Need advice on finding a good body shop

[mrmustang]

Originally Posted by boris_thespider

Hey Everybody,
I had planned to do my own paint and body work. At this point, finding the time needed to do everything on my own is getting harder and harder. The doors, hood and trunk lid are mounted. All the trim will have been fitted and removed. How do I go about finding a good paint and body shop and how do I know if I'm being taken for a ride on the estimate? Thanks...

Mike

Mike,

Do you have a local Cobra group in your area, if so, the members there are you first stop for recommendations. As for pricing, while you say the doors, hood, and trunk are mounted, do they still need to be fitted properly, gaps done and redone, what about pin holes in the body (take a 100 watt light bulb in a drop light tonight in your garage and go behind the body while looking at it from the outside (usually requires one person for a truly eye opening experience). What about color combinations, stripes, rolled edges, cleaning up the body some more? What about cutting and buffing the paint afterwards for a true show finish? In the shops mind, meeting your expectations comes at a price, the higher your expectations, the higher the price. Again, all of this will have to be factored in to the price. Now with that said, a range of $5,000-$8,500 for a simple full color paint job is not out of the realm of reality. Stripes being on the higher end if you are not doing something exotic like Tri Stage colors or fades and flames.

I've got one member here doing his own bodywork on his Cobra, I expect to spend less than 10 hours doing finish prep (he is finicky about his bodywork, so I suspect that should hold true), will be spraying it black, base/clear no stripes for around $3,000. He will cut and buff the paint afterwards to remove any dust that may sneak through our filters (maybe 10-20 specs over the entire body if we do our job right), his ecpectaions have already been set, as have ours, hence the lower costs to him.

Hope you find this helpful.

Bill S.


PS: Rick,you failed to read the fine print: prep not included, trucks, vans, and cobras extra