[ace of shades]

Originally Posted by mike16

body shop is the last place to go to do a restoration.

You want to open an account that you put money into and they take money out of as the restoration progresses. steady small incremental payments with limits on how much is withdrawn and you verify progress and you control the purchase of parts, materials and supplies not specifically and directly related to the paint work itself.

body shops dont do restorations they do paint and body work.

sorry it hurts but there it is.

The body shop I work at has done a couple of restos. Really something not to my liking. The boss man usually gives them a quote (BAD idea when doing a resto) and we end up getting the short end of the stick. Then someone always has to ask the customer to come up with more money, and more money. I usually tell them "shop time is $50 an hour, you supply the parts and tell us when to stop." Most of the time you never hear from them again. In my area most of the shops do one resto a year or so, but the shops around here are like 3 man shops.

Honestly you don't really make money on them and they take forever; Its like the side job in the back corner that usually never gets worked on until someone asks about it. The other bad part of it all is that you take like 5k down to do some work - in a small (our) shop that money gets spent on everything but your project. It goes for overhead, the collision cars and materials. When the insurance jobs go out your vehicle gets worked on and then someone is calling for more money. Its just no good. Its not that they're out to screw people, mostly they don't realize they can't make money but they will take the job to have some income