I had an altercation with a tire barrier at Lime Rock a few weeks ago. Need new bumper cover, and some paint work on some fine scratches on the rear deck lid and left and right rear quarter panels. I just got an estimate back and I thought it seemed high?

labor is $60/hr
R&R rear bumper cover 4 hrs
prep l&r rear quarters for blend 4 hrs
prep rear deck lid(small dent)3.5 hrs
refinish rear deck lid and rear bumper 8 hrs
blend and clearcoat l&r quarters 6 hrs
sand and buff all refinished areas 11.5 hrs
reapply stone guards 1 hr

not to mention $1800 in paint labor and $500 in paint.
Is this what this should cost?
Please say no!
Thanks,
Evan

 

$4580...

Well,

That may be about right because $60 an hour is fair. I think the bill may be a bit padded in all places (example: 11.5 hours to sand & buff I dunno bout that one...)

All in all, you can still shop the job, and see if it can be had for less.

This is NOT a bad start though. Sorry.

 

I have a body shop. It is hard to say without looking at the car, but their paint times are way out of line, I think they are trying to take advantage. My estimating system give you 2.0 for the rear cover, 1.8 for the lid, 2.0 for each quarter. Blend times chop the time in half, figure about .4 per panel for clear, and at the most .5 per panel for buffing, and if the shop is high end they won't need that much to buff because the paint should come out pretty dirt free. 4.0 is about right for overhaul on the rear cover. If I could get that much for our jobs (we are at $70 an hr) I would be driving a turbo. If you have any other questions let me kno

 

Aaron,
As you are a pro and a 993 owner, I appreciate your response.
Is it possible to repair the bumper covers if they are damaged,i.e. cracked from light impact or do they have to be replaced?
Thanks
Tom <img src="graemlins/wave.gif" border="0" alt="[byebye]" />

 

It depends, if they are torn and no pieces are missing you can plastic weld. Most bumper refurbishers don't work on Porsche bumpers anymore. My front is looking a little wavy, and I tried to send it out to get repaired and they said they no longer offer exchanges due to the fact that bumper are so flimsy they can't get all the waves out (front ones especially). Hopefully this helps.

Aaron

 

Here is a funny body shop story. I was hit in the left front fender forward of the wheel pretty hard in the CMP Club Race. I ordered a new euro RS bumper cover to get rid of the rubber bumperettes, fender, lights... The body shop cut the new bumper cover to re install the rubber bumpers! I dropped the car off on Monday mid morning and the car was done today, Wednesday, by 11:00 am. The paint work is beautiful, the cost of labor and paint work was 970.00. Sounded pretty reasonable to me. To bad they converted my RS to a US. Oh well next time I crash we will fix it.

 

I replaced my rear bumper cover and one tail light 2 months ago (put the Euro cover on) and it was 6.2 hours labor total at $65 hr. Cost of the paint was $70.

Note that my bumper only had a small crack (someone hit me in a parking lot) but no shop would bother with repairing it. Since I was only paying my $500 deductible and figured I was getting the Euro cover (thanks Gert ), I went for it.

 

Thanks for all the feedback...sounds like I need to get a second opinion!
Evan