Stuck in a Body Shop dilemma...

[Luminox]

Ok to make a long story short I own a 66 Mustang... I sent it to a body shop 5 years ago to get some work done. It started with Quarters and basically turned into a lot more sheet metal, the only thing original is hood, trunk lid, roof... So I paid this gentleman 5,500 dollars to do the sheet metal work which is now finished but needless to say it took way too long. The body is still on the rotisserie completely stripped.

So I ask the body guy to give me a price to paint the car with me doing the complete reassembly. At the start I was quoted 4,500 dollars to paint the car and do the Quarters with him doing the reassembly. He came back to me with a price of 3,033.11 for materials and he wants another 2,000 for labor.

I took his quote of materials to the local paint supply shop and I beat all his prices on material...basically saving 850 dollars myself.

So my with my trust issues I had before and the new ones I am stuck between choosing to take the car somewhere else or having a conversation with him about the price. Not to mention I don't know when he'd have it done.

If this situation happened to you...what would you do?

Thanks

Dominic

 

[10secgoal]

Don't care what he said or charged, I'd take it out just for the simple fact it took him that long to do metal work.

 

[rbohm]

personally i would not have waited 5 years for the body work to be done, 5 months maybe. after that i would have taken the car somewhere else. i say grab the car now, pay what you owe, and run away from the shop as fast as possible and dont look back. before you leave make sure you have every part you left with the car. shops like this tend to have financial problems that can come to a head, and if your car is still in the shop when the court locks the doors, you are out your car and there is nothing you can do.

 

[polozLX]

I was qoted $3500 on paint and body. "Car will be ready in two weeks". 19 months and 7K later I got my car back. Good shops take too long because they can.

 

[mystarcollector]

I was qoted $3500 on paint and body. "Car will be ready in two weeks". 19 months and 7K later I got my car back. Good shops take too long because they can.

...and bad shops take too long because they don't know what they're doing.
It's a roll of the dice.

 

[tx65coupe]

My vote goes for finding a different shop.

 

[ETEL64]

Ohh my!!!

Have you checked out how much a reputable shop charges? I had my 69 Mach in the shop for 11 months and 4x what you have spent and is about ready to come home for final assy. Floors, qtrs paint and body panel assy is expensive. I seem to think you are getting a good deal. Its just the time issue. Pull the car and find another shop if you want to get back behind the wheel sometime before the decade ends.

 

[Corral Girl]

Take your car and run as fast as you can from that body shop. Cut your losses and find a good licenced business to get it finished.
I'm new here also, and I'm in the process of buying a 66 from a man who's been thru an ordeal with a body shop in Northern Utah that was supposedly "restoring" the car for over 3 yrs. Needless to say, he finally got the car back into his own hands, after months of waiting and more money paid out than you need to know, and the final result is that the work is more than shoddy. Terrible. Now we are negotiating on a new price, and the cost of what it will take to fix the body and paint on the car the way it should have been done. If they have a "contract" pay a lawyer a few hundred bucks now to review it and probably save you thousands and lots of greef later.

 

[MAC'n89Blckstng]

You are getting a good deal. Shops in my area charge 10-20k JUST for body work and paint!

 

[mustangman1974]

Take it to another shop. Might have taken that long because they f@#d up. I had a body shop keep mine for 4 months rebuilding the rear after getting smacked. Needless to say they jacked it up. Took another shop 3 week to completely rebuild from the doors back to fix everything the prior shop did, and that included painting too. Not to mention taking repo parts back and forth many time until they recieved ones they were happy to install.

 

[Cobra5.0Jeep]

5 years? damn he must have other cars to work on though.

 

[striker911]

Seems like a lot of time and money. by this time u could have learned how to do it yourself and saved money. I would pull it. Takes a lot of reasoning away for paying a pro to do it, don't u think?