Speedtoys

I have gotten mostly firm quotes from "volume" places for what I would think would be a mostly OK paint job, in the $5-6k range.

A place that has always done our insurance work, and always has exotics in the shop..just gave me a written quote for $19,230.78

I like my car, but it's not getting a $21,000 paint job (adding 2k more for seals and misc parts to completely replace too)


How do I work with a "recommended" shop at the low end of this range presented, to do a better than "normal" job?

joejoe

Prep, send it in so all it needs IS the paint.

Jim Devine

Do you have a breakdown as to shop hours and materials and hourly rate?
My guess is around 100 shop hours +- for a start to finish job + mats.
Less if it doesn't need to be stripped, more for a concourse winning job.

bureau13

A place that does INSURANCE WORK wants $20K for paint? I can't see them getting that kind of coin from an insurance company....

Hilton

Their quote sounds like a "we're too busy with lucrative insurance work to do your car" kind of quote to me.

dr bob

Jeff--

Talk to Rob & William about the shop that did Minerva. Also the one that did S4ORDIE's car.

safulop

Yeah my "insurance work" shop has specifically told me that they will *never* repaint an entire car, because they would have to charge too much and no one would ever pay what they demanded. Sound familiar?

safulop

And considering I got a "mostly OK" paint job on my 944 back in 2003 for like $1800, I have no idea why an OK paintjob should cost $6,000.

Speedtoys

You misread my post entirely if that's what you got from it.

Speedtoys

Ditto.

Speedtoys

Thank you JoeJoe and Jim Devine.

The only people that -read- my post, and had useful comments.

OTR18WHEELER

The cost of body shop labor rates has skyrocketed over the years, due to insurance, and regulation fees, and then there are the occupational/ skilled employee costs.
The material costs are like toilet paper to a truck stop, ...
Add a thousand percent for that emblem on the hood.

The Forgotten On

If you want to reduce cost, tear apart the car yourself and start the body prep to reduce shop time.

Then you can take it to your preferred shop and have them do the final bodywork and paint as labor is the main wallet killer when it comes to paint these days.

That is all I can really say aside from the fact that usually within a year of wear and tear (unless absolutely babied) a $20K paint job will look like a $10K paint job.

potdog

Hi ,well at $5k / $6k £3,400 /£4100 that's not bad is that all done or just labour . have you seen any of there work used to run a paint shop its labour intensive and materials cost are quite considerable for quality products . As other people have said do the prep your self disassembly and prep vehicle your self and get some one with knowledge to help you with the body prep ,but before you do that get a price for a shop to paint to hit it with top coat cheers.

FredR

The first thing you have to do when getting a repaint quote from outfits that you do not know is to spell out what you expect them to do.

To do the job properly many parts have to be removed and as others have said, such work swallows time. If the shop that have quoted you do not understand all this they may well have under priced the job. Spoilers have to be removed, as do bumper lines, wing mirrors, various trims, rub strips [if you have them], sunroof, bonnet, door handles etc etc.

A lot [all?] of the smaller trim parts will need to be replaced after painting so either you provide them or they do as what they take off invariably will not go back on. At the price point you indicated I would expect the shop to have all this covered but you must ensure they know what you expect.

As they do the job you can also specify what you [or your appointed representative] want to inspect before they go to the next stage. You might want to check the extent of surface preparation, thickness of old paint they leave before painting. You might want to go back to bare metal/plastic or at least the old undercoat etc etc. You also need to specify how they are going to paint the plastic bits to achieve the required flexibility of the finished product- that or get them to tell you what they are going to do to achieve such. Takes a lot of effort to achieve a correct finish on these items such that they do not craze [after some time in service].

The alternative is to give them the car and simply trust them to do the job correctly. Bottom line at the price point you indicated [$6k] you have the right to expect a top notch job.