Body shop
- Thread starter Monkeyed
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Mr.Lopar
Well-Known Member
make sure they will cut out the rust and replace with new sheetmetal and not just bondo em up
and if you take it to macco, I would pull all the lights,trim ect off before bringing it to em else they'll just tape em off and leave ugly tape lines around the chrome
and if you take it to macco, I would pull all the lights,trim ect off before bringing it to em else they'll just tape em off and leave ugly tape lines around the chrome
Jack Meoff
Mopar Maniac
X2
Body work........the pain.......
I have three cars to do this year. :angry5:
Body work........the pain.......
I have three cars to do this year. :angry5:
Jack Meoff
Mopar Maniac
Body work is an art.
The difference between a good paint job and an outstanding one is prep
A good shop will do it right.
The rest is up to your prep by taking everything off
Or one hell of a taper.
A buddy of mine is a taping artist.....he's brilliant and a gifted painter.
I suspect the Maaco guys to be neither.
So the more you do to make it right the better.
Some Maaco's are supposedly not to bad.....but definitely not all.
I spent roughly 16 weekends prepping my Caravelle...mind you that car needed work.
Point being I spent a long time on prep
Relatively speaking......
It took the paint shop an hour....two tops to paint it.
The difference between a good paint job and an outstanding one is prep
A good shop will do it right.
The rest is up to your prep by taking everything off
Or one hell of a taper.
A buddy of mine is a taping artist.....he's brilliant and a gifted painter.
I suspect the Maaco guys to be neither.
So the more you do to make it right the better.
Some Maaco's are supposedly not to bad.....but definitely not all.
I spent roughly 16 weekends prepping my Caravelle...mind you that car needed work.
Point being I spent a long time on prep
Relatively speaking......
It took the paint shop an hour....two tops to paint it.
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brotherGood
Well-Known Member
Wow..every body shop I got to quote my car shortly after I got it, estimated around 4-5k for JUST THE BODYWORK. I thought they meant paint too...and I looked at the guy and asked if he was going to paint with real gold, and he said it was just body work, and I couldn't help but bust out laughing. Im not putting 10 times the purchase price of the car, just into bodywork. Especially when I wont get anywhere near that out of it.
Jack Meoff
Mopar Maniac
Good body work requires time....time is money.
Especially shop time.
$5K would be average......with paint.
If you think about the work involved to do it right.
From grind it down to skim and sand to tape and paint
That's a lot of work involved.....hence the price tag.
If you don't mind an okay job that'll bubble in a few years there's cheapo shops around too...
But.....also consider that some people are nuts.....like me
When my Caravelle is finally done....if ever.....the tag will probably be in and around $10,000.....realistically probably $12,000
When it's done I'd be lucky to get $4000.
But......I ain't selling.
jasperjacko
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I used Maaco one time and will NEVER do it again. It depends on your goal for the car though. I did all the body work,and prime and wet sand. All they had to do was mask the glass and tack it off......They took a D A sander to it and put more swirls than a milkshake in it. The "painter" didn't open the fuel filler door, and must have had a bad back, as the paint got thinner as you moved toward the rockers. Zero paint applied to the rockers. At the time, the level I was supposed to get was about 1000.00 but on sale for half off. I think the fine print said they left half the paint off! Argued with the manager for a repaint, he said no. He wouldn't give me my car until I paid for it. It was time and money down the drain.
jasperjacko
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Capn' is right . Good work cost money. And good paint costs quite a bit. I've had quotes from 3500-12000! to paint my car. Some guys don't want to do resto work so they give insane prices. My car has zero rust, minimal dings, and original paint, and those are the prices I'm hearing.Good luck with your project though.
brotherGood
Well-Known Member
Yeah, but they weren't even going to paint, or disassemble anything on the car..just do the bodywork.
Jack Meoff
Mopar Maniac
Find another shop.
brotherGood
Well-Known Member
Lol..that's why I just turned and walked away. We'll be doing the bodywork at home, and trailering it to dads HS friend who paints on the side. He's good..Lol
alf44
Well-Known Member
im nuts, but not nuts enough to pay others my money. im doing my own body work, made quarter panels, bought rockers, patch here ,patch there,,patches everywhere !! lol.im going to try painting the car myself as my primer job looked good. now will she have a show car paint job?? no .i hope to have her look like a 20 footer. i know SOME others at shows will say it looks like crap but who cares what they think. there is only 2 people i need to please when its done.. me and the wifey !!!
ramenth
Well-Known Member
I used to get price comparisons when I owned the restoration shop. Guys would come to me and ask for a restoration. Mind you this was over ten years ago when the price of materials was lower. It was an easy $10,000 just to strip the car down to a rolling shell, take it back to bare metal, and paint it. Rust repair, parts, panels cost extra. Wanted it on the rotisserie? Cost another $5000 just to bolt it up. Again, parts, panels, rust, repair cost extra. Engine and suspension detailing cost extra. Rebuilding engine and transmission? Even more. Interior and soft trim detailing was included in the cost. Interior and soft trim replacement and repair cost extra.
There was always related parts cost. Why go through all that work to reuse dry rotted weatherstripping or cat whiskers that had been taking a beating for 30 years? And the customer always wanted chroming and trim restoration. A cosmetic restoration could easily turn into $15-$20K worth of work. A full boogey rotisserie restoration could easily turn into $30-$50K.
These guys would go to a body shop and get a quote for a paint job for $2-3K and then come back to me and ask why I was so expensive. I'd always ask 'em, "why is the other guy so cheap?" A lot of times I wouldn't be able to buy all the paint materials I would use in a restoration for $2-3K and put it in the trunk of the car.
Body work is a time consuming job, especially when you're dealing with someone who expects the benefits of the cost. Since I was charging ten grand, no expected tape lines (as a matter of fact, even for a basic paint job I still will tape as little as possible. Tape lines leave a hard line that will peel. Best job is to remove anything you have to tape... including glass.), body panels with "perfect" alignment (within exception... headlight buckets on an early Mustang never fit and when you see one in the magazines that do... the fender has seriously been messaged.) And then you get into warranties. Most body shops will not guarantee rust repair. I did. I was never a bondo shop. Filler should be used only at the absolute minimum (like filling the odd grinder mark... to take the wave out of a panel out came the necessary body tools). Why? Because even at a minimum, filler will crack under extreme weather conditions. (Most guys don't have heated showrooms to display a car in.)
I gotta stop writing now... It's making me wanna run to the bank and borrow money to open another restoration shop.
There was always related parts cost. Why go through all that work to reuse dry rotted weatherstripping or cat whiskers that had been taking a beating for 30 years? And the customer always wanted chroming and trim restoration. A cosmetic restoration could easily turn into $15-$20K worth of work. A full boogey rotisserie restoration could easily turn into $30-$50K.
These guys would go to a body shop and get a quote for a paint job for $2-3K and then come back to me and ask why I was so expensive. I'd always ask 'em, "why is the other guy so cheap?" A lot of times I wouldn't be able to buy all the paint materials I would use in a restoration for $2-3K and put it in the trunk of the car.
Body work is a time consuming job, especially when you're dealing with someone who expects the benefits of the cost. Since I was charging ten grand, no expected tape lines (as a matter of fact, even for a basic paint job I still will tape as little as possible. Tape lines leave a hard line that will peel. Best job is to remove anything you have to tape... including glass.), body panels with "perfect" alignment (within exception... headlight buckets on an early Mustang never fit and when you see one in the magazines that do... the fender has seriously been messaged.) And then you get into warranties. Most body shops will not guarantee rust repair. I did. I was never a bondo shop. Filler should be used only at the absolute minimum (like filling the odd grinder mark... to take the wave out of a panel out came the necessary body tools). Why? Because even at a minimum, filler will crack under extreme weather conditions. (Most guys don't have heated showrooms to display a car in.)
I gotta stop writing now... It's making me wanna run to the bank and borrow money to open another restoration shop.
Jack Meoff
Mopar Maniac
Let me know when you do......
NY ain't that far from me.
You really do get what you pay for in most cases.
Some questionable shops will just throw a high number at you because they don't really want to bother with your oldie.
A lot of quickie ships are "get 'em in, get'em out" and buy bondo by the truck load.
Do your homework before you give anybody your money.
If you're really planning in doing it yourself you best have a very knowledgeable guy on your team.
Having lunch while your car flash rusts alone will cause big issues....
There are many more than that to be encountered along the way without proper knowledge.
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alf44
Well-Known Member
its not that i think im so good to do it myself,,,very far from that.i dont make enough money to pay a pro to do the work i want, so i have 2 ways to go about it... 1 is to do nothing and watch my car rot away. 2nd is to try and learn from people on here and others and to do the best i can with the few mental and hand tools i have. it will never be perfect. but it will be done by my hands for the good or bad of it.
Jack Meoff
Mopar Maniac
Sorry Alf...that was actually meant for brothergood.
I did my Caravelle myself and was lucky enough to have a very knowledgeable body guy coach me AND let me use his tools and shop.
Any help I can possibly offer I will gladly....
Mr.Lopar
Well-Known Member
Im glad i got a close friend that paints and showed me how to do bodywork
ramenth
Well-Known Member
I usually keep my mouth shut when it comes to offering advice on body work as a lot of guys in my line of work and I have don't see eye to eye on a lot of things.
One thing I keep reading, over and over and over again on the internet is the use of epoxy primer. I won't waste my money and time on it and I don't advocate my customers waste time and money on it. But the internet "experts" keep telling me I'm wrong, so I must be wrong.
alf44
Well-Known Member
if it works for you ,you are not wrong !
ramenth
Well-Known Member
It's just I get tired of hitting my head against a brick wall when I'm the one lone voice in a sea of voices.
Seriously, though, there is a better primer out there for body work. Epoxy has it's places, like the bottom of a car if it's being undercoated, but I won't spray it on a panel I know will be seeing paint.
