Body shop paint jobs for hobbyists vs insurance companies.

[SteveSS]

It seems to me insurance companies get better deals on paintwork at a body shop compared to what si quoted for us normal guys asking for paintwork.

 

[#41]

That's because body shops know what a can of worms an old car will be, and how picky the owners usually are. They are just pricing what the the actual scope of the work will be.

 

[1967coronet]

Insurance companies set the rates.
I could go through a long description of what the insurance companies do rate wise.
But it boils down to they set the rates if you want to do insurance jobs.

 

[eldubb440]

apples and oranges...... repairing body and paint on a late model car is a walk in the park compared to a 50 year old husk that's been through the wringer

 

[Outsider]

Insurance companies are a for profit business, will not go upside down on a car for sentimental reasons, and are willing to call it a total, and scrap it if the numbers don't add up.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

I have a couple regular customers that bring me a lot of work... I give them better pricing than a man who walks in wanting a one time job... Pretty simple repeat customers get preferential treatment...

 

[Dave6T4]

It is getting harder and harder to find a shop locally here in Ontario to even look at doing an old car restoration. Collision work is easier with just panel replacements, and the insurance companies pay up. The fella that did my '64 Polara did an excellent job (actually better than I wanted him to). He mainly likes to restore old tractors and gasoline pumps, but will take in the odd old car project. His most recent project is a 1969 Road Runner A12 clone. I think it had been raced a lot in past years, and a lot of stuff is kinked a little bit. It sounds like this guy is **** about panel fitment. He even made up his own gauges to check door, fender gaps, etc. He has an aftermarket A12 fiberglass hood that must fit perfectly. I had a factory A12 hood on my 1969 SuperBee, and they did not fit very well from new! In short, this guy is driving my friend, Ken, crazy. Ken says this is the last car he will do. He says tractors don't have door gaps. He has tractor customers lined up to get their machines done. Many of these customers are well-to-do farmers, and can write some of the cost of restoration off against their farming operation.
Our car club was fortunate enough to tour the new automotive trades teaching centre at Fanshawe College in nearby London, Ontario. They have a huge body shop area with all the latest tricks of the trade. We were surprised to find that rust repair is not even taught there! Everything is all about panel straightening and replacement. They don't even weld very much, using automotive epoxies to attach panels, instead.
I guess the lesson here is; if you have a good guy willing to work on your old car, don't abuse him. If you show up to check on your car, bring him a coffee or a donut. Let him know you appreciate his help.

 

[68BabyBlue]

In my area, it has always been two separate markets. The mainstream shops limit their work to insurance jobs. I have a buddy who used to run the shop at the Ford dealership, and he would do anything to avoid full body paint work, even on late models. There have always been a couple small shops that do restoration type work, but they have always charged a premium, though reasonable by national standards. Top guy in the area has been doing show winning paint for $6000.

My GTX got new sheet metal and paint from the top independent in the area back in 1981, even though the car was owned by the local Plymouth dealer, who had a major body shop.

 

[Ron H]

Body shop near me does insurance work as their consistent method of revenue and does old cars on the side. Today they decline more work on old vehicles; just too much on their plate. Father/son place doing fantastic work. Don’t know how they keep up as they’ve had bad luck finding employees. Got to know them after they did work on my Plymouth. They also have 25 vehicles they’ve been working on time allowing. The ones they have been working on have sat for years in various phases of resto. The dad is pushing 70 and don’t know how long he can keep it up and can barely walk thru their shop. Last time they had my Dakota they were doing their best to get to it for prep/painting.

Volunteered to do the prep and they didn’t hesitate to take me up on the offer and did a few chores for them the couple days I spent there. Saved me about $1200 on the work. Said they liked my work; but was too slow!

 

[69a100]

Most body shops will only do insurance work as it's their bread & butter, everything else is just gravy that they don't want to deal with! That's why there are specialty shops!

 

[ckessel]

Doing work on old cars compared to newer ones are apples to oranges. Old stuff is pretty much guaranteed to have had prior piss poor work done on them courtesy of prior owners with alligator arms or shifty shops shafting the customer. You can't keep piling on paint to cover up issues. I've found from dealing with most customers on old cars and associates who have them that when they say a body/paint job doesn't have to be show quality are lying. They want concourse work so they can collect trophies and bragging rights but don't want to pay for what's TRULY NEEDED to do it correctly. Remember, whoever does the work is signing it. When someone asks who did it, you tell them it was ..... and the shop does not want the rep for crap work. Old car restoration/repair/paint is a whole other ball game. There are many issues hidden under that fresh coat of lipstick. It's a rarity if you get out of having to deal with rust issues on both outer/inner panels and structural areas. The only way you will truly know what you are dealing with is to strip the car. Paint/old mud/undercoating/interior etc. This is the realm of specialty shops and not production body shops. If you are concerned about the cost factor, learn how to do as much of the background work as possible to help alleviate costs. Or learn how to do more of the actual work. Also look at bartering. You have a skill that someone else could use and vice versa. If not, pay up.

 

[Ron H]

True. Being around experienced body shop guys, learned a good deal from them on how to find defects. Lol, when prepping my truck, the owner would come by to inspect my work. He’d say “See that indent there?” “Sorry Al, not seeing it.” “Well, ya won’t where your standing, stoop down and move over there to look”. Very inconspicuous but yep, there it was. In his shop was a ’67 GTO that looked nice at first, then he started pointing out one defect then a bunch more “See, here, here, and over there? Was a crap job the poor guy had done on it and he paid over 10 grand for this work 3 years ago.” As he pointed it out it became obvious.

A TON of patience and desire to prep right. Crap prep will not be hidden well with a nice paint job.

 

[Dave6T4]

Here's how mine went off to the body shop. A lot of work here first. This was after front and trunk floor, rear quarter replacement.

 

[747mopar]

I've done a few totals on late models and restorations on the old stuff, if I did it for a living I'd definitely charge way more for the old stuff. 40+ years worth of dents, rust, multiple layers of paint, cob jobs, strip and paint EVERYTHING typically plus like mentioned us old car guys expect perfection.... late model totals you just replace or repair the damaged panels and paint just the damaged areas. Anyone who has never restored and painted a 40+ year old car will never understand the intense amount of work it takes and mine aren't close to perfect.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

True. Being around experienced body shop guys, learned a good deal from them on how to find defects. Lol, when prepping my truck, the owner would come by to inspect my work. He’d say “See that indent there?” “Sorry Al, not seeing it.” “Well, ya won’t where your standing, stoop down and move over there to look”. Very inconspicuous but yep, there it was. In his shop was a ’67 GTO that looked nice at first, then he started pointing out one defect then a bunch more “See, here, here, and over there? Was a crap job the poor guy had done on it and he paid over 10 grand for this work 3 years ago.” As he pointed it out it became obvious.

A TON of patience and desire to prep right. Crap prep will not be hidden well with a nice paint job.

The ability to see flaws is a blessing and at the same time a curse.... Forty years ago I would go to the Grand National Roadster show and practically every car was a Wow!! Now I go to shows of that caliber & there will be 2-3 cars that are amazing & a bunch of stuff I see as nice drivers... Not that theres anything wrong with a nice driver.... After achieving a couple wow cars I see it as a waste of time & a subject of more stress than I care to deal with... Give me a driver thank you very much...

 

[Ron H]

waste of time & a subject of more stress than I care to deal with... Give me a driver thank you very much..

Agree, for 20 + years, my old Plymouth was a nice driver, it was CA so not much rust, though some more than visible when restoring it. Still, got a lot of thumbs-ups and some awards at shows (when there was little competition for my era ride, lol). Ran well, so much so held off rebuilding motor for years. Used to take it out more often for errands…now being all gussied up, more concerned about it getting dinged in a parking lot. Who won here? Lol

 

[ckessel]

When it's body/paint time for mine, I'm not going to get **** on gaps and trying to make perfect. Paint will be the same. I want it as nice as I can make it, since it's DIY, plus I don't want a trailer/trophy/garage queen. It's going to get rock chips and possibly some other issues as I plan on auto-x and some track events. If I get a trophy at a show, its icing on the cake as thats not the reason it got entered. Its all about the fun and interaction with others.

 

[Detective D]

I can't speak for other places, but I can for WI.
We have a couple types of body shops around here.
The pro shop that does insurance work, really, really, doesn't want their guys to mess with an old car. Partly because it takes too long, and partly because they know maybe one guy of their crew knows how and he is busy. They make money fixing the cars that hit the deer. Headlight, grill, bent hood, dent in door... $7k turn it around in two days and cash the insurance check.

Then you have the old car shops. They advertise they do old cars. They have years of experiance. They have those years, because they started in the late 80's, and then retired boomers paid them GONZO dollars from their retirments to fix their dream car in the 90's. Remember $250k 57 chevy? Or maybe Papa Jon's pizza guy and his camaro? That mentality spread like fire and still exists to an extent today, just go watch a televised auction. Yeah so these shops got FAT WALLETS doing some restores and hey, they liked it. So now they want either A: super easy jobs they can charge normal rates for or B: to charge you gonzo bucks.

I can tell you, people will say their car is rare and worth $70k and then want a $2000 paint job in the same breath. Guess what, the body shop guy won't pick the last of those two concepts.

The other shops around here are some random guy in his home shop offering to repair their buddies deer damage for 1/10th of the first shop. Except these guys don't know how to do anything and butcher it all.

And then there is the last guy. Not a shop, just that one guy you met that knows all of how to do everything. if you have a place for him to work maybe he will come do it for you at your place if he knows you well enough and you pay him fair and do some of the tedious stuff so he doesn;t have to waste time. If you met this guy I hope you bought him a steak dinner. This guy is rare and you will probably only meet him once. he worked in that old car shop and got sick of the owner keeping all the gonzo bucks so he quit. SO he knows his stuff and likes it, but not working for some one else anymore doing it.

So basically by me, I either pay gonzo dollars for body work or do it myself with some help. Haven't had to do a paint job yet, but I will invest in my home shop to make it up to code before I pay some owner with a 4 million dollar home and 7 cars $9k for paint and then he hands his painter $150 for the day. But there are plenty of old guys that have throw away money.
In WI. Might be different elsewhere without salt, or winter, and more cars in fields.

 

[BearDodge67]

I bought a OEM hood for my new Ram. Went to 10 body shops, only 2 (dealer wanted no part either) would give me an estimate to shoot it, and when I finally said ok, one backed out, the other said it was a 3-4 month wait. I finally asked one what was different between me bringing the truck in with the hood bashed in and them replacing it and me bringing in a truck with hood in the box and having them just scuff and shoot it. He said "insurance". Insurance companies charge them if they don't get jobs repaired quickly (unless waiting on parts), so insurance jobs get priority despite the fact the insurance pays them less than regular shop rates are. So while he would have made less on the insurance job, he had to give priority to them. Luckily I got referred to a shop that lets his painter do side jobs at night, he shot and mounted it. The shop owner and painter both made cash, and everyone was happy. Couple friends had their old cars done that way, they did the bodywork, and the shop let the painter shoot it after it closed.

 

[68BabyBlue]

Seems like a common theme running through this thread is that the basic economics of keeping the lights on in a business works against getting restoration body work done at anything other than a premium price. Same deal is my experience in the trucking business - time is money and cash flow is essential. The smaller business, or individual hobbyist in our case, has an advantage in not being pushed to get stuff out the door.

I was shocked while inspecting my current GTX prior to purchase, when the previous owners revealed that they had painted the car themselves in the garage where it was stored. The paint quality was a good as anything I've seen on a GTX at the big shows, and it was 20 years old. The brothers admitted it was the first car they had ever done. What made it work, was they had no time constraints, and put an unlimited number of hours into surface prep on what was already a good foundation.

Same thing with the paint - they blocked and sanded with no regard to time until they got it perfect. A shop doing it for profit doesn't have this luxury.