Help with Estimate on resto

[Mitchb71]

A guy wants me to do the body work and paint on a 73 challenger. Ive never had to do estimates before. And i don't have a clue as to what i should charge. There isn't a whole lot of severe rust. But there are bubbles in some places in the paint, which i know rust is beneath i just don't know how bad. What is the best way to go about doing estimates for this

 

[TAZ]

Mitch,
A couple of things I have learned on the few "older" cars I have done.

1) Materials will run more than you tell the customer.

2)You will end up doing more bodywork than that that meets the eye. Once you get down to the nitty gritty, you will keep seeing small spots that you missed at first.

Materials tend to run around $400-$600. So you can use this as a basis.

Labor is the key here. If you think it is going to take you a couple of weeks, charge a couple of thousand dollars. 3 weeks, 3 thousand...
These are without the material charge.

You could also give them a rate to do the job, once you are done, add up the materials, then have him pay for materials. This way, there is no chance of loss on materials.

Hope this helps you a little.

 

[rex]

Exactly.At first glance you'll miss about 1/2 of the work required.The best thing to do is give him a no guarranty quick fix and paint,or tell him it's so much to strip parts necessary and all paint to metal and the bodywork goes from there.To strip and paint the exterior I'd want $2500 incl. materials less jambs.That's me doing it on the side,but she'll look tits for years with normal maintenance.Body and janbs are extra.It's an older Dodge so look for rust low.If it was up north it's probably pretty well worked on the bottom already.The Dodges rust in wierd places and anywhere if they didn't live in the few arid states.Nice car though,right at the end of the performance days