69 GTO Restoration Costs

[mercer09]

"As I pointed out in  my previous post, I would not be surprised at a $20K or more bill for a quality paint job."

 

 

and I think the OP would have been pleased as punch if your assessment were correct. He is paying double that and I fully understand his question of- is 25k reasonable for a nice paint job. In my book, that should have been plenty..............................

 

the car is a 70% er as a prescribed driver- with a 120% paint job on it.  The paint job is far too fine for the quality of the rest of the vehicle............my opinion. So I concur with the OP

but there should have been further due diligence on his part, before committing.

Nothing more to say.......................

[69 GTO]

2 hours ago, Restorer32 said:

Did you speak to any previous customers of the shop? Did you tell the shop you didn't want to spend more than $15k or whatever you thought the cost should be and see what their reaction was? If the shop had told you "No, we're sorry but we don't think we can do the job for the price you want" would you have looked for another shop? Did you check out the reputation of the shop and if their reputation was for fantastic quality why did you take your car to them hoping for lesser quality work at a lower price ? A "reasonable ballpark" that doesn't have to be "binding" is worthless isn't it? Who determines if the ballpark is "reasonable" ? You have just proven what I said many posts ago. Any ballpark becomes fixed in the customer's mind as a binding price.

In any service, there is a budget and expectation on quality - sometimes high, sometimes low. If I were renovating a kitchen I could spend 20K or 100K and that decision is up to the customer. Of course there was discussions on these expectation but the shop only stated "we don't know what we don't know". The reason there are designations (Street Restoration, Full Concours, Local Concours) is so the customer can find the correct shop for the type of work they require (mostly driven by budget). Since not all work is done with the same level of detail, this should be an easy conversation to have but no shop would discuss it. The shop could have a great reputation for street restorations but that is not easily found in documentation, websites or references. The only way is to discuss budget upfront and have the experienced shop provide some insight, which if they are talented/skilled, they can do. Are you saying that you can't take a customer's budget and based on your experience, know if you can perform the work requested (given no unforeseen major issues)? If you can't or won't do this then the only option is the customer starts work on an unrealistic budget - which unfortunately favors the restorer because they will get paid for every hour regardless if they finish the project or the customer will come up with the difference, or the car will be lost on a mechanics lien. Either way, there is no downside to the restorer. One could argue that this is the reason for the lack of transparency but I won't engage in that discussion.

 

As for the point that "any ballpark becomes fixed in the customer's mind as a binding price", this is factually false. Every service has T&Cs and although there are unreasonable customers in every industry, all industries (auto, home, landscape, etc.) provide estimates with caveats. I have not encountered a mechanic or contractor who ever paid for a major unforeseen issue that they did not create and they occur. I had my brakes done recently and when bleeding the system, two lines began leaking. I did not hold the shop to the line repairs, as it wasn't an outcome of their work, the lines were worn through.  

[Restorer32]

So you are suggesting there is a grand conspiracy among restoration shops to keep customers in the dark? We would have asked you what your expectations were and what you thought the job should cost. If your idea as to cost was not realistic for the quality work we do we would have politely turned you away. We often have to tell potential customers that we are probably not the shop they want. Did that last week in fact. Shops work t/m because they have learned that that is the only way to stay in business. I was an expert witness in a jury trial where another shop had given a car owner a "ballpark" price which they exceeded. Even though the Judge specifically instructed the jurors that they could not in any way consider the "ballpark" to be binding they found for the customer. There is no quality gradient with most mechanical work. Brakes either work or they don't. Lines either leak or they don't. Bodywork and paint are different. You have yet to answer my question. What exactly differentiates a driver quality paint job from a show quality paint job in your mind? Scratches, dull lustre, poor body work, lesser quality paint ? You are not obligated to keep your car in that shop nor is the shop obligated to finish your car.

[69 GTO]

Restorer32, there is no need to debate this. If the shop had provided a response to if "the cost was realistic for the quality of work you do" then I would have had the information I needed. None of the five shops would provide any insight and unfortunately, those are the only shops within driving distance. I don't need to answer your question on quality, it's obvious in the posts, industry definitions, and anywhere in life where there is craftsmanship. I'll have almost 20k into block sanding alone and since you know the industry, there's your answer.  

[joe_padavano]

1 hour ago, 69 GTO said:

As for the point that "any ballpark becomes fixed in the customer's mind as a binding price", this is factually false. Every service has T&Cs and although there are unreasonable customers in every industry, all industries (auto, home, landscape, etc.) provide estimates with caveats.

 

Sadly, most customers will be unreasonable in my experience.  We've all experienced the customer who has a brake job done then blames that shop when the muffler falls off two weeks later.  This, coupled with today's insanely litigious society, is why no one want's to do less than perfect work. And yes, I also believe that any ballpark number will be considered by most customers to be a not-to-exceed number.

[69 GTO]

So what's the correct way forward? I have a reasonable budget but no way of knowing if your particular shop will do work which equates to that budget.... Is it just a roll of the dice and I got the one that resulted in 100% over-budget? How do home remodelers survive? They are in a similar situation and always provide estimates but often have unforeseen structural or land issues.  

[Matt Harwood]

I don't think 69 GTO is necessarily complaining about the cost vs. benefit ratio here. He's simply asking if the cost is reasonable. I actually think he's handling the prospect of a huge bill on his car rather well--he's accepted that it will cost $X and that he'll get a good result. He's a bit surprised by how big the numbers are getting (and I would be, too) and it seems that the shop let him believe that $25K would be the right range, but they're also working on a time/materials basis, so it's totally open-ended. I don't think he's getting ripped off, but it's expensive to do a good job, and he's getting a VERY good job. It was just more than he expected.

 

My guess is that he was just wondering if he was being treated as a sucker with a running tab and perhaps that the time invested in a quarter panel might have been excessive. I think $25K on a straight, complete car should buy you a spectacular show-quality paint job. But I know there are quality levels above "Holy cow!" too. I realize there are unseen circumstances, and I know that time costs money and nothing eats up time like sanding bodywork. But I also think that $45,000 for a paint job on a mid-sized production car is rather excessive, regardless of expectations going in. Most folks, even those on here, would not be able to tell the difference between a $25,000 paint job and a $45,000 paint job. At that level, you're way out on the fringes of diminishing returns. I don't know that I'd consider a $25,000 paint job to be "driver grade." I'd have pretty friggin' high expectations at that price.

 

Yes, maybe he should have been a little more specific before telling the shop to start the clock and get to work. And yes, the shop is probably doing the best job possible and they're not ripping him off. But the expectations were not discussed and that's both parties' fault in this case.

 

I think we're being a little tough on 69 GTO--he's taking it like a man, and he's resigned himself to the cost. I think he'll be delighted and the final tally will be irrelevant once the car is done and paid for, but I don't think it's wrong for him to ask if a $45,000 paint job is routine and if the result will be twice as good as the $25,000 job he was expecting to buy.

[benjamin j]

I have seen topics like this one on other forums also and one thing I think about is how I do things. I could not go into any project of any type without having an agreed price up front its just my way or no way. does not mater whether I am the seller of services or the buyer. I have underbid services before and ate the cost of MY mistake. I learned from my mistakes and I am proud of the way I treated people over the years.

[mercer09]

Matt and Benjamin-last two posts

 

x2!  couldnt agree more!

[Xander Wildeisen]

How about a picture of the car when you bought it? When you dropped it off? One in bare metal? One in primer? One for insurance? If all of us had a picture to look at, we could see what you are dealing with. It is also a good idea to take pictures of work being done if a problem ever comes up down the road with the finished product. And it also helps in the value/sale, if you have pictures to show a new buyer that it was a very clean car before re-paint.  

[69 GTO]

Thanks for the great summary Matt, It's spot on. The work continues, just wish I knew that it would run this high otherwise I would have planned better. Honestly, the 34 hours spent on the quarter panel alone caused the majority of my concern and then I contacted the shop who told me it would come to 40-50K in total. That was already obvious after the time spent on the quarter. I just wasn't expecting that after they told me the car was a top 10 post the blasting. Ugh. Either way, it's gonna get done and I'm on this forum because I could not have the conversation with the shop for fear it would sour the relationship. I do think the restorers can learn from this too, as no one wants to enter a relationship that could end in divorce.  

[69 GTO]

4 minutes ago, Xander Wildeisen said:

How about a picture of the car when you bought it? When you dropped it off? One in bare metal? One in primer? One for insurance? If all of us had a picture to look at, we could see what you are dealing with. It is also a good idea to take pictures of work being done if a problem ever comes up down the road with the finished product. And it also helps in the value/sale, if you have pictures to show a new buyer that it was a very clean car before re-paint.  

So far I have over 1200 pics of the work, so yes it's well documented. I can't post pics because in case the shop reviews this board, I don't want any bad blood. I'm in this to finish and came to the forum to avoid any conflict with the shop. That would be the most costly situation to be in.

[Xander Wildeisen]

Picture or not, I think they might be able to read.

[cahartley]

On 8/24/2016 at 3:02 PM, 69 GTO said:

 I spoke to 4 shops, all would not estimate at all (T&M period), so it's a guessing game and I guessed good/bad. 

 

You nailed it at guessing game.

Estimating repairs on "new" cars is pretty easy as there are estimating programs available to assist without having to deal with unseen rust and rot.

No matter how well a  47 year old car has been cared for, even it it has never seen rain, snow or salt, damage does occur due to condensation.

It's impossible to know what underlying issues one might run across.

I think a good word to describe a shop that would attempt to estimate an old "project" car is this: CLOSED....... 

 

[K8096]

This is for Restorer 32:

 

You asked what is the difference between a concours paint job and a driver paint job.   Here's my take:

 

First of all, it's almost impossible to do a concours paint job without restoring most of the car.   To obtain concours results, one would have to remove every piece of rubber weather stripping and every piece of trim before starting to remove the old paint off.  In the case of the subject car, a 1969 Pontiac GTO, the front fenders and hood would have to be removed, as well as the doors and trunk lid.   How do you paint the firewall without removing the engine?   The trim around the windshield would have to be removed as well, and we know how hard that can be to do and keep straight.  What about the tack strip for the top?   See, you're basically disassembling the entire car.  What about the door jambs where they meet the interior?  For a concours job, one would have to remove the parts of the interior that butt up against the door jambs in order to sand and paint that area completely and not risk damaging the interior.  The paint on the firewall and underneath the trunk lid would be as good as the exterior of the car.  Then upon the painting process being complete, all the stainless would have to be buffed before reinstalling and all new rubber put on.  Most chrome would have to be redone as well.  Why have a new perfect paint job with only so-so chrome?   That's how I view a concours paint job.  (how many times have you seen a car with a gorgeous paint job & stainless trim that was dull or had major blemishes in it?  Looks awful, doesn't it?)      

 

For a driver quality paint job one might still remove most of the trim, but maybe not the few pieces that can be difficult to remove, such as the stainless trim around the windshield.  You'd still sand the car down to bare metal and properly fill in any dents or rust holes.  Assuming the paint on the firewall, and under the hood and trunk lid are at least "presentable," those areas would not be re painted.  You wouldn't repaint under the hood, not repaint the firewall, not repaint under the trunk lid.  The doors would not be removed.  The front fenders might be removed because, hey, show me a GM car from the 60's or 70's without major rust or repair work on the bottoms of the front fenders.  The hood and trunk lid would be removed as it's only 4-6 bolts each, so why not?    The door jambs may or may not be repainted.  If they're clean, leave them alone.  One would replace as little rubber as possible, only replacing what was severely deteriorated. One can carefully tape off the rubber with a decent result. (yes, we've all seen cars with a ridiculous amount of over spray on the rubber, but it can be taped off carefully if you try).  Only trim that is severely deteriorated would be fixed/replaced.   If it's 80-90% good, put it back on as is.   With a paint job like this. the exterior paint on the car would look almost as good as the concours job, but it's all the little details (firewall, door jambs, under the trunk lid, not replacing all the rubber, not having perfect trim) that make the car appear a step below.  I don't think the driver quality paint job I just detailed is necessarily half assed.  It' s not like your slapping bondo on with a trowel, or have severe overspray.    

 

I think my driver quality paint job example is what the original poster in this thread wanted.   It sounds like the shop he chose doesn't like to do jobs like that.   In my opinion, this was a failure to communicate by both parties before the job started.   If the shop doesn't want to do that type of paint job, then they should have politely passed on the job, and maybe refered the owner to another shop who does that type of work. And perhaps the owner of the car should have been more specific with the shop on "where to draw the line" on the details of the work.  So in this situation, I put the blame at 50-50.                     

      

[John_S_in_Penna]

31 minutes ago, K8096 said:

You asked what is the difference between a concours paint job and a driver paint job.   Here's my take...      

 

An excellent explanation, K8096!

This should be saved in some manner, on this forum and elsewhere,

to explain to every first-time paint-and-restoration customer.

I was a newcomer to that level of work in the 1990's, as is everyone at some point.

[Guest]

Well Restorer 32, I'd say K8096 answered your questions pretty damn well. The horror stories associated with people putting cars in  shops that then use the cars as cash cows are legendary. I am one of the currently hated 1 % ers, and I wouldn't give carte blanche to any shop no matter how vaunted their reputation. I fully understand that you are proud of your trade, and are defensive about it, but I find the OP's position to be very well stated, and his concerns legitimate.

Edited August 30, 2016 by Guest (see edit history)

[Restorer32]

Mr GTO, would you have been satisfied with the quality of the work as described above for a driver quality job? I think not, given that you spent $12k on new parts. I must admit though that your total cost does seem a bit high to me but then we don't charge $85/hr. We recently had a heart to heart about painting a similar size and condition car and I expect that the final price for the paint and bodywork only will

end up being $12k-$15K plus materials. Show quality but as I said our hourly rate is considerably lower here in small town PA. At $85/hr I could see the paint job being $25k depending on the actual condition of the car. We recently paid $950 for a gallon of factory red paint. There are lots of variables.

 

[69 GTO]

Restorer32, since this is my first restoration, I can't comment on the differences. I only know the budget and the process the shop performs. Full disassembly in and out was always part of the process and I knew that from the beginning. What I did not know was that the process of block sanding, repairing the 3 rust spots and priming would cost 20K. This is on a fully blasted, straight car with little rust and no dents. The 20K on straightening to perfection is where most of the difference resides. The block sanding process on one quarter alone (no rust/dents) cost $3,500 which caused me to question the level of quality (and cost of a full replacement of the quarter). I wasn't expecting 4.5 full days to block sand and straighten one quarter, which was as close to perfect (to my eyes) as I ever seen in a 47 year old car. They literally removed every imperfection, high, low, etc. that they could uncover. I have no issue with the quality, just wondering if it's overkill on a partially restored driver. This is why I set a budget at 25K, to keep the total cost under 50K when you factor the parts and cost of the vehicle. I didn't want a 65K+ driver.       

[Peter S]

Am I missing something?

 

In most states, doesn't the customer have a legal right to a written estimate, which must be revised if charges exceed it by a specified percent?

 

If that's true and the shop complied, how could it be a surprise that the bill mounted so high?

[edinmass]

I sit back and read this post and find it interesting on the assorted comments and opinions. I would say 90 percent of the paint I see is either terrible, poor, or lousy. To properly strip a car, fit and finish panels, sand, finish, and buff a car can't be done for anywhere near 25 grand at a commercial well equipped shop. Work is done right, or it is not. Let's face it, this hobby can be expensive, it also can be affordable, overhead on a modern shop in a populated area is staggering. Add in talented employees and restoration costs skyrocket. Same goes for chrome most is terrible or poor at best. Want to know if your getting good chrome? If the plater can do it unless than 12 months, you are not getting good work. All the best platers have work three years out. Craftsmanship is slowly fading away, and the true talented guys have more work than they can handle. Ed

[Restorer32]

5 hours ago, Peter S said:

Am I missing something?

 

In most states, doesn't the customer have a legal right to a written estimate, which must be revised if charges exceed it by a specified percent?

 

If that's true and the shop complied, how could it be a surprise that the bill mounted so high?

 

In Pennsylvania restoration shops working on collector cars are not required to provide written estimates. Regular body shops and mechnical repair/inspection shops are.

[Restorer32]

3 hours ago, edinmass said:

I sit back and read this post and find it interesting on the assorted comments and opinions. I would say 90 percent of the paint I see is either terrible, poor, or lousy. To properly strip a car, fit and finish panels, sand, finish, and buff a car can't be done for anywhere near 25 grand at a commercial well equipped shop. Work is done right, or it is not. Let's face it, this hobby can be expensive, it also can be affordable, overhead on a modern shop in a populated area is staggering. Add in talented employees and restoration costs skyrocket. Same goes for chrome most is terrible or poor at best. Want to know if your getting good chrome? If the plater can do it unless than 12 months, you are not getting good work. All the best platers have work three years out. Craftsmanship is slowly fading away, and the true talented guys have more work than they can handle. Ed

 

Amen brother. I'm sure this will set some folks ablaze but at the very top end of the quality scale it sometimes comes down to "if you want some aspect of the job to be absolutely perfect, be it chrome, paint, upholstery, woodgraining or whatever, you may have to pay to have it done more than once". Some restoration work is easy but some is exceedingly difficult and time consuming. There are those operations where you do it once just to learn how to do it, then do it a second and maybe a third time to get it perfect. Someone has to pay for that time. We do a lot of woodwork, including some woodwork on woodie wagons. There are individual pieces on woodie wagons that might take 10 hours to make and screw ups can't be repaired if they show. You might put 9 hours and 30 minutes into a piece then make a miscut that renders the piece unusable so you start over. Again, someone has to pay for that time. There is a world of difference between passable and perfect. Therein lies the rub.

[Matt Harwood]

1 hour ago, Restorer32 said:

 

 You might put 9 hours and 30 minutes into a piece then make a miscut that renders the piece unusable so you start over. Again, someone has to pay for that time. There is a world of difference between passable and perfect. Therein lies the rub.

 

Really? YOU screw up and send the customer a bill for it? When I was in the trades, mistakes came out of MY pocket, I didn't act like it was all part of the process and pass it along. That really surprises and disappoints me, knowing who you are and the integrity you represent. I'm flabbergasted, to be honest.

 

"Sorry, one of the guys backed his pickup into your car's door. We had to find a replacement and refinish it. Increased your costs by $5000 but you know, you wanted perfection and all, nothing we could do..."

[John_S_in_Penna]

34 minutes ago, Matt Harwood said:

Really? YOU screw up and send the customer a bill for it?

 

Right on!  Striving for excellence is one thing;

but ethics, too, can't be overlooked while doing so.

 

The person who makes a mistake should be man enough

to take responsibility for it.  Doing so will win any individual,

shop, or company a lot of respect.

Edited August 31, 2016 by John_S_in_Penna (see edit history)

[Restorer32]

I'm not talking about production work where of course you would eat the cost of any mistakes. I'm talking about one of a kind work that you've never done before and there is a lot of that in the resto business. I also didn't mean to imply that you would bill the customer directly  for your screw up but it all goes into the overhead and has to be factored into a shop's hourly rate. There is a difference between a screw up and discovering that what you thought was a minor detail on a part is actually critically important, causing you to nave to redo the work. It is of course a judgement call. We recently completed a woodie where the original wood was barely usable for patterns. We reconstructed one piece of wood as best we could to use it for a pattern (the original was more than half rotted away and a better pattern was not available) , made a new piece, then discovered that our pattern was not exact enough and had to remake the piece. Was it a screw up? No, we did the best we could with the info we had at the time. Should we have eaten all the time we had tied up in that piece? Should we have told the customer "Sorry, we can't make this piece" ? It is inevitable that some times you are going to be paying your restorer to learn on the job.

[Peter S]

Cars were mass market items that had to be sold at an affordable price, so they came with many small imperfections. A "perfect" car is no longer a re-creation of an original object - should it even be called "restored?"   

[69 GTO]

5 minutes ago, Peter S said:

Cars were mass market items that had to be sold at an affordable price, so they came with many small imperfections. A "perfect" car is no longer a re-creation of an original object - should it even be called "restored?"   

I heard this from multiple shops and I do believe it applies to the current restoration industry, especially regarding the body.

[Restorer32]

Understand that at times, even now, we have vehicles in the shop that are so rare that no one has ever restored another one and the resto will, by definition, all be unexplored territory. Would you be willing to give the customer a price or even an estimate before beginning work? I think not. You don't know what parts are missing or unusable until you do. Maybe if you restore Mustangs, Camaros, Model A Fords or yes even GTOs you should have a pretty good handle on what the job should cost but on a one of a kind 1909 ONLY that came to us totally disassembled and missing lots of parts? After 37 years I am still shocked at how long it takes to do a good job but I won't apologize for it. The bitter truth with the vast majority of shops is that they don't bill customers for all the time that goes into a project. Yes there are shops that rip off customers but they don't last. We had a fellow who came to us wanting to restore a very ho hum car he had bought new and had left outside to deteriorate for 20 years. We gave him the usual advice that he could buy the very best restored example in the world for far less that restoring his would cost but he persisted. When we disassembled the car and discovered that the rust was even worse than anticipated we again suggested that he not proceed with the restoration but yet again he insisted. Eventually he came to the realization that the work was going to cost much more than he thought. Were we in the wrong? Should we have refused to work on the car? Matt, I'm sure you understand "buyer's remorse". Do you try to talk customers out of buying a car from you? If a defect that you didn't know about shows up a year after you sell a car is it your responsibility?

[Matt Harwood]

30 minutes ago, Restorer32 said:

I'm not talking about production work where of course you would eat the cost of any mistakes. I'm talking about one of a kind work that you've never done before and there is a lot of that in the resto business. I also didn't mean to imply that you would bill the customer directly  for your screw up but it all goes into the overhead and has to be factored into a shop's hourly rate. There is a difference between a screw up and discovering that what you thought was a minor detail on a part is actually critically important, causing you to nave to redo the work. It is of course a judgement call. We recently completed a woodie where the original wood was barely usable for patterns. We reconstructed one piece of wood as best we could to use it for a pattern (the original was more than half rotted away and a better pattern was not available) , made a new piece, then discovered that our pattern was not exact enough and had to remake the piece. Was it a screw up? No, we did the best we could with the info we had at the time. Should we have eaten all the time we had tied up in that piece? Should we have told the customer "Sorry, we can't make this piece" ? It is inevitable that some times you are going to be paying your restorer to learn on the job.

 

OK, that makes more sense. Scared me for a moment! It sounded like there is no accountability when perfection is the goal.

 

I think we should remember during this discussion that the guy who is having his GTO painted isn't planning on taking it to Pebble Beach. I understand blank check restorations to get to that particular level, but a GM A-body should be the best-looking car on just about any other field with a $25,000 paint job on it, which is the point of this discussion. I understand that a $45,000 paint job on a Delahaye going to Pebble Beach is relative chump change. I understand that you need to spend big to get to the top level and that you're going to have to pay a shop whatever it takes to achieve it. But we're talking about a mass-produced car in the real world and, sorry Ed, you're going to have to come back to live with the peasants, because a $25,000 paint job on a GTO had better be world-class, never mind the $45,000 job he's apparently getting.

 

The problem with this GTO project was managing expectations, both on the shop's part and the client's part. They both just started moving forward without knowing where the finish line was. Results will be excellent and it'll turn out OK for that reason alone, but it's an important lesson for us all to learn in communicating with clients and shops.

 

 

[Restorer32]

Well said. We always ask potential customers several questions. What is your ultimate goal with your car? What do you think it should cost to do what you say you want done? This gives us somewhere to start. If the customer thinks the work should cost $10k and we think it will cost $30K we will politely suggest that we may not be the shop for them. Some shops compete on price, some on quality. It is important to know which you are dealing with. Maybe Mr GTO didn't ask enough questions, maybe the shop did in fact lure him in. We'll never know but I'd bet he will eventually forget the price if the quality is there. With all he is spending on new trim and interior I would encourage him to reexamine what his ultimate goal with the car actually is.

[Steve_Mack_CT]

This has been a very interesting thread but I think communication is the core issue here.  It really seems like a lot of grief could have been avoided (I am guessing the shop is or should be concerned with a very unhappy customer due to perceived cost overruns) if the simple question of "what is your approximate budget" and "what is your estimate after seeing the car" was touched on when the shop was interviewed.  I get all of Restorer's points on restoration (especially at the level of rare cars) but would expect a pro shop dealing with a not unheard of car to be able to get fairly close for the defined work.  Does not sound like GTO was adding work that was not discussed.  He might share some responsibility but shop should know what it averages for similar work especially if it does a lot of the same vintage.  A few thousand vs. double or more what customer is expecting are two different scenarios to me.

 

Hope he ends up happy with the car when all is said and done!

[Matt Harwood]

46 minutes ago, Restorer32 said:

Understand that at times, even now, we have vehicles in the shop that are so rare that no one has ever restored another one and the resto will, by definition, all be unexplored territory. Would you be willing to give the customer a price or even an estimate before beginning work? I think not. You don't know what parts are missing or unusable until you do. Maybe if you restore Mustangs, Camaros, Model A Fords or yes even GTOs you should have a pretty good handle on what the job should cost but on a one of a kind 1909 ONLY that came to us totally disassembled and missing lots of parts? After 37 years I am still shocked at how long it takes to do a good job but I won't apologize for it. The bitter truth with the vast majority of shops is that they don't bill customers for all the time that goes into a project. Yes there are shops that rip off customers but they don't last. We had a fellow who came to us wanting to restore a very ho hum car he had bought new and had left outside to deteriorate for 20 years. We gave him the usual advice that he could buy the very best restored example in the world for far less that restoring his would cost but he persisted. When we disassembled the car and discovered that the rust was even worse than anticipated we again suggested that he not proceed with the restoration but yet again he insisted. Eventually he came to the realization that the work was going to cost much more than he thought. Were we in the wrong? Should we have refused to work on the car? Matt, I'm sure you understand "buyer's remorse". Do you try to talk customers out of buying a car from you? If a defect that you didn't know about shows up a year after you sell a car is it your responsibility?

 

I totally get what you're saying. It's like that anecdote I told about the shop I use when they rebuilt my 1929 Cadillac transmission. The owner said, "I can't charge you for the time it took me to figure out how to do it." It still cost $2500 but the honest approach made it go down easy.

 

I do often try to talk customers out of buying cars. I call it managing expectations and if I can't give a customer a good result, I don't want to sell them a car. For example, a young couple came in from PA last Saturday to look at an old Mustang I have. Not a great car, but it had one thing they loved: a low price tag. They didn't like the color, they didn't like that it had a different engine (351 vs 289), they didn't like that it was a 3-speed instead of a 4-speed. In short, it was nothing they wanted except cheap. They spent five hours here, I bought them lunch, and we talked about what they wanted out of a car. They never had a hobby car before, so they had no idea. Since Mustangs are hardly scarce, I recommended that they keep looking until they find one that delights them. I could have easily pushed them into this car--they were right there--but I didn't. You just can't do that. There definitely would have been remorse and it would have been 100% on me. It would have come back to me in one way or another.

 

Hell, there was the guy just yesterday who flew in from California on a one-way ticket, expecting to buy a 70-year-old car and drive it home on I-80. Hey, let's go talk in my office about shipping and look at plane tickets, shall we?

 

We, with our greater experience and knowledge in our respective fields, are obligated to do our best to protect our clients from themselves. Just as with your client who wanted his rust bucket restored--you knew better. But after a point, you can't protect them. If you've offered your expert opinion, you have to let them decide and move forward. They're adults, they can make adult decisions. You've done your best to steer them down the right path, after that, you let them do what they want. Buyer's remorse is real, but if you've been straight with them they really don't have anyone to blame but themselves. As I said, the $2500 transmission rebuild was eye-watering, but the fact that he acknowledged that it should have been even more made it more palatable. I never even think about the cost now, but I'll never forget him being straight with me.

 

That's what should have happened in this GTO's case. Someone, somewhere, should have called a time out before the numbers got out of hand and there should have been an honest heart-to-heart talk. Managing expectations--it's the key to success in any environment, but especially in ours where passion often overwhelms common sense.

[Restorer32]

We find it interesting why certain people want to restore certain cars. In the case of the car I mentioned above, and it really was a ho hum car, likely not worth what the first month's restoration bill was, the elderly retired owner had bought it new and it still had his college parking pass decal on the windshield. He wanted to leave it to his Son. The car was so bad that we first had to find and purchase a rusty body (but less rusty than his)  just to have something to work with. And by ho hum I mean a 1960's orphan 4 door with the smallest engine available and virtually no options. We did finish the car and the owner was happy and that's what really counts in the end.

[69 GTO]

1 hour ago, Steve_Mack_CT said:

if the simple question of "what is your approximate budget" and "what is your estimate after seeing the car" was touched on when the shop was interviewed

I asked the shop for any information on the approximate cost and stated I have a budget of 25K. They stated that they cannot estimate and would know more after the blasting. After blasting they stated it was a "top 10" in condition but that was also when the $3,500 went into block sanding the quarter panel and I realized I would be into 45K. I called to confirm expectations and they stated it would wind up 40-45K but again, no promises "could be more". That led to the initial post.

[Xander Wildeisen]

I do not like to throw out a opinion on what some thing should cost, just way to many things play a part in the total at the end. But the numbers you keep throwing around are very high for paint work on a solid/straight GTO.

[benjamin j]

How about a new vehicle like a Chevy Yukon $40,000 price tag should you expect a decent paint job? I was looking at these over the weekend for the wife and I swear they have the most awful paint jobs of any vehicle ever sold in the United States. If in fifty years from now I wanted to restore one to original I would have to through dirt into the paint and create enormous amounts of orange peel to be correct in the restoration.  

[Xander Wildeisen]

Worst paint job I have ever seen on a factory car, was a black H3. If you talk to guys that work in body shops, they will tell you the hardest part in the re-painting is matching the OEM finish on some of these cars. If you are a good painter, and want to do a good job/repair. It is hard to have to lay down a bad paint job just to match what is there.

[Matt Harwood]

1 hour ago, Xander Wildeisen said:

Worst paint job I have ever seen on a factory car, was a black H3. If you talk to guys that work in body shops, they will tell you the hardest part in the re-painting is matching the OEM finish on some of these cars. If you are a good painter, and want to do a good job/repair. It is hard to have to lay down a bad paint job just to match what is there.

 

That's why I have so much respect for the guys who do NCRS Top Flight and Bloomington Gold Corvettes. Perfection is relatively easy. Perfectly imperfect the way the factory did it? Now THAT's a challenge!

[Steve_Mack_CT]

GTO, when you take delivery, bring a couple of detail oriented friends, maybe marque judges, you get the picture - and a high resolution camera.  That way you can have a little help with the final inspection.  Go over every inch of the car and do not accept any defects no matter how small, demand perfection if you are being charged for it.  It would be interesting to see how far they would go in correcting defects identified at delivery, right?  Strip and redo a panel for orange peel or buff it out when they are not on your tab.  

 

Yes, a lot of top notch shops out there deserve what they charge but it just seems to me like they had a better idea of the cost up front.  You may or may not have gone with them if they said "well $25K is light for what we do here, if you want to know why we can go over the process" which would have been the right thing to do.  

 

 

 

Edited August 31, 2016 by Steve_Mack_CT (see edit history)