Collision shop for a repaint? Just don't do it.

1968FormulaS340 said
It's not the techs, it's the people in the office that make the promises and schedule in the jobs. I saw that Chevelle come in and all I thought was, why is it here and when in the hell are we going to have time to work on it.

The guys on the floor have zero control over things like this.

On any given day I have 5 cars in various stages of repair that I'm working on. These are rigs that must get done and be repaired correctly so people can go to work, run their kids to school, and get back to a normal life. Telling the insurance company that the car isn't done because the techs were working on an old car that some guy wanted painted will never happen.

With that in mind, the shop is negligent for telling a customer they can do the job and take peoples money. If it is not within their ability or expertise to do "HOT ROD" type work than just say NO I can't do the job. The shops that I have dealt with in some 40 years are not mega shops with large front offices with suits making the BS promises, they are owner operators with maybe 6-8 employees. In most cases it is a problem of robbing Peter to pay Paul. They take a job in maybe with a modest deposit, but then spend that money somewhere else. Then they have to take in another job to get a deposit to spend on the first job that the owner misappropriated that money on. In the long run the whole thing snow balls into a pile of Dung. I have a friend that only does insurance repair work on and he has done very well over the years. But he will tell you up front " I don't repaints, I won't do restoration type work and I don't work on JUNK" I commend him on his honesty.