fbekholden.com

Thanks all for the comments. I guess what shocked me most was the cost because there is no rust. By the admission of the guy that checked it out she is pretty clean and no body work is required. (I appreciate that there are always hidden extras but I suspect that the cost will not come down if that was the case.) And I am interested in making the 2010 ek calendar.
I am more than happy to pay for a honets price for an honest job. The problem is that having renovated a house, I used the occasional 'expert' to do the odd job - a tiler while I was overseas and a kitchen company to do the kitchen. I have a tiled deck that can hold an inch of water in a 1 metre arc around the front door to the house and a kitchen bench and cupboards that have warped from the heat of an oven. And they were not mates rates. Suffice to say, it's not easy to spot the floaters in the mix, more so for a green horn like me. Some lifetime guarantees aren't worth the toilet paper they are written on and I guess my next quest is to see if there is anyone out there that can help me to spot the real deal. Any recommendations in the ACT/lower Sydney area most appreciated.

ratbox wrote: actually alot, not for what was probably spent but alot more than $7,000

seems we've put a panelbeater/painters nose out of joint

I was a panel beater, in 1978!!! Gave it up as a bad joke then. They were on just under $400 a week then, now the award is just over $500, stuff that. I'm sure the cost of living has gone up more than 20% in thirty years.

The only machines I panel beat these days are my old bomb cars, they couldn't pay me enough to work on other people's cars. As I said if you don't want to pay the going rate DO IT YOURSELF, then you can advertise...............FOR SALE, UNFINISHED PROJECT

I'm surprised about that wage. I know panel beaters who are on well over 1 grand (in the hand) a week. My old man was a spray painter in the 70's and early 80's and he was earning a motza.

If insurance work wasn't the cash cow it once was, then they only have themselves to blame. Some (not all) of the panel shops were milking it for all it was worth. As any one would, but some got greedy......and when the NRMA cracked down on it some years back, there wasn't really much sympathy out there for the panel shops.

You wonder what's going on when you put your car in for a new headlight and grille (insurance claim) and end up with a new bonnet and guards.

Or when you wack someone up the arse and bend his bumper, but somehow receive a quote from his panel shop for 5 grand (1980's money) damage

I can see where we are all coming from.I did the tech courses on panel beating and spray painting in the 80s because I couldn't afford to pay someone else to do it! I then built a couple of cars from bare metal up.

My last project was the ex ratbox ute which I basically bought because I couldn't build it for the money I paid for it-thanks Mick!

Just because I spent a lot more on it doesn't mean it was a dud,I only tidied a few things up.I had a pro paint it after I stripped it & repaired a few rust spots and panels-it cost a bomb but the result was great!

Guess what his first words were when I asked him to paint it-"I only work on cars with fuel injection".I think this is the current feeling in the trade because stripping a car to bare metal is a f*#!?n huge time consuming job!He did the job mainly because he knew I was good for the $ and he surfed with my son!

My advice is get to know somebody in the trade, strip your car completely to metal before giving to him and try to repair any rust in metal before you give it to him.

PS My ute was painted in 2002 and still looks fantastic-although I sold it a year ago I had used it everyday except for 7mth resto.

Good luck!