Thread: How much is to much

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Just wondering what kind of money some of you guys have spent on a paint job for your car. all body work and paint work sanding and buffing. Dont want to get into you private Bus. just wondering. For my thirty two painting frame and all body work Is 1500$ for paint supplys 3000$ for painting and also I built my painters 37 ford from the ground up to lic. and driving on street. I have heard that some paint jobs are in the 15000$ rage. Personally i would not spend that when I only spent 12000$ for the roller i now have. Just my thoughts.

I'll be candid.

My shop rate is cheaper than many pros, at $35/Hr. I give customers the materials at my cost, but I will not use cheap paint, as my reputation... and the pride I take in my work... are at stake. I also will be the guy held responsible, if this Arizona sun kills the color or gloss on your toy.

I get really anal about the details, and I bodywork-prime-block-touch up-reblock-seal-paint-add the graphics-clear-then buff & polish every job. On some jobs I paint inside and out, top-to-bottom... so the cost goes up.

In the last few years $10-20K is not unusual for a complete job, including graphics. Rods are often twice as much work as a car that can be painted in one piece, and does not have 60-80 years of abuse to be repaired.

It sounds like a lot of money, but it's hundreds of hours, and materials average $2500-$4000. I will add that I have seen jobs of mine that are 20 years old and still look fresh.

I never fault a guy for doing his own work, as that is how I started out. ...until my buddies started offering to hire me. If a guy is doing his own, I always offer to help with free advise. These guys are my "car-lovin brothers". :-)

I love what I do, but make no mistake. This requires a lot of work and patience!

You can get a paintjob from One Day Auto Painting for under a thousand... and if you can't see the difference... then save yourself the extra money... because you won't be able to appreciate the difference in the finish anyway.

The biggest problem, as I have experienced, is that many guys are often trying to support a family while they are building a car. This is not a cheap hobby, so some things will have to be compromised.

I'm glad Jay was able to be the first to answer, the only thing to add is emphasis.

It's all about time, how much quality do you want (or can afford). Quality paint and body work is time, time, time, then some material (and of course skill).

And the most salient point is, if you can't tell the difference between a $1000 job, and a $10000 job, you don't need to pay the 10 large. But try not to be so ignorant as to condemn those that can.

Now, do we start a pool on how many posts it takes til somebody makes some silly comment about trailered cars?

That's funny! :-)

On the Plymouth I'm doing, inside, outside, frame, body in two tone... Over $3600 in materials and I wouldn't even want to count up all the hours, and i haven't billed the owner for even half of the actual time... and this car will just be "driver quality", not a show car...

Also good to make sure everyone is talking the same language concerning what constitutes a complete paint job... frame, bottom of body, all the suspension components, brackets, or just a basic bc/cc on the outside of the body???? Then we can get into Jay's area of expertise--graphics--probably wouldn't be hard to wrap up $5k just in graphics not even counting all the prep work, materials, and time that go into a paint job prior to the graphics going on....

I'd say the price of a paint job is going to be somewhere in between $500.00 and $50,000.00 depending on the variables.......

thanks for your thoughts. I can tell the diff. in a 1000$ job and a 10,000$ job just dont think i would be driving it. Crap thats a lot of money.

At one time I would have agreed that $ 10K is an outrageous amount to pay for a paint job, but from being involved in the past 3 years with my 23, Don's 23, and now Dan's rpu, I have a whole new appreciation of how much of that figure goes into the supplies to do the job.

If you add up the etch primer, epoxy primer, surfacing primer, top coat (or base coat clear coat) PLUS all of the gallons of wash thinner, the sandpaper, scuff pads, mixing cups,degreaser, etc, etc that you use to do the job, you easily will have $ 2K-$ 3K in just those supplies.

Every time we go to the paint store it is another $ 200-$ 500 dollar day, and the box you walk out with isn't all that big. One night I made a pile out of all the receipts Dan has accumulated for just supplies to paint his rpu, and it was sickening to rattle off the totals at the bottom of each receipt. And this is all for a home grown paint job, not what a pro would do.

The labor is another subject altogether..............I really take my hat off to the guys who do bodywork and paint prep every day for a living.

Don

Hey guys I will not be the dick to mention trailers, cause we don't have them down here yet,thankfully... The cost of paint materials is outstanding even in NZ. I have priced HOK Tangerine Flake for my Bucket pickup body only and that was $5000.00 NZ plus then add all the other materials on top. I looking at aleast $10,000.00 for the paint job I want and then the interior with folding top will cost another $5000 to $10,000. The way I look at it is this is my only hobby that I spend money on and as I don't gamble,smoke and only enjoy the odd glass of wine, plus I'm single now,I can spend my money on my car. I also have no intentions of selling it as it is going to my younger brother and his son after I die.

Great advice.

Originally Posted by HOTRODPAINT

I'll be candid.

My shop rate is cheaper than many pros, at $35/Hr. I give customers the materials at my cost, but I will not use cheap paint, as my reputation... and the pride I take in my work... are at stake. I also will be the guy held responsible, if this Arizona sun kills the color or gloss on your toy.

I get really anal about the details, and I bodywork-prime-block-touch up-reblock-seal-paint-add the graphics-clear-then buff & polish every job. On some jobs I paint inside and out, top-to-bottom... so the cost goes up.

In the last few years $10-20K is not unusual for a complete job, including graphics. Rods are often twice as much work as a car that can be painted in one piece, and does not have 60-80 years of abuse to be repaired.

It sounds like a lot of money, but it's hundreds of hours, and materials average $2500-$4000. I will add that I have seen jobs of mine that are 20 years old and still look fresh.

I never fault a guy for doing his own work, as that is how I started out. ...until my buddies started offering to hire me. If a guy is doing his own, I always offer to help with free advise. These guys are my "car-lovin brothers". :-)

I love what I do, but make no mistake. This requires a lot of work and patience!

You can get a paintjob from One Day Auto Painting for under a thousand... and if you can't see the difference... then save yourself the extra money... because you won't be able to appreciate the difference in the finish anyway.

The biggest problem, as I have experienced, is that many guys are often trying to support a family while they are building a car. This is not a cheap hobby, so some things will have to be compromised.

Mine was $8000 by the time it was all said and done. Frame, body, flames, and pinstriping plus materials. It was worth every penny. And it was done in one month from the time it went in the shop.

I think it would affect a lot of opinions if you asked some of the critical car owners how much they would charge for 200-300 hours of their time... the maintenance cost for keeping the equipment and facility up... plus the responsibility that goes along with guaranteeing the work?

I still don't see how the national chain stores can charge so little. I know they buy really cheap paint... in volume. I had a friend have his '64 GTO ragtop shot metallic red, and within about 3 months it was badly faded. I am afraid to aks what they pay for the labor. I suppose winos work cheap, but they wouldn't show up for work most days. :-)

We built some equipment that was installed at one of the major paint supplier's lab. One of their guys told me that paint is the single largest cost in a new automobile.....more costly than the body weldment. He also said that the paint made for the national chain of refinishers was significantly different in formulation than is factory stuff......he explained that the el cheapo stuff faded fast....just like HRP said.

Denny, ya ready to bring it out to AZ????

Some day I'll add up what my costs were for my car's paint job and it's driver quality. I do know that the BC color was approximately $150 a quart and it took seven quarts. The CC was reasonable at about $50 a quart and that too was 5-6 quarts. Then you add the reducers, hardeners, epoxy primers, the urethane 2K, the poly primer, the bucket of Rage, a bale of sandpapers from 80 to 3000 grit, the 4 different liquid compounds and swirl removers and sealers. And of course I needed better tools with a Finishline lll for primer and an Iwata for the BC/CC. Then my ancient grinder/buffer went up in smoke, so that was another $300. Next was a bigger compressor as the little one I had used for years wouldn't supply enough cfm, and of course, I needed a booth though temporary, was another $2-300 with a fan and filters.

Now, DIY'ers, that's only the easy stuff. At least I started with all new steel, even if it wasn't straight so that was several hundred hours.

Now - why are paint jobs expensive ....and I'm a do it yourselfer, with no overhead

No Don (But Thanks Your the Best) we are finally moving forward. It is all in primer now. he wants to let it set for awhile before we start to block it out. I believe it should be painted by spring.