I know a guy who chopped a top on a Chrysler Magnum for a famous person (not mentioning names) and the price tag was $20,000. $3000 sounds like the Walmart bargain price.
My Guess is that the guy had initial sticker shock, and he is going to reconsider and ask again. Don't be suprised if you hear from him again.
hourly is the only way to go..everybody wants set prices, no way in hell...especially when they try and switch things up or want something different done for the same price....
He may be back after asking around and realizing what others want. Yours would be the cheapest he found.
What is the Mud limit? MIG welding ground killed & filled or a nice metalwork job? Some people like to look at bare steel, others are quick to hide sins. Bob
Design changes. When I was running my own shop, I had a $500 fee for just asking for a design change. Shut up a lot of people. Others just paid it. I know it sounds like a lot, but a ton of people these days have A.D.O.S., and have to be reigned-in.
I am in a mixed environment now. We do both. When I had my own shop, I NEVER quoted anything. It was ALL time and materials, with an estimate. Lasted a decade, before medical issues took me out.
yes, but i give them a 30 year experience at worst case scenario. i break down the project by day/week goals with a variance. i give the customer daily e-mails with the time and progress with a goal for what is to happen the next day. customer is in the loop, can keep track of hours, avoiding any troubles in the end. i can stop work at any point the customer wants.
If andI say IF he comes back I will give him an hourly rate and see where it goes. Thanks to all who answered,
Yes, that is about all I do now. The first couple years I lost my ass time wise due to giving quotes and sticking to them. In hind sight it may have been worth it because I now have higher profile jobs in, and lined up. 85% of which are strictly time and materials. As others have said, you never know what is hiding underneath. I also have an open door policy, where the customer can stop by at any time to see his car. In addition to that, I photodocument EVERY aspect of the build. Let's them see how it progressed and covers my ass in the event someone claims I did or didn't do something. Not uncommon to have a disc with well over 1000 pics on some of the more invoved jobs My guess is you'll probably never hear from this guy again, and may see his car in a junkyard soon with no roof and a mangled body
One car per day. Five cars per week, unless the customers want a different schedule. We have 14-18 in progress, in a two-man shop.
I personally have several going at a time so each customer can budget for a certain amount per month. I try and have 4 major jobs going at once,a week per, though lately I've had a bunch of smaller " quickies " come in that have set the bigger ones behind. It's a real balancing act sometimes, particuarly since I am for the most part alone
one large project, a smaller project and a mix of day to day repairs. blocks of time on each car is the most efficient. i will spend as much time on a job, as a customer can afford/ or that we agreed on.
I can understand the time and materials concept from a shop owner's perspective. But at the same time a customer may view it as being asked for a blank check. If I go to the guy who has done a chops for me in the past (and has talent that I can only dream about) and ask him for a price on a chop of a different vehicle I don't think it's unreasonable to expect him to give me a fairly hard number for cost. This is what he does for a living and as long as I don't ask for changes once he's begun he should have a good idea of what's required. For most work he does for me he gives me a good faith estimate and a not to exceed number as well. That way I know up front if I can afford to have the work done. Works for both of us. I'll also add that in my day job I own a small engineering company and I give firm quotes on almost every project I do. If the client doesn't make any changes in the project and I go over on time I have to eat it. Just the way it is in my business. The client comes to me because I a expected to be the expert and should know what is required to complete their project. I expect the same when I farm out fab work on one of my cars. Just wanted to point out that there are two sides to this issue. Having said that it does sound like the customer that the OP is talking about is a cheap ass or clueless or probably both.
As an engineer are you reworking 50 year old 18 gauge sheet metal with hidden cavities that has 3+ repaints and god only knows what kind of bondo crammed into god only knows how many holes ? Sure, if you bring me a completely stripped car I can give you a better idea of price. As for chops. EVERY chop is going to be different. A 50 Chevy is not going to go the same way as a 32 Ford, or a 63 Lincoln, or a 2005 Magnum. unless you have chopped EVERY car out there before, you can only give a ballpark price IMHO you're comparing apples to oranges with your profession and ours. My best customers have been the ones that tried to do it themselves. They understood how 10 hours turns into 50, and quite frankly, at this point most of my work is show level. If you want that, yeah you better have a blank check If you come to me and want a new trailer built, sure I can give you a hard number. I can figure up how much steel I need, how many hours it will take me, how much the axles wheels etc will cost. In auto restoration, it is all unknown until it is in bare metal, and even then, things can and will still pop up. I do work with small budgets, but make certain they understand if I eat up their whole budget on rust repair, that is all they are getting. I'm not sacrificing my business for someone that wants to cut corners on rust repair or suspension work. That's a lawsuit waiting to happen.
No, I'm not dealing with 50 year old sheet metal. But I am often dealing with 50 to 75 year old tooling and machines and just about every manufacturing process possible. The only comparison I am making is that in general customers want a good faith estimate and a worse case price on a project regardless of what it is. As the expert you are going to be expected to determine the condition of the metal under that 20 year old paint and you're going to be expected differentiate between the amount of work required to chop a Model A sedan versus a '49 Merc. The Magnum I really don't give a shit about Believe me when I say that no one has more respect for what skilled fabricators can do than me. I'm just saying that from the customer's perspective a fairly solid quote is expected and often needed for budgeting. Once you have established a working relationship with a customer then a time and material arrangement would be fine. As easily as customers can be pains in the ass, dealing with a shop for the first time has the potential for problems too. Just saying that there is another side to this discussion. No need to feel obligated to agree with me.
I do get your point, and don't get me wrong. I don't just tell people to drop the car off and hand me their checkbook. I do have to give them some idea of where it will land, but that is a pretty broad range. Like I said, I photoducoment everything, and since most of the cars I work on are form outside my area, I normally do a build thread on the appropriate site so the customer stays up to date without having to drive 2 hours + to check in, and it also shows the rest of the community how things progress as the car gets stripped down. This helps in the fuiture when someone wants a hrd number. I just tell them to lok at Mr. X's build thread and see how things pop up throughout the build, thus keeping me from giving a firm price and sticking to it. Right now I'm doing a 73 911 with 43,000 miles and have already told the owner it will be going over my initial estimate due to the amount of rust that was under the undercoating. None of that could be seen initially, and was not expected on a 43,000 mile car that was stored indoors for the last 20+ years. As for dealing with a new shop for the first time, I'm sure it can be nerve wracking. I got into this line of work because I got f-ed twice by body shops that couldn't do what they said they would and could. Do your homework, ask to see detailed pics of their other jobs, ask about the shops other customers and contact them. When you find that shop that does you right, Stick with them. But never count out the new guy. He just might be your best bet. All of the greats were new and unknown at one time
Shops I worked in would ONLY do time and materials especially on older model restoration and custom work. The only exceptions: We did insurance jobs on a fixed quote and we did blow ins for a few car dealers for an agreed price. The insurance jobs were carefully calculated and every part and every minute priced. It could take a couple of hours to do one quote and these were EASY because all parts were available, we could look up prices from dealer and aftermarket sources and price the labor from flat rate books. The dealer jobs were done cheap and out the door in a few hours, they never complained as long as the car looked halfway decent and we did not guarantee a perfect paint match.
Scott, I agree with all that you just posted. Sounds like a fair and reasonable way to operate. I was just trying to offer a different point of view is all. Based on your user name and the car you are currently working on I assume you are a Porsche guy. Although not HAMB friendly, I'm a big Porsche fan and keep my eyes open for that clean reasonably priced 911SC. Someday..... Peace. Edit-I just checked out your profile and website. Damn, those are some nice cars you own and repair. I have a thing for German cars as well as hot rods.
Thanks, I know a couple others here that like the P-cars too. Even Ryan wants one BTW we're ganging up on ya now
I use to be big in to 70s v drive /jet boats and Billy B a boat painter posted up one time he would toss all the used up tape rolls in the boat till he was done because people would freek out about the tape cost.If you have never done the work your self its hard to see why it cost so much.I am glad I do all my own work on my projects as paying 10 gs for a chop top seams insane but I do get it and not saying its out of line the guy that is upset about a 3000 chop most likely has less in his whole car than that lol. Thanks for the good info guys. Jake
I'm a one man show and I have 4 jobs going at the moment and some on the back burner. Even customers with the deep pockets can run into money issues at one time or another, so it's always good to have multiple jobs to work on to get your hours in. I've learned my lesson giving out estimates. Most of my customers realize what goes into a build and the issues that can and ususally do arise when working on these projects..I recently did a hardtop chop on a merc and had an inquiry on a price to do another..I told him I could add up my hours on the previous job to give him an idea but the job would still be billed by the hour..It might be cheaper, it might be more.. I'd say more than half of my work is fixing "low set price" jobs that went south, especially on quality.. You should see the customers Merc im fixing at the moment that had previous "patch" work done on the floors and structures. The doors wouldn't even fit in the door openings....All this had to be addressed before I even looked at doing the chop... In the end you get what you pay for...
If he got pissed about $3000 you both should seek medical help. This guy could have started putting C-notes in your hand... be glad you didn't start the job there is a hundred hours at least for a sedanette chop...crazy! Be glad and never let him in the door again
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