Pre-paint jail
 

Needs some opinions from the group to see if I'm thinking "normal".

This spring I found a guy to paint the Canadian Z28 my son and I went and got last summer. I looked at a couple cars he painted and even found a guy I used to work with that had a similar car the guy painted 15 years ago and and he raved about the guy and how good the car still looks so I felt pretty comfortable that I'd found my guy. He told me before we came over for him to see the car that he had two customers that were on the fence about when they would be ready to do there cars so he couldn't give me a time frame to get me in at that moment and I was fine with that. When we took the car over for him to look at he was pleasantly surprised how solid it was and said the other two guys still hadn't committed to bring their cars in and said if I wanted to be next in line all he needed was a verbal commitment. I said ok and asked when he'd be ready and he said the car he was currently working on would be done by the end May so he should be able to get it in by early June and be done by October which was fine with me. He gave me a huge list of parts to buy that would save time and money in the long run so I bought them all and waited to hear from him. I didn't so in early June I called him to tell him I had all the parts and was wondering when he'd be ready and he said the owner of the car he was working on wanted more work done to his car so it would probably be around the 4th of July before he would be ready. Today is the one year anniversary of my son and I picking the car up and I still haven't heard anything from him so I called and left him a message today and am wondering if any of you guys would be upset about this or if it's just business as usual? I'm in no hurry to get the car done but leaving a guy hanging for two months without a single call isn't the way to do business IMO and now that I started thinking about it today I'm kind of upset about it. What do you guys think?

I would find another painter myself.

Let’s just say, I’ve heard this scenario way too many times. I’m face, just about par for the course, I would say. I found the best guy you would ever want. My only criticism is he mad the car too nice. I wanted a factory quality resto. He has this thing baby butt smooth and perfect fit and gaps. The problem with body/paint guys is they are “inspired” kind of like no-polar (not all are). They have a moment when thy do phenomenal work, as wel as times when they have a mental block. If you push them, they will do crappy work, if you let them be a free spirit , who knows? Plus, they always have a quick job, here or there that makes them fast $$. Making your car pushed back more. Plus, if the are good and don’t have a bake booth, they will go a month between sprays to cure the primer/paint. It a ulcer season when a car is painted. I will agree, I’d have second thoughts on having a guy who does not communicate. I’ve gone through 4 guys to find the right one. One guy quit in process anc abandoned my car losing or stealing many nos parts. It’s just the price of tuition. But you 1st instinct is probably the right one?

He just called me back and said he'd be ready for me by September. I told him I'm not in a hurry and don't want to rush him but if he can't get me in by the date he tells me I'd like a simple call or text to let me know so I'm at least in the loop and he seemed to understand. Hopefully he doesn't hold it against me but this should be a common courtesy IMO.

Paint and body is an extremely stressful, time consuming job (at least if you do quality work) and it's very difficult to estimate the amount of hours it's going to take. For me to do a complete restoration paint and body, it's about a 6 month job. All it takes is one little SNAFU to throw a wrench in your schedule that will last for a year or more. If you've seen his work and talked to multiple people that are happy with him, then be very, very patient. It's a hard job. It sounds like he has a good reputation, check in with him to make sure your project progresses but give him plenty of breathing room. Once the car is done and looks great, you'll forget about how long you waited. If you rush him, neither of you are going to be happy. Hope your car turns out great.

I've had 3 cars painted over the years, all of the experiences were frustrating. I'm at the point where the painter has to have great reputation with 2-3 folks I trust, otherwise I won't even consider them.

My recent experience pretty painful as well. Did great work, just constant timeline changes from start to finish.

Not going to get going on my nightmare. It's still too fresh to get over. I'll just say, I am going to paint my cars from now. I can do just as good a job and procrastinate just as long...:rolleyes2:

I've had 1 car to 3 different people now, one of them is a 1,000 miles away, and I gotta say, trying to get this car painted correctly and to my satisfaction has been the most frustrating experience I've been thru with a vehicle.

Sorry you have to experience this too.

My Merc took 2 years but there was a lot of rework needed when the car was stripped to bare metal.

I had a '72 Mach 1 painted, was just going to be a scuff and repaint and took a year.

I have a firm rule of thumb when having ANY work performed. NEVER tell them you are not in a hurry, you will regret it. However well intentioned on your part it doesn't necessarily equate to a better end product.

Thanks for the comments guys, I really don't care when its done as long he keeps me informed and lets me know if any unknown issues arise. The last car I had painted took twice as long and cost twice as much as I was quoted even though shop owner told me it was only car they ever tore apart that they didn't find any bad surprises on.

I'm a boiler inspector by trade and if I'm a half hour late for something people are calling or texting me wanting to know when I'll be there so I thought waiting a couple months about something so expensive was being fairly patient. If I don't hear from him for a couple more months I'll be looking for a new painter.

Last 2 years I've really made it a point to not use folks who can't communicate and who are even close on quotes. So if it was me, I'd move on. You know he's gonna take way longer and have excuses.

Body shops are not normally known for doing a complete paint job on time. You should always plan to spend more money before the car is ready to come home. When the shop was doing mine, I was able to see the car whenever I wanted. This shop was 2 miles from my house & had a good reputation of doing nice work. The owner is a car guy himself & has several rare Ford muscle cars. The draw back was that they also do insurance work which of course is their bread & butter. They had my car for 1.5 years & things changed during the time it was there. More work was required after the media stripping was done. I had different ideas on how "I" expected the car to be properly restored. Wasn't looking for a highly detailed, over restored job. Wanted the car to be more like factory job. The painters had to go through some serious educating & discussions. Most people don't want cars done that way. When this happens, more time & materials are required. We discovered some paint color prices are through the roof depending on what toners are used. Daytona yellow was 1,100.00 a gallon x 2. Just a little food for thought......Good luck....Joe

"Daytona yellow was 1,100.00 a gallon x 2. Just a little food for thought"

WOW!! Now thats a eye opener! Thanks Joe

Gregg

High quality paint in the "correct" color for vintage cars is VERY expensive.

I'm with you Joe, last car I had painted was identical to this one and the materials alone were $3800.

I was having lunch with the local US district attorney 20 years ago and he stated that the biggest complaint they had with attorneys is not keeping their clients informed of the progress on the case. He stated that a lawyer could provide terrible actual work, yet keep their clients informed and have no complaints whereas someone could provide stellar work and not keep the client informed and have complaint after complaint pile up.

I'm not worried about being informed once the work starts as we've already agreed I'll stop by every couple weeks to check out the progress and square up on the bills. I'm concerned about him telling me he'd be ready for the car by the end of May though and still not being ready in August without a call or a text. I guess its a principle thing to me and I still expect a persons word to mean something even though society seems to be going the other way.

Personally I'd really struggle with using him unless you literally have no options. Also I'll use out of state people over locals if the non local folks have a great rep and really good communication.

I know friends have used Jim Plimpton and also Kurt Anderson in WI for high end muscle cars if you want their contact info.

If something happened and he had to redo some or all the paint of the current car I could see where he could lose time to communicate with a "potential" customer (Im sure if hes any good he has a list a mile long of people that would take a spot - imagine trying to keep 3, 4, or 5 of those people updated - at a half hour a call). Its summer time and people are going in a thousand directions esp if he has kids and then add a small mistake. If that were the case you wouldnt even register on my list of people to call. What I would like to know here is the person with the car currently there, are they getting the needed calls or updates?

Now if he was a professional with a complete staff yes then you should expect updates on when to bring it in...

I also get how many people have been burned by body shops and one should be very cautious when choosing to do business with one. This thread is reminder why I do my own work and have only myself to blame. If I were/had to send a car off I would send it to one of the pros that frequent this site.

Best of luck

Thanks John. The other guys Z28 he painted looks amazing so I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt as long as he gets to me in September. If not I'll have to figure something out because I don't have a back up plan.

I've read about at least 2 high end shops in IA in the Goodguys Gazette over the past several months.
One is Lakeside Rods in Rockwell City, owned/run by Roger Burman. Bit of a drive for you, but highly regarded for top quality work.

I am somewhat local to Rockwell City and I would not recommend this shop.

One mistake many people make is taking their collector car to a "body shop" and not a restoration shop. If the body shop does insurance work I can guarantee that you will be put in the end of the line any time any new insurance work comes in as that is where they make their money. Finding a good restoration shop can also be very difficult and that is where good research and references come into play. Even after doing that you can run into trouble. Right now people are literally throwing money at restoration shops so they are becoming overwhelmed with work thereby slowing their progress down. Not making excuses but that is what is currently happening.

In my experience most paint and body guys are clowns(Just like most construction guys.).

I've built 900+ houses and never missed a closing date. Ever.

I started when I said I would start and finished when I said I would finish.

I would not let anyone paint my junk.

As a matter of fact, I just finished priming 23,000 square feet of drywall in my new house. Tomorrow I start sanding the walls and ceilings and then I'm going to paint it.

It took me 11 days just to touch up the drywall after the contractor was finished. His hangers sucked, his finisher was the best I've ever seen and his sander was average.

It looks good now. I could paint it with gloss paint if I wanted too.

Basically, if you don't want a paint horror story, paint you car yourself.

I appreciate everyone's input but I don't want the thread go in the ditch or get personal.

I've always wanted to paint a car by myself but a late 70's or early 80's Z28 would be the worst car in the world to start with IMO since there so many pieces to them. I use to help Dad paint cars when I was a kid so I could probably do it if but it would take considerable to for me to educate myself about new materials and safety precautions. When I was a kid we'd wet the floor down the night before, put an exhaust fan in the window and paint away. Pretty scary now that I think about it considering what modern materials would do to you.

I hear you, but I run a 7 person consulting business and I simply won't spend money with a service provider who won't keep up with communication, I don't care how good they are.

Ended up finding a semi-retired guy who paints a couple of cars a year to paint the Z28. He picked it up the week after MCACN and said he would be done with it by the end of April.

“In my experience most paint and body guys are clowns(Just like most construction guys.).”

Clowns?:hmmm::hmmm::biggthumpup: I think I resemble that remark!:wink:

I think you’re approaching it correctly, but communication is a BIG sign of things to come when dealing with a service, in my opinion. I’ve contacted three radiator shops about building the radiator for my 507. The one that responded first with pleasant replies and no smart remarks, no matter how lame the question, got the job from me and I couldn’t have been happier. I can say by having approached a few jobs with “I’m on no time frame” results in “In other words, I’ll continue to do everyone else’s stuff but yours” and nothing ever gets done on my things. As much as we all hate schedules and deadlines, most shops need these for a little pressure to get things done.

A hobby painter is a great resource, but has its limitations with regular life getting in the way. Take it to a paint shop and you’re stuck behind insurance claims where the money is. What about trying to paint it yourself? What’s the worst that can happen? Sand it down and paint it again!:shocked::burnout::wink:

No matter if you use this guy or not, your thinking correctly. He needs to reach out and return calls more so than hers done with you. It’s not called “Paint Shop Purgatory” for nothing since your enjoyment in the hobby can take a turn for the worse dealing with an individual you’re relying on to provide a service you simply can’t do.

Best of luck! It’s not cheap no matter what anyone says.

Cheers,
Dave

…and whoops! I just saw the date on this thread. Nice work! It looks great!

“Clowns”….as in, people who don’t look at the date on the thread!

Cheers
Dave

The thread may be old but the process of getting your car painted hasnt...give deposit, then painter doesnt want to work on your car because he wants new money...then you show up and get your car out of paint jail, to repeat the same process

If I had half your talent Dave, it would have been done it 2020 when we brought it home! And you're right about the cost, it's expensive no matter who does it.

This guy has been an absolute dream to work with so I have no complaints this time. The first guy that was supposed to paint it back in 2021 still hasn't called me back so I must have pissed him off the third time I called him for not sticking to his word on when he'd get it in and start working on it.

It looks fantastic! You swung the Titanic away from the iceberg with not having your car painted by that guy. Now enjoy the reassembly process with nice new shiny parts and appreciate your hard work!

Cheers
Dave

Happy for you that you got a good painter you liked and and a nice looking job.

My Camaro is in my personal purgatory right now, but I have a retired shop owner helping me with the filler work. He owned/ran a body shop for 40 years and ONLY did insurance work. A few of us locals asked about painting our cars over the years and he refused to get involved because he said they would never get done. I appreciated his honesty.

I have had the same experiences that everyone else had experienced until I brought my last project to Frank Arone. The experience was amazing, he did what he said and went beyond my expectations. My car was finished ahead of his prediction and turned out absolutely amazing. Frank has hands of a surgeon, he is able to do every aspect of the restoration himself. He also knows 1st generation Camaro’s inside and out, this can be seen with his numerous legend awards achieved at the Camaro Nationals. In my opinion, Frank is the best, most knowledgeable restore in the business.

This is why I live with my crappy original paint cars. My Chevelle would benefit from a repaint. Don't want to deal with the BS. Besides... it still looks pretty good 20' away.

There is no such thing as a crappy original paint car.

......................................

Seven months later and the car is back from paint. Gonna put a new clutch and pressure plate on it before we put the engine back in and hopefully the front end will come down about 3", which I doubt since we put a set of Dart aluminum heads on it since the original heads were both cracked. Other that it costing a bit more than I thought, I couldn't be happier, first paint job I've had done that didn't take twice as long and cost twice as much as quoted. The 17" N90's will be replaced with 15" N90's and will go on the black 86-88 Monte SS I don't have yet.