a lot of shops do it that way charge man hours and not actual time. In your better shops you are given an estimate prior to starting work, if they say 60 dollars an hour that is what you pay 60 dollars an hour. it is hard for a small shop to do it that way so you get billed per man but it should be made clear prior to starting the work. There is an upside I suppose if they are making it personal and you are getting an exceptional job.
Hey Beaner, I would like to see someone estimate the cars I do. Nobody wants to do the ones I get. I ask, couldn't you find a better body? The answer is yeah, but I got my first piece of ass in this car. Then I say, I hope it was good. Or I had this car in High School. And I can relate to it I guess.
Yea I wouldn't take a Bean mobile to anyone for body work. But I doubt that anyone would even tackle the rusted out chit I usually own. If I were to bring you my high school car I would have to hire a commercial car hauler.
I'm sorry, but this guy is getting hosed! No way that job should take the hours to get to 50K. They are definitely padding their hours by about triple.
Lol. Trust me, you ain't got nuthin I have not seen before. I still enjoy making something from nothing. I am glad no one else wants to do these. Speaking of cars being in the body shop jail, I know of a 68 GTO that has been in a local shop here for 10 years.
I ended up with a 65 gto because of someone not understanding or the bodyshop explaining it wrong or not being clear on their signed quote. Didn't see it and wasn't there when it was taking place so i'm not sure where the mistake was made. anyways this guy took 2 65 gtos to this shop and got a written quote to do both cars. he was happy at the price and had them start both of them. they took both of them apart basically doing the same to each at the same time. The shop wanted partial payment after they were completely torn down and the frames reworked. then the guy found out at that time the quote was for each and not both cars together doubling his bill that just became unaffordable to him. the were trying to work it out between them. The body shop hires a buddy of mine to move cars back and forth from upholsters, mechanical shops, etc and told him the story and wasn't sure what they were going to do. They were looking for someone to buy 1 of them and that is when my buddy contacted me. I should have left them finished it though. Still not close to having it done myself.
$60.00 an hour isn't bad in Mass (I grew up there), but I have learned after 45 years of playing with all kinds of cars & trucks, buy what U like & get the best body U can find. They cost more but worth it ("Pay me now or pay me later"!!). If it has a little bit of rust/damage U can see, there's usually more where U can't see. Good body work & paint takes lots'a time. There's a lot of shops - good & bad - that charge the same. Research & pick the "good" one. Seems to me that it should have been done in less time if U provided a good body. Good luck!!
I would think that if a shop couldn't give you a solid estimate, That they would at least give you a general idea what the total would be. And then call you in if they found costly extra work. Open ended scares the hell out of me.
Reading this over, a couple points come to mind: 1. If this is the first time for a certain piece of work, is the tech. really worth the current rate of that shop. Let's say, that the Body Tech has never replace a quarter panel on a 57 Chevy 2 door wagon, using the current repro. available Bel-Air quarter panel. You all know that the repo panel has the dip and the two door wagon does not. So that is a learning experience for the Tech. How much more, well at 120 bucks and hour, cutting around the dip, measuring for the wagon, and extra welding involve could add up and I feel that it would take longer. So it is going to take him or her longer, so they will charge the customer more. But the next guy who comes along, will gain the benefit of having an experience tech doing his car, and by all right it should take the Body Tech less time. I feel that a good ethical body shop would knock off a few bucks to make up for the learning curve. As you can all tell, I don't go into body shops to have work done. 2. They do have "Flat Rate" books going back quite a few years, but some are using factory panels and lead. 3. My short experience in working in a Body Shop, is that the more people working on a car, the less gets done.
The hourly rate seems fine, but 833 man-hours for bodywork and paint seems like a lot, unless this truck was really rusty or is very customized with a lot of metalwork (or both). Do you have any pictures of the truck when you dropped it off? What are the plans for it? If it's been there for less than 3 months, it would require two people to be on it almost every day putting in 40 hour weeks. I guess that is possible to do, but it still seems like a lot. I'd be pretty antsy about driving a pickup truck with a $50,000.00 paint job on it.
I have a hard time seeing almost 1000 man hours into paint on a "good" body by experienced body guys. I have about 400 hrs on my 46, it's almost ready for paint, I'm an amateur, and my car looked like it spent time as a 50yd target at a driving range. I personally think your guys need to be padding the bill unless they are metalworking every panel perfectly for a mirror finish in black. The fact it's been there only 3 months would also require 2 men full time every day to reach that total. In perspective, I worked in body shops that would do a reasonable colour change on a vehicle in a couple days. So without rust repair or piles of custom work, what are they spending their time on?25k on a pickup paint job would be far more than I would spend, and our rates are double what you are paying
That's a beautiful rolling chassis. Excellent detail. But why would you cover it with a '64 model body? '57-'58 'iceboxes', or 'bricks' come to mind (when there aren't '53-'56es to choose from) but that '64 is just a scad outside the 'desirable window', at least hereabouts. Not to 'critique'. But damned curious. The price for paint is...exorbitant.
I've got no problem with $60/hr for a decent body person. But, even at $40000, at 80 hours per week that's 8+ solid weeks. So the questions remain: what the hell are they doing to your truck and will you really have a $50000 truck when it's done? Good luck, though.
Do you have any pictures of the truck before and the donor truck? Did they have to make and fit a body to your chassis from a bunch of pieces....that could get expensive with lots of unforeseen work. Did you ever just drop in on them and see what they are doing? Remember that tv commercial from a few years back, "Yeah I've got 2 of my best guys on it now"
Two words: Quote: We know how much this is going to cost. Price given is price paid. Estimate: We do not know how much this is going to cost. Rate given, times shop rate is the price paid. NEVER confuse the two, whether you are the shop, or the car owner getting the work done. Always arrange in-advance the terms of the contract, including how often you are updated and are to give your approval. Vet your prospective shop properly. Do they have experienced workers? Are they happy? Is there high-turnover? Are their people who are doing critical work actually qualified to do so? Can they show you examples of their work? On a personal shop-rant: Although I am formally out of the business, I am in the middle of cleaning up a mess created by my former employer, on a vehicle that I built, and nearly finished (except paint), with my assistant, 3-solid-years-ago. Not only did they not finish it, they un-did work that I had finished, and did-over, poorly, work I had done properly. Worse yet, ALL of the hand-made parts that my assistant and I made are missing, as are almost all of the other purchased parts are missing too. Needless to say, the customer is pissed, and so am I. He found me at a car show and practically begged me to put it back right. I am doing so, and I am going to refuse his money for labor. I have everything I need already. This is wrong, and I ain't having it. All I asked him for is that other shop is given no credit whatsoever for anything. They don't deserve it. You don't work people over like this. The vehicle is now at another shop, owned by a friend, where everyone there is under strict orders that no one is to even put a finger print on it with out my written approval. Nights and weekends are going to be busy for a while. I hope that I can come up with proper replacements for all of the missing parts.
Just my two cents. If you can afford it, it's your money to do what you wish with, and to do with it and what makes you happy. On the flip side don't be that seller that has a 30k truck selling for 50k and you are claiming a loss of 20k based on you putting 70k into it. I'm just throwing numbers out there but, this does happen. How often do you see "selling at a loss" ads? Reiterating. Do what makes you happy. Don't expect someone to pay you back what you have it in when you want to sell. It is what it is. Seems like a lot of money and I am a hard working Joe with a good job and I could not or would not want to afford that. If I needed a nice custom truck. I probably would have just gone down to vintage car auction and got something "done". And just use it as is. I may have still been more cost effective.
Here are a few pics of the Oklahoma donor truck/body: It was a nice, straight, farm truck. A gem compared to my New England body. It had a bit of rust in the cab and bed floors and radiator support, but was by no means rotted out. Localized pinholes mostly. I stripped the truck all the way down and then had all the components blasted to bare metal. So the body shop started with clean, bare pieces. The only things I asked them to do that might be considered above and beyond a typical restoration was to smooth both sides of any patches and repairs, so as to be undetectable even from under the truck when finished. I also had them fill a bunch of unnecessary holes on the firewall and inner fenders. Other than that, I didn't request any super custom metal work or anything like that. I do have the shop prepping and painting each piece individually, inside and out, top to bottom, for maximum long term durability. I'd like this thing to last my lifetime. Few more pics of the build before the body shop was involved. I got everything mocked up and properly fitted before blowing it apart for blast shop / body shop. Pics of the truck after the body shop took possession: Like you said Abe, it is what it is. I'm already $40k into this shop, so I guess there's no real point in changing directions now. Need to accept it. At least they're doing quality work at a breakneck pace. I should have the truck back in 2 or 3 weeks. There are no plans to sell this truck. There's some sentimental value attached to it, and it's being built for me and my tastes. But I hear what you're saying - I'd be lucky if I could get a quarter of what I'll have into it by the time it's done. I knew that going in; I just didn't expect it to be that much. Ah well, the truck is going to be way, way over budget, but at least it'll be exactly what I want.
It does look like you are getting a nice quality job, and I love the color. If you keep it the value is paid back in your enjoyment, and at smiles per hour. Amazingly, if we live long enough all our old crap will be worth over a hundred k ( but by then a pint could be fifty bucks)......
The more the paint job costs, the pickyer you can be when the job is finished. At 50 grand, you should win a best paint award. It should be that nice when you are done.
Haters unite!! I visited a California shop in Nov and was floored to hear "...$137.50/hr is our shop rate..." 6-7 weeks ago was talking to a colleague from Maryland. "We're at $98/hr so you need to raise your rate." I'd like to see any of the critics yelling "rip off" and "hosed" and "taken" push some fuckin sandpaper for a week. Pick and file some dents, level the exposed spot welds on those qtr panel/bed sides. Get it done in 15 minutes, but to GNRS quality. Paint the whole fuckin truck in 20 hours. Fuck that, I defy anyone to do an award-winning finish on that truck in 200 fuckin hours. MAN HOURS. Whomever thinks $60/hr would cover a whole shop is living in the great depression of the 30s. Gas was .15 cents a gallon, a loaf of bread a nickle. A new Ford pickup right around $500, maybe $650 for a special. Today that new Ford can top $50K, some option packages just short of $80K. A gallon of red paint is over $800, a gallon of black lacquer almost $400, but we're fuckin thieves? I guess it will stay the same until paint is outlawed, and that's how utterly disrespected the finishing end of this business is. Metal guys say "...fuck it let the painters fix it..." assembly guys scratch shit and say "What's the big deal, you can fix that." Owners think you can win best paint for a week's worth of work or else we're "getting rich off of the customer". "They do it on TV in a week, why can't you?" To all of it I say fuck off. If you don't know quality you wouldn't pay for it if you could. Still at it, soon to be 59, did my 1st complete when I was 14. My people have too many accolades to count, but they knew and still know, quality. My ad budget is business cards and 1 ad that supports the local club effort. I get paid for every hour I work, every hour I work my 2 associates as well. You think we're getting rich? Yeah, right. I have 20 different and perfect 32 Fords, and if you believe that I'll win you the GNRS for $1,000. If this sounds like a topic that lights me up, you bet your ass it does. Haters can break out your rattle cans and brag about much your car sucks.
Just got the new StreetRodder mag(yea I'm a loser) and one of the builds quotes 1000 Hrs for body prep and paint(no hr rate given) so that seems to be the magical number being thrown around!! Pete
In reading the views of those not involved in the actual repair of this vehicle , one can learn many things . Its easier to rant about what someone else does than do the actual work. Each of us possesses a different level of skill and understanding about metalwork and paint. Many don't know where the line separating this work exists Many experienced and not experienced in the business don't understand the true cost and effort of doing business properly and legally . Each restoration / repair will be different . All restorations are not done to the same level of quality. Fustration exists at all levels . Our words tell the world all about oneself . Al Bundy scored a touchdown in high school .. It takes years of learning , determination and hard work to walk the field of the Super Bowl . PS. You can only kick a dead horse so many times .
Gotta chuckle at those that are screaming you are paying that much for a paint job. If a person has never done the work to get a vehicle to the quality level of what that truck is, they don't EVEN have a clue of the number of hours it take to do so. And as the saying goes: Time is money...
It's cool that the OP really isn't bitching, just getting closer to the end and reality kicks in. The truck will be like no other and you'll be proud. I see new $65k pickups go by me everyday on the highway and don't give 2 shits. When yours goes by, I'll notice. To the reputable, hard working body guys..... thanks
Seeing the work that's been done, it looks top notch, and a huge amount of progress in such a short time, I could believe they really did have two guys on it almost full time for 3 months. The inside-and-out bodywork is where the big time hours are going. To give the bottoms of the floors, insides of the fenders and inside the cab that kind of attention is probably more than doubling the price, that work is really difficult. Not sure I'd ever want a project to go that far, the first stone chip or scratch in that thing is really going to hurt. But I do think you're getting the hours they're claiming. And at incredible speed too. You're not the only guy spending 50K at the body shop but you're probably one of very few who got that far in the course of 3 months, usually stuff like that takes several years. The old body shop saying is, "You can have your car done cheap, fast, and good; pick any two". You're getting fast and good.
I agree that it looks like your getting a first class job on that old "farm truck"! It looks like it will be a show stopper when done. It take TIME to do it right and have the quality that will last like you have stated you want it to last. You will smile every time you walk up to it to drive it, years of enjoyment. Your past the point of looking back so just look ahead at what you are going to have when finished and enjoy the hell out of it.
The Jalopy Journal
