ok, let me re-phrase. do you think A shop (not you stephen), like MOST shops (again, not implying it is you, stephen) deserve to see $46 an hour just to scuff a hood down and spray it? because i can pretty much guarantee you MOST shops (and lastly, not implying you, stephen) would simply rub down the clear and base/clear it. this is the general practice, i have seen it done time and time again. and then you even get the 'reputable' shop that just sands the clear down and blends in some base and goes to town with the clear-this to me is just flat out ridiculous.

i certainly do not.

now... the guy thats out there on his hands and knees blocking out some filler and making the body absolutely perfect.. that is a different story. this guy definitely deserves his money.

that shop that quoted $500 for just labor on top of a brand new hood has got to be the best in the business. id love to see their work. but in reality, they are retarded. it is a cavalier, now unless anthony specifically said he wanted it perfect with zero orange peel, fish eyes, or otherwise flawed this place was flat out trying to rip you off.

i personally believe the automotive field to be way overpriced. most people who work on cars are good at it, or at least... should be. so i do not see why such high prices are out there. sure working on cars can suck... but when you have a lift, nice air tools and a bunch of other guys standing around for knowledge purposes to help out when needed, i dont see how it is so difficult.

my dad has busted his hump for over 40 years working on cars, he charges less than half of what a dealership would get for work and does just as good of job as they would do. he mostly just builds engines but does r and r work every once n awhile and i gotta admitt, it would suck ass to do that all the time where he does it. but like i said.. if you've got great resources why would it be such a big deal?

its not rocket science, its cars. plain and simple.

this is absolutely the reason i will never get into working on cars for a living. i feel that washing/detailing cars (at the rate i do during the day) takes just as much effort as it would take to say do oil changes, brakes, tune-ups etc, yet i am stuck making peanuts while these 'car experts' are painting cars and working on cars for absolutely ludicrous fees and labor costs.

granted, i realize i am not an expert on this type of thing, because well.. i have never had to make a living off of mechanic and or body work, but id like to think after seeing all the crap my dad has gone through over the years that i would at least know a little something about this stuff.

and i am not trying to down-play the work you guys do, stephen. i know its tedius, and i also know you've got to have talent and good equipment in order to get paint just right. i just do not feel it is worth that much freaking money. i could see an air brush artist or a restore guy making that kind of cash, but not the lowly grunt scuffing down a hood and shooting it with low grade, low cost bc cc like 90% of shops do.



I must confess... I feel like a monster!

Stephen (manta z) wrote:

z yaaaa wrote:either way.. body shops charges are ridiculous. i can almost guarantee if they got a used hood they would just scuff it down and shoot it. which is easy as fawk.

paint probably costs MAYBE $50 to do a hood.

Yes brad my job is so @!#$ easy anyone can do it like nothing... and I don't just scuff it and shot it, i don't know what sort of body/painters you hang around but that isn't @!#$ it. and you do realize that labor hr is $46/hr.. at least here anyway, its mandated in the city of Fort Wayne all body shops have to charge the same hourly rate per labor hour.. so down in Indy it could actually be more or less depending on the shop, i don't know their laws and guidelines in indy. and your wrong, materials alone come in at $120.. Clear isn't cheap, not to mention the masking material, sand paper, etc.. For any of you @!#$s who don't believe me or believe the quotes here is my Original estimate.. nice little tidbit.. this was back in July...

Estimate page 1
Estimate page 2

$120 seems cheap to me honestly. Price out Deltron/Concept for the hood and at least for me going into the local paint store it's gonna cost more than $120. Pint of DBC cost me $50 when I had my spoiler repainted. Luckily the guy who painted it is my dad's neighbor with his own shop across the street so I didn't have to pay for labor or clear.

@!#$ kids.

zyaaa i can see where you are coming from but remember that the quotes are from businesses, not an individual trying to help me out like manta was. and they were estimates. a business has all that stuff calculated out so that they know what they have to charge and they get away with it. no way would i pay a grand to get a new hood and have it painted on a cavalier. but what if it was a nicer car, might be worth it. but they know exactly where they can charge more and make a profit to outweigh all the costs for the shop and what not. some of those shops are really nice, you should see the place where that $1000 quote came from. its like an auto makeover mansion. and they do quality work but you have to imagine that some of that money goes into the shop, like i said, covering all other costs, not just paying the guy who did the work. body work is expensive, i wish it was cheaper, my car would be dentless and spotless if it was. but i can't afford to pay all the extra costs incurred when taking it to a place like that, where some of your money goes to paying off the sweet shop. sure it is called labor, but does all that money you pay really go to the worker? doubt it. you know what i'm sayin?

yup. gotcha, man.

i hope it work out for you, i really do.



I must confess... I feel like a monster!

i guess the VP of that ebay company just email mark. hoping for a solution soon.

I'm glad to see this getting resolved...slowly, but at least it's finally coming together.

Hate to burst your bubble Brad but just because a shop charges a lot of money does not mean the tech is making a lot. Last dealer I was at my flat rate pay was $19.50/Hr. The dealer charged $96/Hr. That extra labor charge went to cover operation of the showroom, service advisor pay, service manager pay, money in teh owners pocket, and administrative costs. $19.50 may seem like a lot but when you consider health insurance cost, tool cost, and other work related cost, and then factor in the number of hours you get paid for it isnt very much pay at the end of teh week. I left the dealers because I couldnt afford to stay. In 07 I had quite a few weeks where my actual wage earned per hour I was at work was around $3.50/hr. Does $19.50/flat rate Hr. still sound like a greedy tech?


Sorry for the mini rant.

I make 45% of what the customer pays. 5% goes to my manager, 50% goes to the company. I think that's probably pretty commonplace.

brad $45 bucks is probalby on the low end. go to true custom shops with high end quality work and your going to look at $100 an hour or more. do you think its worth it? maybe not. but apparently enough people do believe its worth it or they wouldnt be getting it. and as said above you have to realise that the guy doing the work unless he owns the shop is probalby getting about half of what is being charged hourly. and not sure where you go to a doctor, but they are making wayyyy more then 50 bucks an hour. but then again this is the org where people dont want to pay anywhere near what things are worth in the real world. hell you see it all the time in the interior/audio. someone wants to make fiberglass pieces, things that may take them 20 hours to do and people balk when someone wants to charge more then a hundred bucks for. hell thats the main reason i never started taking on jobs on the side because my time isn't worth working $15 buck an hour on some project for some kid who thinks im trying to rip him off. qualty costs. your option is to learn how to do it yourself or man up and pay for someone who can.



believe me, ive been thru about 4-5 painters in my time, doing great paint work is a high end skill and not everyone has it. i see shops out there that i look at there work and they are charging $40+ for their time and i go. wow i would never let them touch my car. quality costs money. and some people want high quality regardless if its a lambo or a cavalier. just because its not a high end car doesnt mean he should just accept poor quality parts.


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The ebay company double charged mark for the shipping so they only gave him back $150 which leaves me with $133.80 after paypal fees. Got the money transferred today.

i never said he should accept poor quality. i meant just what i said... unless he specifically tells them he wants it perfect they are just going to say 'well its just a cavalier' and do some mediocre work.

i also mentioned that i knew painting took talent and the best equipment to get just right. and i even said i believed that professional restoration shops deserve all the money they got.

anthony-that sucks man. so i guess it's over and done with then?


Edited 1 time(s). Last edited Thursday, October 22, 2009 10:45 PM


I must confess... I feel like a monster!

i guess. not much more i could do without sinking any of my own money into it.

z yaaaa wrote:i never said he should accept poor quality. i meant just what i said... unless he specifically tells them he wants it perfect they are just going to say 'well its just a cavalier' and do some mediocre work.

i also mentioned that i knew painting took talent and the best equipment to get just right. and i even said i believed that professional restoration shops deserve all the money they got.

anthony-that sucks man. so i guess it's over and done with then?

if they said "well its a cavalier" they they arn't a quality shop. any shop should put out there best work no matter what car its on. body shops are built on the work they do and the reputation they get from it. if they are doing mediocre work because its a cavalier they are a hack shop .





sorry to hear that anthony. sounds like you just got screwed over in general. and sounds like mark trying to minimise his costs to fix the problem got screwed as well in the end.


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^^^ yeah? welcome to the real world. hack shops are out there thick as thieves.

jason, you are just like me. you check out the work beforehand. you demand a good, quality job and a nice place. so i can understand where you are coming from seeing as how you've always gotten good work for the most part. however, i do remember you having issues with you're paint matching a few body shops ago. (before the flame job). and it's not something i just noticed one day, i remember you telling us about it.



I must confess... I feel like a monster!

That is what happens when you panel paint.. you will see a difference no matter what with most colors. due to there are actually 7 variations of the color Ultra Silver Metallic in our computer.. So that means there is at least 7 different shades of the silver to pick, dealing with differences of metallic layout, metallic coarse or fine, flop, or even just the straight on silver.. It could also be they did a drop coat on silver meaning more metallic on the top layer of paint, meaning more light shining on the metallic making it appear brighter.. Its amazing what you can do with metallics just by spraying a heavier coat of base allowing the metallic to "sink" into the color more allowing it to appear darker..or applying your drop coat heavier or lighter to change the brightness.. If they were going to paint it to match they would be wanting to blend some color into the base parts(fenders, 1/4s and doors..) but then again, Plastic NEVER seems to look the same as metal panels.. I don't know exactly why but hell even insurance companies will not pay someone to blend in a bumper.. or rarely can you get a bumper to not look a different shade from the fenders/ quarter panel(using the same paint) They could of blended Jason's doors, fenders and 1/4 panels using the same paint they used on the kit and it most likely still would of been different.. You cant really compare jason's kit to this situation.. I also believe they painted it without the car though as well.. i could be mistaken though.

meh. im not a fan of blending. its my opinion that if you are going through the trouble of all that you might as well just paint the whole damn car and get it over with. just as jason finally did.

ive heard silver is the hardest color to match. black the easiest.







I must confess... I feel like a monster!

yeah i had issues, and that was with the car being at the shop and the painter having the car to work with, thats why i was saying having someone paint a black hood that couldnt see the car is likely to have issues.


my issues though was more about saving a few bucks, painting the car in stages like i did, it was just resprayed to go over the stuff i had shaved. i didnt want to do it, but it was spend some money to have the car looking halfway decent for that year, or to run around with primer on spots until i had the cash to get the thing redone. i could have save more money by just driving around in primer for the year, but that would have nixed that show season, and i just hate driving around in primer lol


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I would only like to add a helpful opinion, based upon my own experience...as one might imagine, my company's been involved in so many cars over the years, we've had a lot of chances to fix nicks, dents, and dings. It's been an inevitable cost of doing business.

If this were my car, I'd take it to my trusted local body shop and let them have at it. They'd fix the hood and make the paint work as unnoticeable as possible, which means invisible based on their skill level. I would not be able to tell the difference from brand new.

Sure, the hood would no longer be "perfect" in that it would have some body filler in it. Nonetheless, the appearance and blending would be more than acceptable when done. It's really the path of least resistance and best overall results, and one need look no farther than this thread to understand why it's usually always the best route.



Bill Hahn Jr.
Hahn RaceCraft

World's Quickest and Fastest Street J-Bodies
Turbocharging GM FWD's since 1988
www.turbosystem.com

z yaaaa wrote:meh. im not a fan of blending. its my opinion that if you are going through the trouble of all that you might as well just paint the whole damn car and get it over with. just as jason finally did.

ive heard silver is the hardest color to match. black the easiest.

I understand your concept.. but its not cost effect in collision repair or to most people's opinion.. as long as its not noticeable they are happy... if someone had to replace the fender its just not a good intention to be like, well just repaint the whole car.. you can end up with more issues.. but its preference.. if someone hit you in your car, your insurance wont pay for them to repaint the entire car, just damaged areas and blend panels.. so either ur paying for out of pocket to pay for the whole car to get painted or your living with getting the paint blended.

silver can be a bitch. That light beige metallic GM loves using and Toyota has a similar have been the worst i've noticed.

you guys must have better body shops out there because i see cars out here constantly that have no blended panels. and i see mis-matched paint A LOT working for hertz especially. i will never buy a rental car, and for anybody ever considering doing so, DON'T. aside from the cheap paint work that gets done, they also change the oil every 7500-10,000 miles.

90% of shops around here just fix the damaged piece and get it out the door.



I must confess... I feel like a monster!

I hear ya, but with all due respect...repairs for a car rental company are not indicative of the skills and care available at a good body shop. Blending is an art, and it's worth finding a shop that has the skills to do it well.


Bill Hahn Jr.
Hahn RaceCraft

World's Quickest and Fastest Street J-Bodies
Turbocharging GM FWD's since 1988
www.turbosystem.com

Brad I can't say i don't see people panel painting, but most the time that is because they didn't want to pay for it. I can almost guarantee that 80% of the @!#$ty paint work you see is due to the customer wanting it cheaply done. Some people come in asking if we can just fix the fender and leave it at that, it doesn't look the greatest but it is what the customer wanted. Hell i had a lady that came in, she backed into her car with her husbands truck, creased her 1/4 panel and the paint was flaking off, bare metal showing, it would of been hell to fix. Probably would of needed to section the 1/4 panel. but all she wanted us to do was clear it so it wouldn't rust lmao.

Like bill said, blending isn't easy. It takes a lot of practice to get it to work right. You basically have to come up with a technique to trick the eye. You cant paint and just stop and its hard to explain but if you try blending stopping in the same area creating a straight up and down area on a panel it will be noticeable, the eye can pick up a semi-visible line where the paint color just changes. I personally do like a < or V method of blending. Doesn't make sense to you but probably would to someone who knows how to blend. but that way its near impossible for the eye to see the color difference because its not a straight area of color change.

Bill Hahn Jr. wrote:I hear ya, but with all due respect...repairs for a car rental company are not indicative of the skills and care available at a good body shop. Blending is an art, and it's worth finding a shop that has the skills to do it well.

um i agree. i never said its not worth finding a good shop.

its just my personal preferance i would never blend a panel, id just spend the extra money to have the panel done correctly. to me it is just pointless. you've already sanded the clear off and you are painting the base, why not just spray the entire section and get it over with?

either way this goes back to what i was saying about most body shops just sanding the clear off and spotting in and re-clearing. ive seen clear just flake right off because of this crap. it is not good practice.

stephen- when you guys blend panels, do you ever have issues with the clear staying on?



I must confess... I feel like a monster!

blending is usually the best and most corect way. as said, just painting the panel chances are your going to notice a diffrence from one panel to the next. when we are talking about blending were not saying just spot paint the two holes and then be done. were talking about painting the entire hood and then blending the paint down onto the fenders and bumper so there is no distinguishable diffrence.

if you just paint say the entire fender to match up to the hood, now how will the fender and the door match up? thats the issue. so you blend the paint from the hood onto the fender but the back of the fender stays the same so it still matches up with the door and the hood section matces up with the fender and then the seperation is done in the middle of the fender so your eyes dont notice the change.


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