I just wonder if any of you guys have had any experience with getting bodyshells prepped and painted.

My mk2 escort is in a painters at the minute on a back hander, as and when the guy can fit it in. Only problem is he's had it since September and hes only put me 1 door skin on

The cars a bare group 4 shell that's been acid dipped. It's got a coat of red oxide on to be taken off (I'd consider dipping again to keep price down) Theres 2 plates to put on under the wings (seal bulkhead around roll cage) around 10cm square. Apart from that its just cleaning and filling.

He's doing it for £2500 at the minute but I want it on the road this summer so I need a guide price I can try and tempt him with before I pull it out

I have asked him for a price but he's not willing to take it on at the minute.

 

My mk1 was 4700 including underside inside and rollcage and painting stripes on,mk2 escort same as above outside inside painted stripes was 5200 iirc

 

Wow..... Did mine myself in a gazebo, well self prep and a friend sprayed it. £300 it cost.

As to answer your question I would go round local body shops and ask direct. £2.5k seems crazy. I never understand body shop prices. For example paint no more than £200. Say to prep and weld it took him a week, a weeks wage is £350. Profit on top of wages £500 =£1050 total I understand there are running costs but as said this is a cash job so no vat ect. Plus he's doing it to suit himself........ Crazy prices if you ask me. I'd say £1500 is fair in these circumstances.

If you can get it to Birmingham I can give you a number of a really decent body shop very cheap and work is spot on. He works on a in and out basis. Had a hole side of a golf I bumped into repaired and painted in 1 day £250 and it was mint.

 

you are living in cloud cuckoo land, i own a bodyshop and i assure you the running costs of the shop are very high over £300 per day needed before i break even i would charge a lot more than £1500 just to paint the outside especially starting from a dipped shell there is a weeks labour alone there and decent quality paint is a lot more than £200 for enough to do inside outside and underneath and that is not including laquer primer filler fibreglass stopper sanding discs etc etc etc

 

Well I did sort mine myself and ok I was probably trying to keep cost low to prove a point. As for paint yeah for paint primer £200 £250 trade yeah ain't changing that. All I was getting at is £2.5k is a fair bit of profit

 

you have to take into account as well rent rates electric insurance wages etc and the guy is entitled to profit also as it is a business at the end of the day

 

Very true but cash job wipes all that out in my eyes as other vat jobs covers that and this is just a bit of extra cash for him (normally the way it works)

Don't get me wrong I think looking back at my prices I was way under, still think you could be seeing profit off £2k. The guys had it since September doing it in between jobs. If this was a proper vat job receipt, guaranteed job £2.5-£3k is understandable in my eyes as a long winded cash job I think its over priced

 

Had my Mk4 escort done recently.

Dropped the car off stripped. Windows out, doors/bumpers/skirts off etc.
Had a new front wing fitted and a few other small jobs like having a standard boot modified to take the spoiler (studs instead of holes) few small dents removed, prep work on arches I had welded on.

Full exterior and shuts. Paid £2300

Other quotes I recived ranged from £2000 - £6000 however, none of them actually seemed that interested in doing the job so I took my money elsewhere.

 

A word of advice from another bodyshop owner, if youve got your car in somewhere as a fill in/cash job and youve told them your not in too much of a hurry it will take them forever to get it done, it will always get pushed to the back of the queue. Id advise you if you take it somewhere else to try and set a pretty firm timeline so it actually gets done lol.

Makes me laugh to read comments about people painting their car in a tent/shed and comparing their costs to a proper bodyshop, do you realise that its completley illegal and you and whoever sold you the paint are liable for big fines? you really have no idea what costs are involved, bodyshops dont make much money especially on resto work as it always takes longer than expected.

 

If it is totally ilegal ,Why do firms sell paint
Halfrauds sell cans to paint cars etc ,paint is freely available
Every where ,

I know guys who paint cars cheap ,but cheap means cheap in my eyes
I paint my own cars .

 

Aerosols and similar are obviously ok like the stuff you buy from halfords ect and im obviously not talking about that. If your talking about proper paint then of course its illegal! Its basiclly poison mate and by law needs to be painted in a spraybooth and go through the extraction filters ect to be safe and the painter needs to be wearing a suitable respirator, why do you think there is so many warnings on paint tins ect. You can buy paint from lots of places because there is almost no policeing of it and paint factors are businesses who are there to make money and most dont give a shit who they sell to.
Im not saying anybody is going to get fined im just pointing out thats illegal and you are liable

 

I understand that materials have gone up in price .so that that mite push the price up abit but come on your not doctors you paint cars my dad just paid 4000 to have his Anglia just sprayed .he already had it soda blasted and there was not one peice of rust I fetched it from Malta .i think it's a joke how much sprayers are charging .i don't Blame people for doin it there selfs I mean to buy a compressor ,spray gun ,materials , rent a garage for a month .you can prep it wich is easy ! Then spray it as many times as it takes to get perfect .you get to keep the compressor ,gun . At the end of it you have a average ok looking car .and you are only down the cost of paint ect ...

 

buddy of mine just had his mk2 frs resprayed and was happy to part with £3.5k due to the high quality of work

 

I think robots should be the future when it comes to spraying cars perfect job eveytime.?????

 

I know a friend of mine that just painted an astra gte shell inside out inc prep work for £700 and that's inc painting all the panel separate after and it's in a bodyshop not in a tent at home.

 

Some of the paint jobs on newer cars is shocking,full on orange peel and no shine at all, could do better with an old roller and some gloss emulsion.

 

From past experience 3.5k+ is about right for professional job. I had a paint job done at 2k and it was crap,lots of problems and more time back in the body shop! But it does depend on wheather you use a professional or a Bengal lancer!

 

Let me contradict myself and say we cant put a price on it as we haven't seen it. Painting in a gazebo at home is illegal? So how does the mobile body shop by me do it then because all he has is a posh gazebo.

End of the day if you haven't got a friend in the trade like I have its going to expensive. My only point was I think body shop prices are high

 

You get what you pay for when it comes to bodywork IMO.

A lot of it I find depends on the kind of bodyshop you use. There are bodyshops that specialise in restoration type work and there are the ones that would rather deal with the quick in and out type of stuff.

I've used various bodyshops over the years and all except one has fucked my cars up.

It's not like I paid a cheap price for work either. If I'm not prepared to do the work or can't do the work for whatever the reason, I'm in no position at all to haggle the price or moan about it, I pay what I'm quoted.

It's just a shame that everybody I've used seems to have no pride in their work and just lashes my car up to get it out of the door.

My Cossie will now going to a bodyshop over 250 miles away up in Durham to be repainted as I'm sick of being done over and a lot of PF users have recommended him to me and are very happy with his work and he's quoted me a price that I'm happy with!!

 

5 years ago I paid £3100 for a bare metal respray on my saph.it seemed expensive but it was better than factory so I didn't mind.
I would never scrimp on paint as if its not good it's the 1st thing folk see and pick faults with and will always annoy you.

 

You are spot on KItchen Devil,you must have been to the same body shops as I have!

 

Cant beat these fast bodyshops lol.

I paid 1200 quid a few yeard ago for a full respray that included all the doors/bonnet/boot and bumpers off. Also they replaced my rear arches. Sadly most of last year my saff has spent it in bodyshops. The first bs has bummed me and took my eyes out with the price. Its now in its second bodyshop with a proper enthusiastic bs owner.

There cant be many bs that will take pride in there work.

 

I know if I need any bodywork done in future whether its for the cozzie or the daily driver ill be going back to gaz for it.hes a really nice honest guy with fantastic abilities and very reasonable priced also.

 

I love the fact that people still think they can compare the job they have done themselves in a tent to a proper job. You may think you can get it good, and to be fair it might be, but parked next to a car that has had a proper professional respray they will be worlds apart.

That said, price doesn't always reflect quality. I'd base any choice on previous work rather than price.

 

I paid £700 in 2006 for my old white car a quick blow over that I prepped

Paid £1500 in 2008 for the black car to be painted the last time that I prepped

and in 2013 I paid around £3K for strip (I had stripped all the trim off) and refit the panels with me doing the refit of all trim glass etc

the difference between

 

Disagree big time, paints paints, devibliss gti gun, decent paint, well prep'd, straight out the gun was an awesome finish, once it was mopped it was like glass. Don't get me wrong I was lucky not to get any contamination in the paint. But a spray booth is a fancy tent.

Makes me laugh that folk seem to think a propper job is one that cost a fortune that you pay some 1 to do. A cheap job that you do yourself is a bodge

 

Defo agree. I cant believe how much he has helped me out. The last bs my car was in the lad only phoned me when he wanted money lol. Gaz has texted me nearly every week saying he has done this and that to the car and has even emailed me pics of the progress

 

Does a tent bake the paint??

 

2 paraffin Heaters do, yes

 

£2k upwards just for the outside. And don't scrimp as you don't want to do it all twice

 

Feel free to disagree mate but it's pretty much a fact. I'm a painter and painted my audi in a shed which admittedly looks good but it's nowhere near as good as jobs i turn out using a booth.

If you think you can beat a job done by a professional in a booth your on another planet mate.

Also as i said, just because it costs a fortune doesn't mean good. Look at standards of work rather than costs. Overheads can play a massive part in it.

 

There's this PlasticDip paint, i found online. And it looks relatively easy to do yourself,and seems rather cheap. Range of colours as well. Considering it myself.

https://www.dipyourcar.com/

 

I see your point but I still cant see how the paint knows where it is whether in a booth or a tent. Mine come out really good and there is a guy on rs2000-16v thats had his car painted about 3 times in a booth a had loads of problems.

A lad on this forum had his escort painted I a booth and extractor drew all dust into the paint

 

Hmmmm some interesting comments on here.
Tell me, if you get a timing belt fitted to your car at £50 an hour do you complain at 2hrs work and a bill of £100 plus parts?
So knowing how long things take to prep and how much can go wrong does 50 man hours at £50 an hour sound unreasonable for the work?
Unlikely.
I've owned my own bodyshop and you get folk like the lad who painted his car in a tent in all the time, I'll put money on it your job is crap compared to getting it done in any sort of booth, let alone a full on top quality one with its own extraction and heating, the finish is night and day.

Certainly a REASONABLE finish can be achieved at home, I've seen some ok jobs but when that same work done professionally its non comparable.

Amazing how people seem to think their bodywork experts as well and tell YOU how much it costs and how long it takes.

Until you've been there and done it, you don't know, its a horrible trade dealing with utter cockends who want stuff done for nothing as they see it as a non essential expense rather than retaining the value of their car, very rare someone comes in actually wanting a nice job done for what it costs rather than too a particular price they've fabricated in their head.

There's so much to go wrong with bodywork that its untrue and often you spend a lot of time correcting things that had you been firm to the customer and spent time getting it right in the first place you wouldn't end up rushing at the end trying to meet unrealistic guidelines.

Bodywork is without doubt a case of you get what you pay for.
After all, would you let a 17yr old apprentice build up your £400 cossie engine build in a tent at the side of his house and expect it to be perfect and last forever rather than paying Harvey Gibbs 10 to 15 times that amount to guarantee it?

 

Think a lot depends on value of the car, it's not worth spending 3k for paint on a 1k car. I have done some bodywork at home and am pleased with results and can say I get a better job than a cheap body shop, but can't be compared to a top quality body shop.

 

As has been said it's not an exact science and shit happens but I'm pretty sure you didn't use a proper dryer between compressor and gun, your tent would 100% not have been dust free and with the greatest will in the world a paraffin heater will not dry your car evenly. In fact paraffin is not a good one to use, gas is better as it burns cleaner and in my experience dries the car more evenly.

I saw an escort painted in a proper top quality booth compared to our home made one and I was amazed how much better it looked instantly compared to ours and ours had proper top notch extraction, floor wet before painting, any air gaps sealed, all lights etc thoroughly dusted and so forth.

I used to go to a lot of car shows and you can see from ten yards the ones that have had a good pro job and the DIY specials.

FFS I've sprayed with a cans, g3'd it back and given it a good high speed buff and it's looked just fine but the same job done in the booth on the gun has just looked spectacular.

 

Spot on.

 

Paint is not all the same by a long way its like anything you get what you pay for and the quality between cheap shit and good products is vast. One of the main issues with not painting in a booth apart from letting all your neighbours breathe isocynate is that its not a controlled enviroment with regards mainly to damp/moisture and dust to a lesser extent, if there is any damp you will get microblisters/blooming issues to name a few, were not just talking about how good it looks on the day its painted its what is gunna look like in years to come. Also i can almost guarantee that most people dont have a sufficent water trap or dryer on their compressor as an at home painter to keep moisture and any other nasty stuff out your air, this will also cause issues.

Another good point made by another chap, why is it that any dodgy back street mechanic can charge £45+ an hour but people struggle to get £30 in a bodyshop......

 

Meant to add that I got a price of £2.5K I was from a place that was recommended, had a look at some work in progress that was to a good standard so agreed to drop the car in to them in a few days, anyway I hired a trailer and took to back in part stripped with all the new panels etc
Anyway I started unloading it and 1 of the guys came out very chatty saying how much better its going to look blah blah oh and the price is now £3.5-£4k when i asked why i got the answer of "because"
What the fuck,
started loading the car back up and the owner got the arse saying I was a time waster/costing/lost them money as they had turned work away to do mine,

Tried to explain that if they hadn't knocked the price up like they had then they would still have the job, but apparently I was the one in the wrong

 

The most important part of any paintwork is the prep.
To actually base and laquer takes about 30 minutes,to prep will take a good 3 solid days if you want it spot on.Ive seen loads of repaints that are spoiled by shit prep.

I feel guilty as I got full respray inside and out on my series 2 for £75.