[markinnaples]

EZ Nova, Interesting post. I watched my dad do bodywork out of our house for 30 years (he did it for 20 years before I came along so 50+ in total), and before he got "old" he was amazing. Absolutely no waves and paint that was spot-on matching with no computer matching, just by eye and factory formulas mixed down the street at NAPA.

I know there is a huge time and effort element to bodywork and painting, but we've seem to have gone past the point of reasonableness and into ridiculousness in some cases. I respect all trades, but the hourly rates a lot of them are charging now are crazy. If you take the hourly rate and double it, generally that's their yearly wage in thousands, so if a guy is charging $125/hour in his shop, his gross is $250k, which is unbelievable money. I get that there are consumable costs as have been mentioned, but isn't that generally part of what the materials charge is?