so what does a paint job go for these days?

was the car painted in lacquer or urethane? if it was urethane... thats not very "traditional"

 

that was a killer deal, if the guy did those jobs all day long though, he'd be out of business quick.........unless he won the lottery and enjoys giving away paint jobs.
personally, i wanna make more than 3k in 2 years, lol


skull

 

I was a former shop owner, albeit a young one (im 29) and have had a fairly good career doing some restos and so on.

Back ground story:
I was doing some subcontract work for a Porsche/ European machanic shop. The owner had a 356c that was in the shop for some mechanical up grades. Well the owner of the shop had the engine out and wanted a quote on doing some Rust repair/ panel replace ment in the engine compartment. SO... I gave him a quote.

The owner of the vehicle got my number from the owner and called me up and set up a meeting. We went over somethings, and agreed upon the meeting that I would:
1. Cut out and replace the panels in the engine compartment.
2. Cut out and replace the the battery tray in the trunk.
3. Cut out and replace two passenger jack points.
....... not anyting paint related. bid for parts, labor and materials 880...
ok agreed

Show up knock the work over about a 10 hour day, (engine compartment I had to fab some panels of which I ate the time because I stand by my estimates....)

then He said he liked my work and set up a meeting for me to paint his 356...

Then the worst words to come out of a classic car owner mouth...

"I only want a driver, not a Show car paint job"


After I heard that, I in detail described what a driver vs a show car, showed him flaws that would be there on the car (it had an older resto) and his new car that would be there in a "daily driver" paint job. and gave him a quote of 2700, with options of Jambs for 600 more (he wanted it painted the same color it was so it was an option to let those slide.) , + materials. And gave him a separate estimate for a show car paint job, for 9k plus materials , and a list of things he would have to do in order for me do do it for the show paint for that cheap.

I think you get the picture of were this is going by know....

Well, of coarse he picked the 2700 paint job no jambs..., I only employed my self, and figured about 7 days prep, one day paint one day buff. plus and extra oh shit day. dead line two weeks. That is when motor in mechanical to be installed.

Problem one: Tow truck driver shows up and had ripped the tow loop on the front away from its mount. Also, as a result, cracked some bondo on the nose cone.... bondo 3/4 deep. I had check the front upper section with a mill thickness guage and was clear. Evidently the previos owners hit a curb of something simular and f up underneith.....

Owner: understand problem. Ask what I would do if it were my car.
ME: remove filler. go from there.
Owner: worst case senario:
ME: New Nose cone sectioning.
Owner: How much to repair back to what it was with the thick filler
ME: That is an incorrect repair.
Owner: I cant afford to go that route, I can afford to fix it back with bondo....


ME, discustedly: ballpark 350$ of the filler 200 new truck right side trucnk pan welded in plus tow hook welded on....

Owner: aggrees,

Change order made. Time eaten up with estimates, phone calls, etc. 1/2 day. add 1 of day in labor time. owner to order new truck pan.



Problem two.... more of a constant irratation:
OWNER wont leave me alone to do my job. constantly comeing in seeing progress blah blah blah.. I mean every day at least an hour. and I mean EVERYDAY...

Change order two... Remove interior as trim shop to recover everything...
add 200... eats up half day.

Change order three... Want to go a slightly different color just a shade or two darker... explain jamb situation. Said shouldnt be noticable... wont listen to reason. I say yes sir.... no time eaten up.

Change order four.... Remove all glass. I alread had out the door, side glass. Now I have to scedual the glas man to come out. I PAY HIM and he removes the glass. Which reveal a small amount of rust (told him it was there from the begining. told him to remove the glas before I got it....)
time eaten up 1/4 day....

work weekend to make up time.

..... more time wasted with him there.....


..... more time wasted with him there.....

Pan and Tow hook show up LATE tues.. Stay late and get that all straightend up.

..... more time wasted with him there.....


PAINT day.......

owned del. paint. ... DuPount Chroma basecheck, Sealer check.... OMNI CLEAR WTF????

long decussion I fold and paint the car....

PAINT DOESNT MATCH LOOKS LIKE SHIT IN THE JAMBS!!

Call owner. wait till ownwer arrives. car has Avg org peel (FUCK OMNI CLEARS!) talk talk talk.. almost argue but he agrrees to paint Jambs. I ask about dead line (it is one day befor he needs that car back...) I call owner of porsche shop. Agrees to let me buff there...

JAmbs now bid at 500 each. WHY the increase.. have to mask off WHOLE car. more pain in the ass work, and at this point I was just charging him an ASSHOLE fee.

Friday as planned Car leaves my shop... NOT COMPLETED!!!

MONDAY show up to start wet sanding buffing out the car.
OWner there. NOW owner wants a like glass finish..(remeber the FUCKING OMNI he bought.... told him it would look like standard new car orange peel...) tell him 750 for buffing or to pay me what he owes me and I'm done. Owner of Shop got involved THANK GOD i almost wanted to kill him. Agreed to 750.

SAND AND BUF SAND AND BUFF ... Have I mentioned I hate Omni (I will say omni is ok for collision work just ASS (and not Austin SPeed Shop) for custom buff out work)

comes out OK...

At this point we are at 5500 -6000 ish not includeding materials... Man was I pissed. Man was HE pissed. It wasn't up to my quality becuase of the change orders.... BUT they were HIS change orders NOT MINE.....

Lets just say the over all frustration wasnt worth 15K




The number one thing I can recomend to any one is be HONEST with what you want.. BE honest to YOURSELF, and your Painter, and have REALISTIC goals for the amount of money you are paying.

 

I can easily understand 10 grand plus..

Alot of crazy lowrider jobs have to be 30 grand plus..

When I did my first truck I did the body work and painted it, about 700 bucks in materials. Came out OK but definitely flawed. Later I re-did it and got nicer stuff (about $1000 in materials) It came out fantastic to me then. I probably have a higher standard now. I'll just keep pluggin away and have fun learning from my mistakes.

 

so he supplied material?

y didnt u tell him, u have these options. this clear... the cheapest ill use. this one. the middle ground clear. and this one the top of the line. honestly all clears slick it out. its not the clears fault.

but at the same time i feel ur pain. he hsould have just paid the 9k and been done.

 

I did.. he showed up with It I had planed on useing the entire Chroma series line. but.....
my jobber closed(he droped it off at 5 pm...) and I had a deadline I WAS PISSED.

I just HATE omni... might be a problem I have. I just can't spray it as well as others. Maybe I am having Temp problem. I just Have had tooo many problems with it.. and my problem isnt so much on the paint end.. you cant tell me the OMNI buffs out as easy as HOK, DBC 2000 or Chroma....

 

when ever a customer sasy he wants a driver, not a show paint job .......what he really means is............he wants ya to charge him less than earl scheib and he better win paiint at the next show........

over the 40 years ive been in the paint biz (35 in my own shop) i have come to the conclusion most people wont qualify to be your customer when you lay out the rules. if you are gonna do complete paint jobs , ya got to do them right, meaning strip, then quote the body work, use only the materials and the procedures you know that are gonna work , and last. if the customer dont like it, send him down the road, or offer to prep it and send it to one day. he'll be happy with the price, and you will make more than you would have doing it yourself.

when the customer knows what to expect, and the painter delivers, it makes for much less hassles.
tough business for sure, and the learning curve is pretty steep.
i still break my own rules once in a while, and wind up sorry, as you wind up workin for free, and the customer usually gets a little po'd over how long it took, etc
i always like to send them down to the paint store to pick up a couple gallons of clear and the read pearl color they had theirs eyes on.....that usually wakes them up a bit

skull

 

I'd rather have no paint than a half -assed paint job. My friend in Houston has a shop, and he has grown over the years, and he now has customers with very deep pockets. It's hard to afford to have him do any work for me now, because his shop rate is high, but his work is flawless.
He recently painted my tailgate on my 50, and did the paint on my West Coast Bike, and HIS cost was extremely high.
The work is perfect, and well worth the price to me.

10 grand in a paint job for a car would be a starting point.
It's like asking how long is a piece of rope.

 

i dont use dupont and the time i used chroma premier clear i wasnt impressed. r u using 2.1 voc clears or national rule stuff?

hok uc35 buffs alright, but u have to sand it within the next day, no later then after.


last 2 clears i shot i was impressed with how they buffed. matrix autoglas and a lesonal clear that remains nameless....(my rep buddy gave me some and poured into empty unmarked cans)

 

This may help a little. Last winter i did a 66 Belair wagon for myself. This is a Colorado car with minimum rust and some dents and such. I used all name brand materials Rage Gold ,3M, PPG base / clear etc... The cost of just the materials was over $2400.00. Now add in 100-200 hours of labor at the price of your choice and the $5000.00 is on the low side in my opinion. I would think $8000.00-10,000.00 is a more realistic starting point for a quality job. Just my $.002 worth.

 

geese sounds like me ..but I gave it up,

 

about 4500 min for show quality . don't try going cheap a lot of cost is in good paint and sanding . yes u can make cheap paint look show quality but it doesn't hold up to the elements and would end up fading or peeling . there is nothing like having an orange car on one side and the other is red . stay clear of the cheap stuff . make sure u know what paint ur car is being painted and research the brand

 

4500 min use good paint . last a lot longer

 

Thanks for bringing up an old thread. If your puctuation is an indication of your skill level, that's even better. You should probably wear some sort of mask when you paint. Just saying.

 

What is "Puctuation"?

 

I think that is a hockey term...

 

That's hilarious

I like this old thread, especially the comments on building a car and freaking out at the price of paint in the end.

If I paint mine myself it will because I want to learn and have the experience of doing it myself.

Saving a few $ will be a side benefit. I'm building a rod to have fun with not a show car.

 

I couldn't agree more. There's nothing wrong with paying for a paint job, but I want to get mine on the road ASAP. Saving money by painting myself is certainly a way to do that.

 

What would someone in Houston know about hockey ??

 

Yeah I was all into this thread all almong knowing it was old, thinking the last page was gonna be some real good stuff and then it wasn't. ........

Good way to end a lunch break I guess.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Aeros

 

Still doesn't really answer the question

 

How to entertain a batch of Hambers:

Dig up a thread you found on Google when you were looking for paint costs and answer it with your "expertise" on your first post on the HAMB. Five frigging years the poor thread hid out from fng's and he found it. Ah well I got a laugh before heading to bed.

 

was that Canadian hockey or American hockey??

 

LOL, there is only Canadian hockey It's our game

It's our game regardless of where it's played

 

oops, gotta live up to the title, that's what it's for right haha, Dynamis is 2 and done