I had a guy stop by my shop yesterday. He has a 66 Mustang that he wants a complete on. I really don't have time but the guy is willing to wait. He saw a couple of my cars and wants the same type of finish. He's the type that has the money but this is a second or third car and has had some outrageous prices thrown at him.....one estimate was 8 grand. I think the guy just wanted him to go away. The cars pretty straight and it would be a pretty straight forward job, black on black. Prolly spray PPG DBC. Here's the thing that concerns me. I can throw figures out on the paint but both rear quarters have had the body lines filled opver the rear quarters. You know, where they all rust over the fenders. He wants that fixed. I have no idea what's under there or how involved it could get. How do you price something like this?? He knows the materials are expensive , so he's cool with that. Oh yeah, one other thing.....he a big wheel at my work ( not directly, but he has stroke) , so I don't want to piss the guy off. But it ain't gonna be free either. How would you approach it?
If you work with the guy,be careful! Get catalogs with parts and prices and pictures. Go on the net and get some pictures of restoration builds so he can see what is involved with quarter panel replacement etc. They also might have some time frames for labor including the typical "hidden" things that always seem to show up. Mustang parts are usually reasonable, but the day of the $2500.00 body work and paint are gone. 8 Grand might be reasonable but not practical for the value of the car. You should be able to find web sites that show in detail where and what to look for. Have everything layed out on the table while inspecting the car and write down everything that is found. Then look up the parts and try figure (labor) times for the operations and an agreeable rate.. Take lots of pictures and write everything down while he is there. Some ways to save money on these type projects and also keep the owner in tune to how much is involved are: Have him remove the easy stuff like interior and bimpers and trim. Have him clean up parts for detailing. Have him do the calling and ordering (and paying) for parts. Have him check on subbing out certain operations. With all that information along with keeping him involved with the decisions, he may not want to dive in to the project. Both of you will end up well informed. overspray
Quote him an hourly rate plus materials for the body work. Tell him you can not give him a quote on the repairs and that you will be honest with him about the hours you work. That is the policy at just about all shops that do restoration and custom body work. The goal in collision shops is to beat the labor estimate by at least 50%. If he got a $10,000 quote/estimate at a shop you can bet your farm they have a hefty safety margin built in. And from the get go they will be trying to do the job with the smallest expenditure of time and materials. It always amazes me. You go to the dealership or a garage for service or a repair. You drop the car off at 8 am. They tell you to come back at noon. When you pick up the bill you see 6 hours of labor. When you question it they tell you "that is what the "book" or "computer" tells us to charge. We are a flat rate shop." You pay and take your car because that is the way it is. When you go to a custom shop they charge by the hour and if they are ethical, you get an hour of skilled labor on your project for every hour you pay for. And the job will be done right because a custom shop can not prosper with a reputation for shoddy work.
In a automotive production shop the cars are all sorta the same plain vanilla so working on them is easy and the flat rate guidelines work fairly well. It sounds like you have a custom job that brings with it some risk. A good friend of mine has a shop outside of Cincinnati where he does 100 point concours restorations for those who can afford it. There was this one guy who brought him a 49 Merc that needed tons of work...rather than doing it all at once, the guy would drop the car off when he had a few thousand to spend on it. Once my buddy used up the money on his time and materials he called the guy to come pick it up. Every six months or so over the course of a couple years this repeated itself until the car was done. This worked out well for the shop owner and the customer because neither had a big commitment in the job, the risk was low for both parties, and it all worked out well in the end. Good luck...
What overspray said about having the owner pay for all of their own parts os right on, but make sure that he buys parts based on quality, not price. About two years ago I was doing a restoration on a 69 Camaro Z/28. The owner was to pay for and provide each and every part for the car. The new things that this car needed included the entire nose of the car, fenders header grill hood, everything. The car also got a new firewall (upper half), new right quarter, new decklid, new trunk floor and new rear body panel. Lots of new parts were purchased by the owner, but every one of them was purchased based on cost, not quality. Not one single part on that car fit at all. I tried to get him to send these items back and purchase better quality stuff, but he insisted that they were good enough for the driver quality car that he was looking for. I very reluctantly agreed to see what I could do with the parts. The quarter panel had to be cut into 5 pieces in order to be made to work, the hood tapered by 1/2" on one side making the gaps look horrible, the rear body panel was missing the raised bead around the taillight on one side and it went on and on. Trying to make these **** pieces work increased my hours of labor greatly. I had to keep asking the guy to make the choice of providing better parts or increasing the hours of labor which in turn would increase the total cost . All he saw was the price going up. This created a lot of tension between us no matter how much I tried to make him understand what was going on. I was totally honest with the guy from day one. In the end, the car got done, but neither of us were happy. It ended up costing a lot more money and taking a lot more time than anyone would have guessed. The only saving grace on that deal was that we agreed that he would make a weekly payment based on what had been done to the car. That way, If the deal went sour, he had already paid for the work that had been done and very little if anything would be owed by either party. I always try to give my "best guess estimate". This is just based on experience and what I can readily see on the car. I always explain that this is really just a starting point and that the final price will not be less than this as we ALWAYS run into issues when dealing with older cars. I keep track of the materials that I use and charge accordingly. I also tell the customer that they are free to look in on the progress anytime that they like. With that said, We do vary this proccedure a bit depending on the situation, but if we have a really big job to do, this is pretty much how it goes. By the way, at our shop, a basic repaint that includes minor ding and chip repair, all trim and bumper removal but little or no jamb work starts at about $2500-3000 depending on the car or truck. Chris
politely tell him you cant do it...never do work for coworkers,family or friends..they always want a deal and are almost never satisfied...then ,since you see them on a regular basis they will always have something wrong..i had a windshield put in my mother in laws car for cheap,i still hear about wind noise that is coming from her door!!!but if you still must do the car, our shop rate is $50 an hour for restorations..
Profound statement. You sure you WANT to have that job hanging over your head when you could be doing your own stuff? Okay, sorry, you asked how to price the job....Like everybody's said, you pretty much can't on custom/resto work---it needs to be by the hour with payments made regularly....UNLESS, you do that work on a regular basis AND you know your abilities. Production work is a different animal--flat rates on procedures. Regarding the rusty quarters.....if this guy carries weight at work, you'd better replace them(don't want any NEW rust blemishes surfacing, say in a year or two ) Production rates for full quarter panel replacements run from about 10-16 hrs per side. Hang new ones....heck, get new pieces(fenders/aprons/core suppt) anywhere they're iffy...it saves you time....and to an extent, saves him money(in the long run). If he doesn't want to do it RIGHT, it's not worth doing. btw, 8 large sounds like a fair price, considering "someone" will probably have to strip the car bare, do the metalwork, block it 3-4 times, mask, jamb, paint, sand, polish. I'm gettin tired just thinkin about it....
He's the type that has the money but this is a second or third car and has had some outrageous prices thrown at him.....one estimate was 8 grand. If he's got the money then 8K shouldn't be a problem. That's pretty much the going rate for a good complete paint and body job these days. Eight grand is only outrageous to us guys and gals who know we can do it ourselves. I'm not a pro bodyman, but I've done a couple of completes for myself in the past and I have friends in the business. It's a ton of work to do it right, and with the always present hidden damage you can't just quote a flat price. Since you might end up ruining your business relationship with this potential customer, from either the hard to determine time or total cost of the job, send him on his way. If he can't 'afford' to pay good $$ for a good job, don't let him make it your problem.
Lots of good info here guys.... OK, I had never seen the guy before yesterday, but I had heard his name. He is at another airport in the same city. I wouldn't be seeing him daily but he also lives about a mile from me. I asked him if he wanted to remove all the trim, mouldings, door handles etc. He kinda just said...naw, you just figure that into the price. He said he would help sand etc. but I really don't want him down here everyday..... The quarters shouldn't have to be replace just the wheel well openings. Up about 4 inches. The car was a color change roughly 15 years ago. There are no blisters showing up but I am still scared of what COULD happen. I got into a deal like that a long time ago and it is now referred by my wife as "The El Camino from Hell". I may just p*** on this deal but it would be nice to have some extra cash. What is the standard shop rate these days?
Its like a cetain friend of mine who is a PREMIERE body/painter of national repute.... says-"If I could tell the future I'd be in Vegas rakin in the cash"......... You cant have EXRAY vision -easily ,so it TAKES AS LONG AS IT TAKES...... Figure out an hourly wage YOU BOTH can live with and then do this- Only sign on to work on thecar on a weekly basis-you do your amount per week you have time for and then he examines and pays for the amount of hours worked. That way he doesnt feel locked in or trapped and you most importantly ARE NOT either......hes free to move on [if he wants] and you can do as much or little of this job as you like. I personally charge $25.00 per hr- here in the middle of nowhere- but thats just because of my -PRIMO- location-limited experience- and low overhead!
I am in the same type of deal. Not a pro shop, don't wanna be. But my labor is worth something.......
Also it looks like it would have to have full quarters since the wheel well panels don't look to be available.
Hey, watch out, these early 'stangs can be real time gobblers. The long rear quarter panels were kinda under supported, design wise makin' them a little wavey ta begin with, 40 years on hasn't helped much. If this thing is goin' black ya could be in for a rough ride profit wise. Check the deck lid ta quarter gaps. If this things' been tapped in the *** at some time in its life ya could spend alot of hours with a porta-power jus' makin that right, ya did say black didn't ya? Most resto shops charge between $75.00 & $150.00 an hour for lead work and metal finishing here in So Ca
'Round here, everybody but Snake, uh, I mean State Farm pays $36/hr. for production body time (THEY arbitrarily determine what they want to pay for a given area by surveys-but that's another story )....anyway..It varies, depending on where ya are. Root, maybe we're all reading too much into this job. You're not doing a resto...just a paint job (and now it looks like quarter surgery), right? After you figure out what your time's worth, go backwards, starting with colorsanding and polishing---how long you gonna spend on that? Then, how long's it take to mask and spray the car? How long is it gonna take to prime/block? Replace quarters? Teardown/re***embly(which is always TWICE teardown time) ***ign each facet a time frame, multiply by $, add a grand for materials....... It's great to make extra scratch, and there's nothing like the pride of a job well done....plus, a happy customer lots of times becomes a new friend---and friends are more valuable than cash
If you need to give an estimate, do it on a worst case deal, full quarters, outer wheel house, and all. then cut him a deal if it's not needed. I seldom give estimates on this type work, because as has been mentioned, you never know what you might find. I had a job on a 55 ford that didn't look too bad, until I found that a large area of the quarter had been leaded years ago, the steel had rusted out from behind it, so all that was there was lead. no way to secure any patch to it, so it took panel replacement to fix it. I charge $40 an hour, and most jobs are quoted time and materials. FWIW, I have a buddy doing a 65 Mustang right now, he is charging $8000, and the car was brough to him with all removeable panels off, and stripped tp bare metal. No panel replacement was necessary, but there were some dents to fix.
I think everything has been covered pretty much. I've burned myself before by not making clear what my work is worth. And by pricing not really knowing what is there.I learned not to give quotes on custom,rust repair,or restoration work,because it always seems to take longer. If you want to give him a deal lower your hourly rate but don't give a quote for the whole job , I've lost my *** by doing that. Like some of the guys said at least wait until it's stripped to bare metal before you give him a quote.
8 grand is not alot of money for a paint job anymore. I have friends in the business on both sides of the US, one never has a job that cheap and the other rarely (but his rates are a good deal less then the west coast shop). My East Coast buddy has a car in the shop now that he expects will cost around $5k (the car is not being fully stripped, sanding the old paint, fixing a few minor dings and priming and painting.). the only way to do it is by the hour plus material and parts. But if you are busy I would not take it on, it will only turn into one of those "never leaves the shop" cars, both you and the owner will end of being frustrated and unhappy with the service...............
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