for the "home painter" to get car paint.
Lol, I can walk around my personal car and see a few things that I would have never let fly had it been a customer car. No one has pointed them out to me, but I know they are there. there's another thing that can make things more difficult. A repaint is much much easier.... not at all. Just relating things here. That's what this thread should be about. Understanding why the price of this stuff is what it is.
I was getting a tattoo about 15 years ago and the tattooist and I got to talking about hot rods. He was telling me about his 39 ford and asking about getting it painted. He wanted to trade tattoo work for the job and I told him he would have to give me and 2 of my friends body suits for that to be equal to the time and materials I would have to spend!!
Wow..just read this thread for the first time..I can appreciate every comment from the guys who do this for a 'living"..The average clock punching dipshit has no clue what business expenses add up to..I've owned my own biz,NOT car related, for over 30 years,some good years,some not so good,and at the end of the year,I'm astonished that I had enough money left over after all the BS expenses to even pay myself... Hopefully,I'll be able to shoot some paint before I die...I'm aiming for a good 100 yard paintjob on my stuff.. You good paint and body guys have my respect..
Yep, thats me. Cept I rent a small shop to work out of. I'm able to do completes there for way less than a full-time shop. But the tradeoff is that it takes alot longer. I'm only one person, I have no employees (tried that once and the employee wondered if we were splitting the work just about 50/50 why weren't we splitting the dough 50/50) and I only work nights and wknds. No matter how you look at it, it still comes down to picking two; good, fast, cheap.
Sure, but that same guy shouldn't expect a cheaper rate just because he can't afford it. I think the cost of pro shops is what drove most of us to be DIY kind of people in the first place.
In 1985, I took my '66 Dodge to a paint shop that was then part of a Chrysler dealership. They put out fantastic-quality work, and their prices were very reasonable. I took my '66 as basically a rolling shell, although a new vinyl top had just been put on it prior, and the glass was still on the car. They had the car for just over a month. Tye entire job cost me just over $1,700 ($5K in today's money!!!) I brought it home, reasssembled the car if five days, and drove it to the Car Craft show in St. Louis. At that show, it ended up being a cover car on the Oct '85 CC magazine, with three other cars. Point? Nearly 25 years later, the paint looks every bit as good as the day it rolled out of the shop. They had a 40-year paint veteran that really knew his shit. Two other guys that worked on the car? This was their very first whole-car paint and body job, since they were collision specialists, but wanted to learn the restoration end of the job. I still get great comments on how nice my car looks after all these years! And I am quite happy!
Ain't no insurance co in the U.S. that would pay $120 Hr. If they did almost every job would be a total loss. Even @ $52.00 new stuff is totaling.
its funny how collision rates vary across the country. controlled by our partners in the insurance biz, lol here, in the LA area, where real estate is as expensive as it gets, the shop rates vary from 38-44 per hour. 41-42 is what most co's pay. 5 miles away in ventura county, the rates are 48 at many shops and higher at good ones. all about supply and demand. theres over 700 shops in the imediate region guys wonder why its hard to find qualified techs, who wants to buy 5 grand worth of tools to go into a shop and flag 13 bucks an hour, lol now, the mechanical rate, and custom rates are higher, its still hard work for low pay, if you are the guy out on the floor blocking panels for paint skull
We're at 36-38 in Texas and still totaling those cheap econo-boxes. And you still have to fight to get every hour of labor you have coming. That's why I'm glad I'm not in collision anymore!!
Well in my area it was $45 hr 5 years ago and I know it is probably close to $70 now here too with the cost of materials and all the other junk associated. ZMAN- do you sand down to the "white" metal or do you media blast? The 54 I have now I got from west texas with barely any surface rust, but the guy sprayed it gray prime over the entire outside and I can see some rough spots underneath that look like filler. I know blasting sand can warp the metal, but if I used bakin soda I doubt it would. This is my first full resto project so I would rather ask you guys who know what you are talking about! Thanks, Spaz
Much respect for you guys that do the job right. Too many shops cover sins with mud to turn a quick buck.
dont use sand, except on small parts like suspension stuff or whatever media, or soda wont warp the sheetmetal, sand always does i get the best results with walnut shells or plastic. the shells give a fine , bead blast texture, no warpage. skull
Sold my shop 7 1/2 years ago when rate was $42 Was payin my guys 40% Let's see $42 x 40% = $16.80 Most of my guys (8 body men, 1 frame man, 1 painter) used to average 110 flag hrs a week 110 x $16.80 = $1680.00 a week. Painter would usually flag 150+ Had 1 bodyman who would always flag right around 135 hrs. Never had any one of my employees bitch about their paycheck.
The shop that 3 doors down that has that rate is where the local Geico office is. They did my '06 Dakota when it got backed into, matched the factory orange peel and everything, it was much easier to just drop it off with them than to even try and deal with insurance. We dip, blast, or sand depending on the individual job. We take it down to absolutely bare metal.
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