First bill from bodyshop......im scared
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For collecting the car, removing the front wings, modifying front and rear arches to house the larger wheels and repair the rear inner arches the bill came to £1750 which included VAT. Now I was a little shocked when I read this and double checked that there wasn't any other work they had done which I had missed. But alas nothing else was done for this cost.
Originally the arches weren't part of the initial quote as we didn't think they would need to be modifyied, so this cost is on top of the original £5000. On the job sheet he has 41 hours to complete the arch work. This seems a little excessive for a bodyshop who this kind of work must be bread and butter. Im now concerned that the final bill is going to well over the £5000 that was discussed and im wondering whether to go ahead with any more repairs. Ive told him that before he continues I need a good estimate of what the remaining work is going to cost as it looks like its going to be well over my budget.
Id be interested to know what people think of this, whether im overreacting and maybe suggestions of places that can perform top class work for more reasonable prices. Thanks.
Last edit: by daniboy123
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No decent panel beater is going to work for peanuts either. its a highly skilled job and is noisy, smelly, dusty and hot.
£400 for each arch is probably about right if you consider the body shop's overheads, materials used and having to invent the shape and not just replace.
In a nut shell restoring and modifying classic cars is not cheap if you want it right.
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The main thing you can keep doing is to stay in communication with the body shop bud.
It is a bit like a renovation on a house, if you have a budget, certain things get left sometimes or get done cheaper to stay in that budget.
If you don't have a budget, you can have it the way you like it, but believe me it will cost you!!
My brother did all the welding to his mk1 escort and quite a lot of prep work, the castrol paint work after leaving the body shop came to just under £7000!!! Even that wasn't perfect.
Keep in touch with them so you can work your finances out a bit better in case they carry on, they will do what you ask, but they must be made aware all the time of your budget.
Hope this helps 😊
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I also agree that £400 for repairing and modifying a rear wheel arch is fair although i did expect the second rear arch to be cheaper once the patterns were made and he had got his head into repairing the first which was the worst of the two. The front arches would require much less work being only single skinned and needing no repairs, only extending slightly which is why im still a little shocked at the price.
Im waiting for him to get back to me regarding the roof skin repairs. I know its not possible to give an exact estimate on the overall cost of repairing an unknown quantity but id imagine a skilled and experienced panel beater would be able to hazard a worst case scenario estimate surely.
On the plus side he has said i can can come along and do what i can to save on labour charges.
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Not seeing the finished article its difficult to comment further but all that is being saved is some of the thinking time.
You mentioned in the first post about pulling the arches and rolling up the edge.
Pulling on an arch will just distort it and put a crease in it. Metal doesn't just stretch.
A good panel beater won't want to rely on lots of filler to sort out issues. Filler certainly is a quick fix but deep filler is bad. It cracks and sinks and looks terrible after a while.
If he's willing to let you come and work on the car yourself then the guy sounds genuine. It would be a good exercise for you to do because you'll see just how much time passes verses work achieved.
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Didn't you get a price for the arch work before they started or did you just trust them not to rip you off?
That is very unprofessional of them not to inform you of the cost for welding four bits of metal onto your arches have you looked at the work yet?
Looks like they charge around 40 quid ph if so the rest of the job should come on budget to prep and spray car. Just have a chat with them about your budget and tell them you were shocked by the first bill and you only have a budget of 5k and hope you can come close to this.
Sounds like you have big plans for the car and sure it will be a show stopper when finished. Let us know how you get on
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Ive built the wheels how I wanted them, maybe I could have found different baskets to reduce the offset etc but I quite like the idea of subtly modified arches. If I had known what it was going to cost id have looked at doing things differently.
Still waiting to hear back from him about the cost of the remaining repairs.
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Ad.
http://vwgolfmk1.org.uk/forum/index.php?page=topicview&id=projects%2Fyour-mk1-golfs_2%2F82-cabriolet-s3-tfsi
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genuinely struggling to see why if im honest.
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However, subtle mods that don't smack you in the face can be the ones that take the most amount of time but often make the car stand out from the rest.
As they say, "The Devil's in the detail!"
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Campaign Mk 1 Black
16v Mk2 Red (decsd )
16v Mk2 Red (decsd )
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Brad if you know how to build a set of RS wheels with 3" rims that need no arch modifications for the wheel not only to fit but to actually work properly through the full range of suspension travel then thats great
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Old Timer
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narrowing your track would be considerably cheaper than all arches widened, i personally dont like wider arches unless theyre berg style. just another of my opinions again…
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