Whats a good price???
We're ready to paint. Its a 71 vert. Body is perfect except for some spiderwebbing around the tail lights. Existing paint is Shi**y!! This guy who owns a collision repair shop said he would paint, wet sand between coats and "make it concourse show ready".
We're gonna go with Mulsane blue metallic with a little violet ghost pearl.
The guy said $5 grand. half up fron half when done. may take 3 weeks to a month.

Is this a reasonable price? He's gonna have to remove the chrome, door panels and seal off the engine compt, sand existing paint, prime and paint and install new weatherstrip (that I'll provide).

Note: and I'll discuss this with him this weekend when I show him the car and look at his shop: If I remove the door panels I'll probably never get them back on because the two screw holes behind the door handles are stripped and the screws that are in there now are muscle fu**ed in there. So I'm going to see if he can drill and tap. I'll probably wind up removing all the chrome.
Thanks in advance for your inputs.

 

Assuming he does as good of a job as he claims, and it's quality paint, then that is actually a very good deal.

 

Ok, so whats a quality paint?? I assume you're referring to the brand, like PPG or Dupont???

 

Yep. Those are good paints.

 

A claim to "make it concourse show ready" would scare me unless I have seen a lot of his work.

5k is a good price especially if he is going to do the following:
strip trim
strip paint
minor body work
2k primer
block sand
2k primer
block sand
sealer primer
wetsand
base coat x3
clear coat x3
wetsand
(optional clear coat again x3)
wetsand
buff

The shop asking for cash up front, even if its half would also scare me. If the shop isnt established enough to cover the cost of materials (roughly 2k +/-) then I dont think he should be doing business (strictly my opinion). When he takes your car in for work the car alone should stand as collateral that you would pay when finished upon your approval.

If for 5k all you get is the following I would pass:
strip trim
strip paint (sand down)
primer
base
clear

The wetsanding between coats is something we dont do unless he means paint/clear wetsand/ re clear then I understand that. I wouldnt recommend sanding in between base coats before the clear especially if its a metallic. He might be talking about wetsanding between the base and the ghost pearl but from your description it sounds like he is going to add the ghost pearl to the muslane blue.

Check his shop and check past work and talk to past customers. He should be willing to give this information up freely if he isnt trying to hide anything.

Good luck!

 

You might try posting this in the Body/Paint section.
Also, this has been asked there before so you can look what has been said.

 

No need to post anywhere else.

Jake just addressed your questions. He's the man! Ask anyone who got their car painted by him!

 

I'm relaying everything he told the wife so there may be some stuff lost in translation. He's gonna add the pearl when and where ever its supposed to be added. I'll know more when I talk to him either friday or saturday. I gather from reading your post that you know quite a bit about painting so maybe I can use some of what you said to ask him questions??? and I appreciate the advice.

 

No problem, its always better to ask questions up front.

I know a little, but not a lot by any stretch of the imagination. Im not a painter or body man but im around it a good bit and know a lot of qualified guys that I ask plenty of questions to everyday hahaha.

Good luck!

 

See if you can see some of his previous work.

 

I don't know if Jake knows what he is talking about or not but he is doing a hell of a job on my car!

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1932412

Since you are Tennessee I would take it to Jake, as mentioned in an earlier post I have seen pics of the other cars he has done and I can't wait to see mine done. I trailered mine up from Texas and he has treated it like it was his own!

 

I wouldn't be worried about having to provide some money up front, although half seems a little high. However, the money shouldnt' be for materials as much as it should be a deposit on labor.

I know the guys at my local Corvette shop and the local Hot Rod shop really well and they talk about two types of bad experiences.
1 - People who want to pay after the work is completed and pay in installments. They both stopped allowing this because they generally didn't get 1-2 payments out of 10.
2 - People starting down one path and then changing direction. So the estimate goes from 5K to 15K or 25K and the customer signs off. Then upon delivery doesn't want to pay because 16.5K isn't the original 5K and they only want to pay 11K. It was the customers decision to change the scope of work and they had an updated estimate but want to 'negociate' after the work is done, labor expended, etc.
So to eliminate some of these issues they take a deposit and then when/if the scope of work adjusts drastically they re-estimate and require more deposit.

For longer term restoration work they both require payment along the way. That way they don't wind up with 50K in parts and labor that the owner can't afford on a car only worth 20K. In that situation even if the owner gave them the title for they car they've lost 30K.


Consider these shops have to pay their people regardless of when you pay your bill, but have net 30/60/90 days on many/most supplies.

 

That sounds like a good price considering the amount of work to be done. The above posts offer some good advice.

One thing you should do is set a reasonable time limit for the car to be finished (in writing), some shops set the car aside after recieving it and starting it and its months to a year I've heard on some people getting them back, some contractors pull the same thing to keep work piled up.
Good luck w/it.