911 repairs and Respray

[sundance444]

Hi All
I've just got a quote for some body work (welding) and paint for my 911E.........and the price feels pretty punchy (to me anyway) so I'm after some advice from ya'all........particularly anyone who has had work done or is up to speed on bodywork/paint costs.

So...........My silver (dry state USA) 911E which looks fairly tidy........ isn't.

I have a quote for:
One front wings repaired at the bottom
One front wing headlight bowl replacement
wing mounting panels replaced (could be fixed but new is probably easier)
Bonnet front edge repair
One door shut repair
2 new door skins
One new outer cill (had it done a couple of years ago and sadly its not looking good)
Boot lid repair.

Probably difficult to comment on the cost of that lot without seeing it but the labour on that comes to £2200
The repair panels, door skins, rubber seal kit, nuts and bolts comes to.....£1750

Additional prep (bare metal) and paint £4500

Coming to a grand total of about £8000


I'd appreciate your thoughts on the matter


Oh .......and what is a tidy LHD 1970 911 E worth these days?

[Nige]

Doesn't sound too far off the mark. I'd be more concerned about it spiralling when/if they find other issues once the wings, sills are off, etc.

[911hillclimber]

Be sure it is a fixed quote and not an estimate (in reality)

Making good as Nige says can be a killer to a quote or lead to skimping on essential repairs.

Value of a good 911E?
£30K??

[johnM]

Be sure it is a fixed quote and not an estimate (in reality)

Making good as Nige says can be a killer to a quote or lead to skimping on essential repairs.

Value of a good 911E?
£30K??

Well it all depends what good means. I would like to think my 911E is worth more than £30000, I know what it's been valued at for insurance purposes and its more than double that.

Kind regards.

[hot66]

A really tidy 911 e is worth way more than 30k . I think a really tidy t is heading for 40k these days

[squirejo]

The freshly restored hello one at Paul Stephens owes over 70k and specialist cars of malton have one. Haven't checked but think 55k off the top of my head. Asking prices of course.

[Ant22]

I have had bare metal plus paint estimate of 8£k so the amount you've been quoted seems competitive, unless I've been given a wild estimate!

[MarkIII]

My car is off to Canford classics today for a bare metal respray, highly recommend Alan, price i have been given seems reasonable to.

[MT]

If were in the business of recommending others, then anyone who just wants a prep and paint (with only very minor metalwork repairs - blisters etc) I'd say talk to Charlie at Newdigate Bodyshop (near Dorking in Surrey). 01306 631777. Small operation, low overheads, and both Charlie and Simon have experience with Porsche, and do the paintwork for a lot of the local Porsche outfits behind the scenes.

Just had mine back yesterday (see below, or my resto thread for more details).

You'll be looking at £3000-3500 + Vat with them. All the doors/wings/bonnet etc are included in this price of course, and it could have rolling stock, engine etc left in place. So if it includes VAT your £4.5k for prep and paint looks reasonable.

Without seeing the extent of some of the repairs you mention (for example a boot lid repair could be anything from 1-15 hours work depending on what's to do) it is really difficult to comment, but my initial reaction is that £2200 labour looked cheap, so either their rates are low, the repairs are easy and/or they're low-balling it to get you to commit, and they will crank this up later as hours spent is always difficult for you to question.

Overall if you get the list done well for £8k total I'd say you've done ok. There might be some places that can do a good job for less, but I think there are many more who'd charge more.

My 2p's worth, as they say....

Mick

[murph2309]

I've just finished a rust 'search and destroy' and a paint job on my car. I think there are a couple of things to look out for when you're starting on this (from my experience). The first question I asked myself was; what do you want out of this?

Have a vision in mind and then be able to say to whomever you're working with what it is you want. Perfect rebuild? Take the rust out and make it look good? The cost will be dictated by the start point of your car, the finish point you have in mind and thus the amount of money you'll need to spend to realise the vision.

Couple of things:

1) When you get in there, you'll likely find more stuff to sort (eg if the sills are looking ropey after a relatively recent replacement, it suggests the original work didn't get to the bottom of the problem).

2) The quality of the paint is mostly about the prep (and the person wielding the gun). But generally, the number of hours of prep to paint for me seems to have been about 10-1

So the question then becomes one of "how far do you go?". I started off with an idea of getting the rust bubbles sorted, but was advised that if you're going to do it, do it. All.

But, having said that, not everyone wants to do that. So if you can be sure that the base you're working on is rust free then you won't be wasting any money on the paint. If not, then you'll probably find yourself having to repeat the process in a few years time.

The main cost variable is (of course) the number of hours that are put into the prep. My shell took north of 300 hours (but I needed quite a lot of work to get it right), and the paint (prep and painting) was around 250 hours. Check the hourly rate you're being quoted and then look at the material costs.

Your painting quote looks competitive, how many hours did they include in the prep? You can also make good use of the hours you're paying for by doing the 'boring stuff' like stripping the car and the underseal, so the pro's can spend your money on places where they really add value, not on the grunt work. Assuming you've got the space to be able to do that of course.

That all said, good quality Es seem to be asking good money, they're great cars, so worth putting the money into them.

If you haven't already, have a look at JohnM's legendary rebuild thread...that's what a good E ends up like

http://www.ddk-online.com/phpBB2/viewto ... 28&t=31622

[Pete S]

As others have said, the quote looks very competitive to me but its the additional costs post strip down that can get scary. The issue comes when removal of parts reveals additional work that was not included in the fixed price quote - my advice would be allow a very decent contingency

[Superlight7]

Having just come through the process my recommendations would be.

Be clear what is included and whats not...get it in writing.

Have the costs broken down to each task....this way if you hit problems with one job then you know what the quoted costs were for that job.

Understand what the hourly rate will be for additional work.

Consider doing as much heavy lifting as you can...you may save a few days labour.

Agree milestones and payment stages.

Seek regular understanding of where you are against budget.

Be careful what additional work you ask for....those little things add up quickly.

Once you've got a detailed breakdown think about what could go wrong and plan a contingency.

For example at quote time my wings were considerd repairable but in the end once dipped needed replacing with new at cost of £1700.00 ish.

Looking at my costs your quote seems reasonable.....but allow a contingency....I assume you will be painting with glass out....so have you thought about new glass seals and the likelyhood of having to replace a windscreen if you are unlucky in cracking it during removal or refitting.

[Bertroex]

A couple of my experiences would want me to ask the following:

-who does the quotes at the bodyshop? The chap who is good at hooking customers, or the man doing the welding, lead loading, stripping, preparing. If it is the girl/chap in the office: BEWARE. I had a situation were replacement of panels, bit of repair and a respray shot up from £6500 + Vat to £18600, VAT negotiable when the office chap went off ill and the metal worker suddenly realised what job he had at hand.
-do they have a really enthusiastic approach? "Oh, yeah, we have done this 2.4E, and there an S, and this RS and RSR and so-and-so's 356 carrera and and. As it stands here, I think we can safely say £XYZ".
They proceed to remove of the front wings, remove the outer sills (not authorised, btw), cut in both rear 3/4 panels (not authorised), both A arms removed so that it is difficult to load the car and stop the works and suddenly you get a phone call: "you'd better come down ASAP! - Right: this is the situation: a bit of prodding and poking requires removal of rear wings, repair to inner wings, sunroof drains, replacement of A post, complete front section, new outer sills, bit of metal in the rear seat backs and 25 hours repair on the longitudinals as it was hit in, possibly december 1974 as we found a sun newspaper dated jan 1975 so and it'll cost you £ABC. Shall we proceed? By the way, Just consider this: We have just heard that well known Porsche Man's 2.4E, which was 10 times worse than this, sold for an unbelievable XYZ, we still feel it is worth it." Suddenly your budget shoots up by 350%.
- What are their hourly prices for stripping (apprentice wages, say £15 to £20), basic welding and rust removal (qualified metal worker £20- £25), panel beating/lead loading/repairing/alloy welding/and the specialist skills (£25 -£45)
-Does the bodyshop have a gung-ho approach or are they "order new and put in/paint" outfit. Suddenly your door post need removing, and the kidney bowls need doing and so the outer sill needs to be removed, made good, heater pipe needs repairing and and and. £175 for a "just a few metal plates welding in, mate" suddenly comes to £870.
-Know thyself. You do decide for a proper repaint, and £12000 later that shell is looking arrow straight. Suddenly that scratched, weathered door frame is looking unacceptable. The lights, the door rubbers, the gubbins, the bobbins, the slightly offputting hinges, etc etc- And another £2800 which you didn't budget in.
-Does the bodyshop have experience with putting in a rear window? If so, in what. A Cayman? A 1993 bmw M3? A mercedes sprinter? Do these chaps know that only a porsche rubber will fit, and it entails 45 minutes with 2 people and about 3 windows worth of experience before you can genuinely say you can do it?
-Keep the car insured. "Hi, Steve, erm, yes, look here. As it happens we had a bit of a crisis in the bodyshop. The extractor fans in the spray boot caught fire, and yes, your car was somewhat damaged by the small fire. Not a problem, we don't want you to worry, ok? We can make it all good BUT we just wondered whether you could claim on your insurance as actually, due to an administrative error due to Chappy being off ill, we let our liability insurance lapse. Also, would you mind giving us a bit of a headstart of £650 so we can start painting your car? Otherwise, it'll have to wait a bit before we have done a string of insurance claims on rental cars for the next 4 months and the bloke from the spray boot fans is going on holiday and needs paying now. Really sorry ,but really appreciate it!"
-Get some quotes in, and have some ddk-ers who went through this process have a look at your car as it is now. The likelihood is that you are looking through perfectly working Porsche flavoured rose tinted spectacles. Lets get you down to earth.
-If your bodyshop man gets a heart attack whilst aligning your bonnet and needs a triple bypass, are you prepared to drive around like that for a bit? Fingers crossed that he'll pull through and still wants to work following the op + 6 months recovery, but....your car is 85% finished.... You are obviously not suing him or his lovely wife who always made tea and baked chocolate chip cookies, who happens to be genuinely distraught. You bite your tongue, leave the car there and hope for the best. Alternatively, there is always the flipside of the coin: a 60% functional porsche is still more fun than a 95% 2011 BMW 5 series
-Do you decide to have things on paper, and prepared to pay for it? It might be that, on paper, a bill is made out for £3500 to go "through the books", but that £6000 of work is unitemised and under the table. What come back do you have on that £6000 worth of work?
-Is there sufficient cash flow going through the business? Does your job gets paid by the deposits of customer 1 and 2 after you? If you do fall out, and you decide to go through the courts because your freshly powder coated A arms are rusted through from the inside and you wacked your porsche against the hedge in your street because the suspension collapsed, will they go out of business?
-How many times has the owner gone broke and restarted 12 months later under a different trading name? Obviously, with the same funny cupboard, that sprayboot with new extractor fans and a few choice items that were picked up cheaply from the liquidation sale of the previous company.
-Which subcontractor do they use? "Hi Steve, yes, we noticed that your foglights are wrongly wired up. We can have a mate in the trade come by and make good, possibly costing about £125. A bit later a handwritten bill appears for £350. The man in the trade had a look at aforementioned extractor fans and your foglights will help towards the bill.
So, yes. As George K once told me: "in switzerland, there were 20 porsche specialists. Only 2 weren't done for fraud or tax evasion." Belgium is worse. As for England, well, the name Porsche definitely attracts choice characters. I've met a few. Did cost a pack of money. For sure an experience.

Get some advice.

Regards,

Bert

[Bruce M]

Priceless .... Quite literally

[IanMcLeod]

Very good advice Bert. Parts of it made me laugh out loud even though bits seem familiar and I suspect true and probably not that funny at the time.

Ian.