Good and inexpensive, is my guy as Jack knows. In and out in less than 10 days.
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I know but it's a tiny 3 window coupe with vinyl interior. It's not like I'm going with ultra leather and all kinds of fancy sculpting. Just 2 tone with pleats. If I had a heavy duty sewing machine I'd probably have at it myself. Don't get me started on paint and body guys. $100-$150 per hour? Your doing body work you're not a lawyer!!!
but a fishing pole , minnows are cheap .
I did the majority of my interior myself because the rest of the build dried up my budget. So, I decided to tackle it myself. Worst case scenario--I would have to eventually take it to a shop once I had funds. But as it turned out, it was not that hard. I had a shop upholster the seat based on a photo i provided, and he sewed and installed the coverings for the dash, console, and garnish mouldings. I did the rest. It was a matter of getting the appropriate materials, using the correct glues, and knowing how to make patterns. If I built a new car, I would probably do it again as it saved me a lot of money and . . . I enjoyed doing it!
So we are FIVE weeks in on a 2 week interior job and we finally have some rugs but not much else. Man; how they stay in business is beyond me. The damn season will be over with by the time he is done!
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Jim, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but does your contract specify a completion date?
Anytime you enter an agreement to have work done (or when you preform work for others), it is always a good idea to have the details in writing. Here is a short list of things to include in an agreement;
A). Specify what the work to be performed will be (list the details)
B). Specify any materials that is to be used (list the manufacture's names and numbers whenever possible)
C). Specify a reasonable amount of time to complete the work (due date)
D). Specify what the complete and total cost will be, excluding any approved extras
E). Specify what qualifies as an approved extra (i.e., anything not listed in the agreement)
F). Specify the labor rate for extra work
G). Require all extras work be detailed on an Extra Work Form that lists time and materials required
H). Require all Extra Work Forms be signed and dated by both parties
I). Specify that anything that is not signed and dated by both parties is not billable, payable or allowed
J). Specify any and all penalties that may incur for not adhering to the agreement
Hope this helps in the future..
If it's any consolation, the carpet does look nice.
Jim, I hope my post didn't come off as disrespectful. Certainly didn't mean for that. Just trying to help for future situations.
Item J is termed "Liquidated Damages" in contract jargon, and generally equates to what is the value of time. It sounds good, and it's a necessary feature in major contracts for facilities that produce a salable product, but for a services contract it's a tough thing to enforce. There's always some excuse to be made for why it's late, and getting a small business to agree up front that he'll knock off say $200 for every day past the due date is gonna be tough. Just sayin' it sounds good, but good luck getting a guy to agree up front, then double good luck enforcing it when he's late. Your best bet, in my experience, is to camp out at the guy's shop, and keep up a running dialog regarding why he's not working on your project. The squeaky wheel gets greased, and the bigger PITA you make yourself the more grease gets applied. My $0.02.
LOL, without getting into an argument to wether it is penalties or liquidated damages (both are not always the same). My point was to simply give some guidelines to achieve a meeting of the minds, meaning both parties know what is expected of them.
In Jim’s case, he is expected to pay for the services rendered and the shop is expected to do the work in a professional workman like manner. However, without a due date, the shop can put other projects in front without any consideration for whom came first, while it is morally unethical, it is NOT illegal (most shops will not do this). And, if there are no penalties or consequences then the customer has no recourse other than what is allowed by law (granted penalties are not always easy to collect). If you look closely at the bottom of your receipt, most shop have a clause that states “if not claimed after 30 days your property can be sold”. This is damages, and what’s good for the goose should also be good for the gander.
It is reasonable to expect a due date (in some states it is required by law) for services. It is reasonable to expect a job to be performed in a professional workman like manner. It is reasonable to expect a job to be competed with due diligence. It is reasonable to expect to be paid for services rendered. It is reasonable to expect to suffer consequences for abandonment (abandonment can also be defined as not completing a job). And it is reasonable to expect damages when a contract is not fulfilled. Are there exceptions, always. But, it should be agreed to by all parties, not just one writing the rules as they go.
A contract wether written or oral, must contain a meeting of the minds.
While the squeaky grease scenario, does get results, it can sometimes get less than desirable results. I’m not saying it’s not a good idea to make your presence noticed, I’m just saying do it wisely.
If it were me at this point, I would schedule a meeting with the sales rep and/or the owner of the shop to discuss my displeasure with the progress and establish a reasonable timeline for completion.
I wish I lived in your idealistic world, or that I'd picked up some of those rose colored glasses back when they were so popular.
There's a huge difference between a large shop with a bunch of worker bee's and a one-man-show upholstery shop. Most of the places that we as hot rodders do business with will tell a guy to take his business somewhere else if he tries to establish penalty/liquidated damage clauses in a work agreement. Your experience may be different, and I'm happy for you if that's the case.
Cool, no more to say..
Oh I've let him know I'm not pleased with excuse after excuse. And yes my visits are becoming more frequent. The problem with taking my car to another shop in the area is they are all very expensive and I just can't afford it. Then too I'll have the (last guy did it wrong and I have to redo what he did) scenario. Instead of just finishing up the job it'll cost me double. I've had guys try to pull me down that road and I told them no thanks. And too it wouldn't be the first time I've taken someone to small claims court to get things handled (and yes that was a verbal agreement as well). All that said I know a lot of people in the hot/street rod game and word will get around fast.
Not much solace Jim, but I'm reminded of upholstering the '40 coupe a couple decades ago.
Anyone who's started/owned their own small business, or ever dreamt of it, thinks of the little guy expressing his entrepreneurial heroism or some such attribute. While true for many, in too many other cases it's a matter of the guy having to work for himself because he's used up all the employers who grew tired of his poor work habits. Because they don't understand the positive work traits of meeting promises and such other nuisances they repeatedly "buy business" with underpricing. So goes the cycle.
On the 40 coupe I shot myself in the foot (as we all do when making decisions that don't work out). The bride comes home from work one evening and asks if I'm about at the point of upholstering the car. My reply is "yep, why you askin'?" Turns out one of her co-workers has a young man new to their church who's just gotten out of Walla Walla from a drug beef and needs to get his life back on course. He claims to be an accomplished upholsterer and just needs someone to give him a break. Yeah, red flags all over the field eh? Well, being somewhat sappy and believing in all that redemption stuff I interview him. He has an impressive book of pics showing some of his past work. So we set up a plan. Because he's broke, has a small family, and just out of the can he's working out of his father in laws garage. Well, I'm not that sappy, so I don't give him the car, but give him access to the car to do all the measuring and pattern making. I buy all the materials directly from the supply house so there's no loss of control of material quality concerns. He gets started like a house afire. Trim panels made up, carpet cut, and then.......bupkus for a couple weeks. Yep, excuses aplenty...............familiar eh? As it happens, 4th of July that year was on a Friday and the shop was going to be closed for three days, so I gave him an ultimatum. If he ever wants to see a dime of income he comes to my shop and we work til it's done, no matter how much inconvenience. He whines about needing his large sewing table. I say I've got plywood and 2x4s aplenty, how big a table do you need? Upshot is he needed the money and finished it that weekend (actually by Saturday evening)....and did a fabulous job. But it wasn't going to happen that quickly based on his own initiative.
I get the "living within a budget" thing, but too often a "business" offers a lower price when compared to reputable shops because that's the only way they can attract customers who make that their primary decision point. Of course money only represents value in a transaction, time and aggravation are other cost factors even if we don't equate a monetary amount to them. Reminiscent of the old filter commercial tag line............."pay me now or pay me later". Like I said, small solace, but we've all done it to ourselves at some point or other.
Believe it or not guys, I was not trying to be a smart ass, or meaning to disrespect, demean, or otherwise offend anyone with my post. And, obviously, life is different in California than the other states. My apologies if I offended anyone...
When price is the issue, you sometimes have to put up with a long wait, like I did, waiting 15 months to get my grille. If I was foolish with my money, I could probably have paid $6-7,000 to get an expedited build of the welding fixture and then another $1800 for the grille, but I didn't pursue that route. I never got any excuses, but I was unhappy when I was told that the grille would be done by the end of October and it was finished on April 1. I sure could have used it 5 months earlier, before the car was torn down for paint. I'm just glad that I can now finish the car without the junk grille that Oze apparently gets away with using on the cars they build for customers. As it is, I still paid for two grilles and another $300 in freight, shipping grilles back and forth.
Around here, if you went to a shop with a lengthy contract for someone to sign, I think they'd all tell you they don't need your business that bad. The going rate is $65 an hour at most shops. I can't afford much of that time. So far, I've done everything myself, including aluminum upholstery panels and a core foam and fiberglass headliner. All that's left is carpeting.
So I decide to pop in and pay him a visit. His truck is there but the lights are off and he is nowhere to be seen. There is a package at his door so I stuffed a note in it to call me (very visible) and I leave. I get home and I follow up with a call and his voice mail came up and he says "You have reached Undercover upholstery please leave a message" so I did. Only trouble is; his business is called Cote's upholstery not under cover!! So he calls me back and tells me he was going to call me to give me an update anyway (that would be a first) then proceeds to tell me he took the headliner down to wire in the dome light. He says whoever wired this car they did a real sloppy job and while he was hooking up the dome light into the fuse panel sparks started to fly because there were exposed bare live wires. Then he tells me I should have the car towed from here once he is done and have the electrical looked at by a professional. Funny I ran the car for a couple months and drove it there without issue. But after he installed the firewall rug NOW THERE ARE EXPOSED WIRES? So at the end of this interesting conversation I asked him if he saw my note and he said no and that he was up till 3 AM working on my car. The way I see it he is now living there. Up till 3? Truck is there? Didn't see a note stuck to a huge box that was in his doorway? Yeah, thinking of going there with the cops and a flatbed and pull all my shit out of there. Then he can sue me for whatever he thinks I may owe him. :mad: Sorry for the rant.
Sounds like another excuse--blaming something else for his own failures. It may be necessary to wait on the interior so you can accrue the funds to take it to a respectable shop. I would question the quality of his finished work given his work ethic. My two cents worth . . .
Did you ever compare the equipment you need to fish to the equipment you need for a body/ paint shop?
Stick with a piece of string and a hook-----worms or bugs----probably a $2 license
Body/paint shop needs sandpaper( 10 sheets will cost more than that whole fishing set up), files, grinders, hammers, pry bars, frame straighteners, fans, filters, brooms,welders, drills, lights (lots of lights, air compressors/filters/driers,etc,etc,etc
Uncle Bob nailed it (again ;) )....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Parmenter
Tomorrow will be six weeks in on a 2 week interior job. So I just got back from his shop and as I pull up he is installing a headliner IN ANOTHER CAR! Then when asked why he isn't working on my car he cranks up the excuse machine his Dad who was working for him had to quit to take care of his elderly parents and now I have all these commitments that he was handling. I told him that's not my concern..(pointing at my car) THAT'S MY CONCERN! He does have one seat done, the kick panels, the headliner is back in, the backup camera is mounted, one of the three back panels are done and the other two look almost done. Tells me it will be done Sunday...not holding my breath though.
Patience... it's so close now that to start over may be pointless.
I'm certain we've all been there / done that. I know I have. That's why this time I just did it myself. And I am pleased with the outcome and surprised at how easy some of it us.
Stay the path, you're almost there now. Keep up the pressure tho'.. visits in person are alot more meaningful than a phone call as I am sure your aware! 8-)
Good luck with it Jim. Hopefully your interior is done Sunday!
I payed him a surprise visit again today (Wednesday) and low and behold he is working on another car (installing a headliner). Really? So I ask him whats up with this? He tells me his Dad quit and went to take care of his sick parents so now he has all these commitments that his Dad was suppose to take care of. I told him that wasn't my concern but that (pointing to my car) is my concern. He probably figured I wasn't coming down again till Thursday like I always do so he could sneak in a quick job while I wasn't looking. He does have one seat done and it looks good but he left the plastic pieces where the headrests slid in. They are under the new covers but you can feel them if you run your hand over the top of the seat! Then I wanted the blue pipping in between the black and grey and that's not there. Tells me he couldn't get it to look right and it looks better without it. So now he's cutting corners to get it done. Man this kid is a piece of work. I would not recommend him if he was the last guy on earth and he wanted to do it for free!! So I told him I want a date when it will be done. He tells me Sunday it will be finished. Again..I'm not holding my breath.
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On the bright side, it looks like he's doing good work! Slow, but good.
Jim--------I was being a smart ass about your comment about body/paint work being $100/150 hour-------and then Shine posted about fishing
A lot of your posts are middle of night ----when do you sleep?????
But-------I have 2 33 roadster chassis and bodies here as family projects-one to be a 392 hemi , one a flathead-with paint/interior costs so high I am now building just one of them and am setting it up for a 30 minute swap between the hemi and flathead --will save thousands of dollars
Okay went to go see the 32 yesterday and was excited that it was all together (finally) but was disappointed to find some things wrong. The first and most important is the brake lights are on all the time! He tried telling me it was that way and I told him it was that way. No what I said was that the brakes would leak down during winter storage causing the brake lights to come on. This is why it needed a new battery. Everything on this car worked perfectly before he got his hands on it. The second and also very important is the driver side window doesn't work. He asked me did the windows work on this car? I can't get them to go up or down. I told him there are contacts in the doors and they wont go up or down unless the doors are closed. So he hops in and turns the key and the passenger side works fine. Then he says something about loose wires in the door and he knows whats wrong there. Loose wires? Really? The dome light and the backup camera work fine. Just wondering what he messed up in the process. The third thing: The doors on this car have a slight curve or bow if you will. The door panels butt up to the base of the garnish molding. Now typically this panel would be held in place by the garnish molding sitting on top of it. BUT..this car has the garnish moldings molded into the door so you can't remove them. That's why the panel butts up to it. Now he tells me eventually the center top edge of this panel is gonna sag in and there will be a gap there because the panel is straight and the door is curved. Um...maybe put a couple upholstery clips there to hold it in place? Yeah I could do that. (Ya think??) Then I had him put in an access door for the master cylinder. It came complete with a magnetic popper like the kind found on glass doors on entertainment centers. You push the glass and it pops out at you so you can get your fingers behind it. The popper is long gone and he says you can use your key or finger nail to open it...LOL For $3 at lowes I can get another one but that's not the point here. Lastly; I gave him all the stuff I wanted to "HIDE" in the trunk. A small tool box, bottle jack, tire repair kit, first aid kit, small air compressor, and my car duster. The way he set the battery in there I'm not getting all my stuff in there. I suppose you get what you pay for. I didn't pay for a $6000 interior so I shouldn't expect it. Maybe I'm being too picky? Oh! I almost forgot. No door handles on the inside. He says the door panels are too think and they don't fit so I don't know what you want to do there. Seriously? What I'm gonna do? I told him to call me when it's all fixed. It does look nice though. Maybe I should sell it quick before it all falls apart. Sorry for the long read/rant.
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It does look very nice. Great color combo.
Sorry for all the headaches tho'.... 8-(
No door handles? Ask him to sit in the car, shut the doors and tell him you will let him out when he solves that little problem. Shesh!!!
Ditto both Mike & Ray, and I really like Ray's suggestion. Isn't it amazing how some guys can be so talented at trying to slip away from responsibility for their shortcomings? Like making the door panel too thick for the door handle, and trying to just pass it off with "...yeah, I don't know what you wanna do there....", and "...yeah, the brake lights are still on all the time, like you said...". The guy must have been born with a Teflon coating.
Very nicely done. It looks great.
Sorry to hear of the issues but it does look like he does nice work. Now if he could plan a little better maybe he wouldn't forget about door handle holes in door panels. :LOL:
Well everyone it's been a long 7 weeks but it is finally home. I made up my mind it was coming home come hell or high water. Call me a prick if you will but I wasn't about to fork over the cash before everything was fixed. So I made another "Installment" if you will, towards paying the bill. We get there Monday morning to find the car outside...? To my surprise and shock he fixed the door panels and even installed the door handles (though they are install wrong I can turn them around). He tells me the brake lights are now working but he couldn't get the driver side power window or the 3rd brake light to work and then hits me with a (You're all set). So I tell him because he took 7 weeks that I had to pay a bill and I will have the rest of his money in a couple weeks when I get paid. I don't think he liked it but I don't give a rats ass what he likes. What I should do is give him the rest of his money over the next seven weeks and see if he likes it. The real train of thought here was I'm going to take the car to an auto electric place and have them fix it and deduct that from what I owe him. So as the wife gets in I find out the real reason he is done with the car. He says "just in time here's my next customer" and he points to a 64' Impala. I felt like warning the poor bastard what he was about to get into but I didn't. So off we go and I'm following her and she gets to an intersection and a truck waves her on and she hit it a little hard and did a burn out...(oops). We hit the highway and just as we get to our exit she hit the brakes and...yup. The third brake light comes on. I pull up on her and tell her to try her window and up it went. This has me scratching my head.:confused: We got home and she told me to hop in and we went for a quick joy ride. As she pulled it into the garage the oil pressure gauge shot up to 80 PSI (max on the gauge). Looks like we have some electrical gremlins at work here. We'll have to chase them down one at a time and exterminate them for good. Just happy it's home.