I can understand why the old bartering system never really caught on.......someone usually ends up very unhappy in the deal. Generally, you fulfill your end of the bargain and then end up chasing the other guy for a long time to get him to come through.

As for paint jobs and body work, there are a lot more hacks out there than good ones. Years ago we had a custom paint job put on Dan's Cal look VW, and when he finally got it painted we went to look at it. The body shop guy was all proud and we were in shock, it was horrible. We made it clear up front the car was a good one and we were going to be fussy, but he actually thought he had done a nice job. We made him repaint it, and he got it sort of ok the second time, not perfect, but passable.

Don