Thread: How much is to much

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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