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I'm after a reasonably cheap panel shop in the Sydney area to do some minor panel work and a re spray on my EK (outside only).

I know it aint cheap, but most of the panels shops I've had quotes from seem to be living in dream land.....quoting 8 grand and above.

Even someone that does it as a side job in their shed would do

hey cal, dont no if ur iterested but if you came down to wollongong for the work theres a bloke down here thats reall good that my mate just found, he does it from home, prices are good, for example, bmw fire damaged bonnet and guard with full detail in and out which includes cut back and buff of whole car, price $700
2 door triumph convertible bare shell rear quarter needing to be welded on, all parts there, $5000 and its ready for the road
so for an out side spray job i wouldnt expexct to much,
let me no if ur interested and ill try and get a number for you
cheers matty

Well Cal, the only way I see it is, these Panel/ paint shops have HUGE overheads! The reason they quote so much is that YOU get quality work & have a come back on any work or blemish YOU don't like & it is repaired as many times until YOU are happy. Then there is the paint job done by "a bloke" someone knows of that you were told of by a mate that is much cheaper..a word of advice here..DON'T DO IT!!! These blokes might do a half decent job..maybe..but get one that turns YOUR car into a turd ..no come back...all you usually get is the bloke will tell you to piss off!
I have had one professional paint job done on a VG Valiant two door I had & loved it. Since then, I have done all the paint on my cars myself & I know that if I had the dollars to get it done I would have preferred it! Although the satisfaction of doing it ones self is great I'm not deluded enough to state that everyone can do it. If you have a mate that is in the trade & can paint well you can go that way and help him do the car (also a very satisfying way to go). But in the end it's up to what YOU can afford & how much your car is worth to you (bugger what the estimated value is ). As the age old adage states 'if you want a perfect job, ya gotta pay for it'.

Scotty.

sputz i totally agree nwith what youve jus said, especially about sprayin them urself as ive sprayed all of my own cars and allthough they might not be perfect im happy because im jus able to say that i did it(plus the huge saving wif money )
but the only reason id trust this home guy is because my mate that got the work done there is a perfecionest, hes done up a number of cars the last one bein an old alfa, sprayed it him self and sanded it back 4 times to put new paint on cause he wasnt happy wif te finish(the finish was real good), and that car has gone on to win many 1st trophys in italian shows around the state, so if he says he was extemely happy wif the result then id be happy to get my car done there
but otherwise totally agree with what ur saying, but ,mind you just cause you pay for it doesnt meen you always get the best either, my boss has currently spent close to 80,000 on his 37 chev coupe ute and one of the companys workin on it cut corners any where you can think of and used dodgy second hand parts when he was payin for new e.g. brand new billit steering column, turn up and theyve cleaned up a hq one and chucked it in, anyways long story short lots of court costs later boss gets some money back car gets sent to another place, boss is about 15g's out of pocket wif lots of work on car havin to get redone.
guy who owns shop gets held up at gunpoint, lots of money missing and told he should shut down if he knows whats good for him , rumour has it there was a few customers and workers that wernt happy nwif him either, i say sucked into him
any ways sorry for the rant on jus got caught up in the moment and i hope this makes as much sense to everybody else as is it does to me haha

Too true Matchew.. I should have stated to ask around for a reputable tradesman ( usually you get the best guys from happy customers or from someone on this site who'd they recommend ). I know what you mean with the pure satisfaction of doing the job yourself (even if there are the odd bit's that could have been better. )...sounds like the Sputzwagon 1 all over!...main thing is I LOVED IT! .

Hey Cal... Check out a few Tafe colleges. They maybe! will let you have your car painted at on the cost of materials only. I know Bankstown Tafe was one that you could get this done..

Its worth a shot.

Regards John

I would say 8g's is about right - as said panel & paint shops have huge overheads because of the regulations with 2 pak where as there wasn't with acrylic, the better shops will do all the prep work as well as paint, very few if any will let you prep & they paint & if they do then there's no comeback/warranty.
Cal if you want a cheap job then look at doing it yourself - enroll at Tafe & learn for yourself !!

Cal wrote:I'm after a reasonably cheap panel shop in the Sydney area to do some minor panel work and a re spray on my EK (outside only).

I know it aint cheap, but most of the panels shops I've had quotes from seem to be living in dream land.....quoting 8 grand and above.

Even someone that does it as a side job in their shed would do

From where I stand a persentage of potential customers with classics or modified cars are in a dream land somewhere in the early 1970's, when it comes to what they expect to pay for work performed
Not that the early 70's was a bad place but it is now 2009, and the 21st Century has more regulations and increased costs.


I have a question of my own

Those of you that are reading the posts here that are not a buisness owner or tradesmen. Do you have any idea what is involved in your jobs, and the costs and expences that must be generated so a wage is paid to you each week.
90% of the people I meet have no idea, and just expect their pay to be in the bank each week. They also relate their hourly rate of pay to what they would expect to pay someone else to perform work.





The panel shop or mechanic you take your car to have a large investment in tools and equitment, that have to be maintained or replaced at times. sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars
He has major overheads in rent power phone insurance licencing both personal and that of their buisness, goverment requirements both local and State. EPA regulations and the tax department.
And lastly they have a lifetime of experience doing what you dont or can not do

Turn over work is what brings money in the door to try and cover these costs, and that is jobs in for and hour to a day or so.
Specalised work consumes days weeks and months, hundreds or thousands of hours and a never ending list of parts and materials that push the costs up all the time. And the confrontations with owners over these. In the end many just cover costs, if you are lucky
That is why it is so hard to get shops to work on these types of cars

Back yarders are the option every one has, some are great at what they do others are a disaster waiting to happen but as previously stated. You get what you pay for. And why are they working from home.
Because they know what it costs to have a legit buisness or they have a full time job and all the earnings from the after hours work goes straight into their pockets, and pay no tax's
How would you like the guy next door running a repair buisness from his house after hours. apart from the noise he is subjecting you and your family to. And his own, as well as to chemicals that are known to inflict major medical problems
And when something does happen you have no comeback, as you allowed it to happen and possibly supported this person.

Think I am being extreme? no way. I have seen the end results of ignorance in relation ship to materials usage. and people use to scoff at illness from non smokers in a smokeing related workplace

Everyone wants to save a dollar, its a natural thing to do.
But a better understanding of costs in labour and materials is needed.

Personally I dont care about what people do in relation to who does what for how much on their cars. It is their personal choice in the end. And the selection of people out there to do the work is varied

I have customers that are happy with what I do and charge, and others I have never done work for that make comments based on rumour or assumptions. That pisses me off.


The sad thing is that some people who chase the cheap options get burnt. Then they label all trade related people based on their experience

Does the same attitude apply to plumbers electricians apliance service people and doctors? sure does but they are needed to maintain the everyday vitals of life.

Where your car is a hobby
The final choice is yours, best of luck.

Very well said Smooth Customs......i am in the trade and the normal everyday person really would not realise what goes into a complete respray/restoration, and then struggle to understand why it costs so much. At the end of the day, it all depends on how much money you have to spend and how in depth you want to go.

spot on smooth customs. i'm a plumber and the same mentality filters through to my trade also. plenty of cowboys out there. a saying we put on our quotes and invoices now is, and heed it well to all, " QUALITY DOESN'Y COST, IT PAYS". Same goes with your car. Not necesarily the most expensive job will be the best. i charge on my experince, knowledge and tradesmanship. Although the twist to this never ending debate can be seen in that i had a huge patio put on the back of my house and it was the cheapest and yet the most professional i had ever seen. i think you need to check out past jobs and references.

Well said Smooth. I agree 100% .

We have a saying here at work "you get what you pay for....."
Don't pay much, don't get much.

My old FC was painted by professionals a little over 12 years ago. I paid $5000 grand back then and it didn't include engine bay nor dash pretty much nor any repairs bar an aerial hole and a crack in one of the flares, but included doors and door jambs. The paint to this day still looks new from what Gazrat has told me. I had varying qoutes at the time from $2-10,000. In the end I went with the guys who looked the whole car over then asked me to come back and check out a car they were spraying the next day to see if I'd be happy with their work.

Choose wisely.

Cal ...

What sort of spray job have you been quoted on - acrylic or 2pak?

If its 2pak, you will pretty much need to go with a professional painter, cause due to health requirements, the job will need to be done in a spray booth (these aint cheap!).

If your going original / acrylic, well you may be lucky enough to find a 'good' tradesman that can do it at home.

But of course, that's the hardest part - finding a 'good' trademan to do the job. Unless you know someone personally, or know that he comes highly recommended from a close personal friend/colleague, then your taking a big risk.

It's not impossible to find a tradie that can/will do a great acrylic spray job at home. Someone here earlier queried the credentials of why you would trust someone doing home spray jobs - of course you gotta be careful as mentioned above, but they do exist:

My brickie is the perfect example - he's been in the trade for over 20 years, has had his own company for over 10 years (but chucked in it cause of the admin stress etc), but is a brilliant tradie - cause Im hiring him direct, without the normal overheads assoc with a comp, Im getting him at half the rate as what other 'Company's' are quoting me for the same job, and he's still making better dollars than working for his boss on wages. We've done so much work and spent so much time together now, that we've in fact become good mates ...

Cheers,
Jamie.

I take all the points on board, and realise that most of these panel shops do have massive overheads , and that 8 grand + or whatever is the going rate nowadays.

But lets not kid ourselves too. Some panel shops (some, not all) charge stupidly high rates. This has stemmed from years of milking insurance companies, and unfortunately this has filtered through to private sector work. What pissed me off most was the attitude of some of these places. It was as if they really couldn't be arsed doing the work.

You know, why spend hours on my shitbox when they can make the same money on fixing some insurance claim that's in reality worth 3 grand but somehow ends up costing 6 grand..........

And to add to matchew said, some of the work I've had done over the years from quite rebutable (and not cheap) shops has been average at best. So you definately don't always get what you pay for.



Oh well, I'll just attempt it myself or leave it the way it is . Even though I can take the car in tomorrow for a 10 grand paint job, I don't see the value there.
I'm not one of these tightarses that wants a concourse winning paint job for 2 grand. But on the other hand I seriously cant justify close to 10 grand for wanting a basic paintjob

I'm sure blokes like Smooth, who I can tell takes great pride in his work, are worth every cent. The majority of others aren't.



Maybe I'll coax my old man out of retirement to do one last spray job......he was a spraypainter for over 20 years. Even he reckons the prices are way too high...................but what does he know






oldnek, when I was at TAFE many years ago we made some toolboxes. We gave them to the TAFE spray painting apprentices to paint them for us.

Lets just say they'll have to pay me to let them spray my car

yep thats right cal, my mate had the same thing, was goin round gettin quotes to get his &*#@ coupe done and gettin the reply, na sorry dont want to do rust. so then it goes into rsr rod shop and 4000 later rust is fixed(rsr i a good shop too, theyve fixed my boss'schev up).
then back to panel shops with the answer still na dont really want to do it,
finally gets a bloke to take it in quotes anywhere between 15 and 22g's, and it sits at his shop for almost 2 years while gettin all surface rusty again cause its only in primer, car gets pulled out gets a few more quotes still all around 20000, so now car is in back garage gettin done by himself lookin good too.
now when i say this im not havin a go at all the people in the trade all im sayin is its jus hard to find the good ones.

Here's another story, matchew...and once again, not on a panel beater bash crusade, just pointing out the attitude of some.

Had my XD in for some rust repairs about 15 years back. Took it to a certain inner Sydney shop that had a reputation for excellent work, and I paid accordingly. What was supposed to be a 4 to 5 day job turned into almost a month (mind you, the car wasnt touched for 3 weeks, and I was told the owner took it home most nights )

I went to pick it up, and the thing was unwashed and with the black trim around the tailights missing. When I pointed this out he claimed they weren't there in the first place....

Anyway, he found them. Whilst I was paying up he was putting them on the car. They'd broken the clips, so he drilled holes into the quarter panels and RIVETTED them in.

Anyway, 1500 bucks worth of rust repair (a few spots around the back window).

12 months later............ rust bubbles from the same spots.


The attitude was like ......" I usually knock back work like this. If you don't like the job, then f*** off"




Once again, not a bash. But you'd have to excuse me if some panel beaters aren't exactly my favourite people